by Tess Oliver
As the lights of Tahiti faded completely from view, the only light on the water came from the blanket of stars and the sliver of moon above.
How these guys navigated in the dark was beyond me, but after a small panic attack brought on by being tied up for so long, and the feeling that the sea was endless and that we could easily get lost, never to be found again, I was relieved to see a light dangling from the bow of an anchored boat.
Deep voices shouted words that I didn’t understand from above and a rope was thrown down.
“How are you doing, Jayden?” Nick asked quietly, and I was amazed at how, even in this rather hopeless situation, the sound of his voice comforted me.
“I’m cold, hungry, tired, and I really have to use a restroom.”
“Hey, Boone, do you offer a bathroom and food on this luxury cruise?”
“Yeah, yeah. You won’t suffer too badly,” he said, “even if you are going to be paying a shitload for the tickets.”
A rope ladder was dropped overboard. It looked like a difficult climb even without tied hands and feet. Nick lifted his cuffed hands. “How are we supposed to climb that thing with bound feet and hands?”
Boone was the first on the ladder. He snarled down at Nick. “You were a damn paratrooper for fuck’s sake, figure it out.”
I peered up at Nick. “I failed rope climbing in P.E.”
“I’ll climb up first. Then you just have to hang on and I’ll pull the ladder up on board.”
“I think I can do that.”
The meaner looking guy climbed up next leaving me alone with my gun pointing buddy. He motioned for me to go up the ladder.
Nick looked over the side. “Just climb up on the first rung and hold on tightly.”
Boone looked over at me. “What the heck is she doing?”
“I’m going to pull her up on the rope,” Nick said.
“Hurry up,” Boone growled.
The gun-wielding guy used it as an opportunity to press his hand suggestively on my butt, and in my effort to scoot away from his grope, I managed to swing painfully against the side of the boat. My shoulder and hip smacked it hard. “Ouch.”
“What are you doing, Jayden? Don’t’ swing. Just hold on,” Nick called.
I looked up at him. “Yeah, I got that, but this guy won’t get his hand off my ass.” Tiredness and all the other aforementioned discomforts were truly starting to overwhelm me.
“Hey,” Nick’s yell nearly startled me off the ladder, “what did I tell you about keeping your hands off of her?” The guy might not have understood all the words but he took the sound of Nick’s voice seriously and removed his grabby fingers.
I was absurdly glad to be on solid deck. Nick threw a harsh glare at the guy coming up behind me.
After a quick pit stop to a small metal room, where my knees touched the wall when I sat down on the hole, we were marched below to a dark cargo hold and pushed unceremoniously inside.
“I’ll bring you something to eat,” Boone said tersely before shutting the door.
“I like mine medium rare,” Nick called to him.
“Well, as I live and breathe,” a deep voice rolled from a dark corner, “if it isn’t my baby brother.” A flashlight turned on and the beam landed on us. “Hell, Nick, only you would come to a kidnapping with a pretty girl on your arm.”
Nick walked over to the corner. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” He stood over his brother who was stretched out on a piece of canvas. “They told me you were sick.”
David pushed to sitting. The light was dim but the family resemblance and gene of extreme handsomeness was clearly intact. David was definitely slighter and paler and he didn’t have a presence that could suck the breath from you like his younger brother, but he was definitely worthy of praise.
“David, this is Jayden. She’s the girl Friday I hired to help set up the Tahiti office.”
I nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Jayden. How the heck did you end up in this deal?”
“Nick forgot his cell phone at the office,” I answered.
“She walked in just as they were tossing me in the van.” Nick reached up to the dried cut on his head. “Boone got me good.”
“You should have a doctor look at that,” David said dryly. “How did you manage to forget your cell phone, bonehead?”
“Because I was going mad with worry about my brother who had vanished somewhere in the Amazon while sick with some mysterious disease.” Nick paused. “I’m glad you’re O.K.”
“Thanks. I think I’m done doctoring in these third world countries for awhile. I couldn’t get rid of this horrid fever. For a moment I thought I’d contracted malaria. It’s tough being a doctor. You’ve got all these disease symptoms memorized, and you start going crazy self-diagnosing.”
“I’ve never thought of that,” I said. “I mean I can make myself nuts when I just Google a couple of symptoms and all these rare disease possibilities start popping up in the search.”
“I’m sorry you got stuck in this mess, Jayden,” David said. He looked up at Nick. “I always knew Boone was an imbecile, but I never thought he’d do anything like this.”
“Well, Frankie is involved with the whole thing,” Nick said.
“No shit. The evil sea witch arrived on deck this morning. She must have risen up from her underwater cave of fire and brimstone.”
Keys jangled in the door and Boone tossed Nick a box of crackers, some cheese, and a few bananas. He slammed the door shut again.
Nick and I sat next to David and I ripped open the box of crackers. “I’m so hungry, my mouth is actually watering about crackers and bananas.” I pinched a piece of cheese and a piece of banana and piled it onto a cracker.
“And this is why you’ve captured my heart, Flash. Only you could make the best of a dinner of crackers, cheese, and bananas while tied up and shoved deep in the cargo hold of a rusty fishing boat.”
“Flash?” David asked.
“A robe incident,” Nick explained.
“See, that’s why I’m done traveling to these remote places. I’m sweating beneath a mosquito net and carrying water in from a well where it has to be boiled twice just to brush my teeth, and you’re in Tahiti having robe incidents.”
“I think what you were doing was truly admirable.” Several cracker crumbs tumbled from my mouth and I pushed them back inside.
“Yeah, there were times when it was worth it, but you start to miss civilization when you’re far from it for a while.” David set a cracker up to match mine. He ate it and nodded in approval. “The banana adds a touch of elegance.”
I laughed and cracker crumbs sprayed from my mouth. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand. Everything was incredibly awkward with tied hands. “You were saying something about civilization?”
David smiled. “Well, Nick, you have made some shady picks for friends and girlfriends in the past, our current situation will attest to that, but this one’s a keeper.”
Nick peered down at me with his green eyes. “I have to agree on all points, David.”
David finished his cracker, leaned back against the wall, and shut his eyes. “I feel like hell still. Boone brought me some antibiotics, otherwise I would probably be a lot worse off.” We’d kept the conversation light, more out of self-preservation than anything. It was one of those times in life when you had to rely on humor to keep your sanity, but now serious tension filled the room.
David opened his eyes. “I think we might still be able to get Boone to change his mind on this whole plan. I’ve been watching him, and there are times where I can see true regret in his expression.”
“But what about the others? They have no connection to us, and I’m sure they would just as soon shoot us as let us go,” Nick said.
&nbs
p; I drew my knees to my chest suddenly longing for the airy conversation we were having moments before. Nick sensed my distress. He leaned down and kissed my shoulder. “I will do everything I can to protect you, Jayden.”
“I’ve counted three other guys, all armed with the spoils of our black market vaccines, no doubt. I don’t trust Francesca either. We both know that she can be ruthless.”
“How are they going to ask for money when we’re out here in the water?” Nick asked.
“It’s pretty brilliant,” I said. “It would be much harder to find us out here.”
“Right,” David said, “and from what Boone told me, we’ll be anchoring close to Hawaii in the next few days. They’ll motor into Oahu for the bank transfer. They have it well planned, unfortunately. Your girl Friday looks tired. We might as well get some sleep.” David used his bound hands to spread out the giant piece of canvas on the floor. “It’s not much, but it’s the best I can offer.”
“What is with these knots on our feet?” Nick asked.
“Pirates,” David said, “apparently some of the tricks from the golden days of Blackbeard have lingered, including tying invincible knots.”
We all stretched out and I cuddled next to Nick for warmth. David switched off the flashlight. Aside from the dim starlight that came in through the porthole on the door, darkness filled the small room.
“Do you think Mom knows yet?” Nick asked.
“I don’t think she’ll know until we get closer to Hawaii,” David said.
“Come to think of it, Pierre and Taylor know something is up. They’ve probably called her,” Nick said quietly. “We need to figure some way out of this.”
David was right. The overwhelming and emotional events of the day had exhausted me. Every muscle in my body ached. The deep, soothing sound of Nick’s voice and the motion of the boat lulled me to sleep.
Chapter 18
Our alarm clock was seagulls screeching and loud, deep laughter. I sat up with a groan of pain and twisted my back and neck back into a reasonable position. Nick was still sleeping and alarm shot through me as I remembered he’d been struck hard on the head the day before.
“Relax,” David’s voice drifted up from the canvas, “I’ve been shaking him awake every few hours. His head is too damn hard for a concussion anyhow.”
Keys rattled at the door and Nick shot up as if he’d been having a dream. He squinted into the light and rubbed his neck. The door swung open. Three of our captors stood around the doorway with their menacing guns. I scooted closer to Nick.
“I think it’s our morning constitution time,” David said. “He pushed to his feet. I’ll go first if you don’t mind.” Hunched over from a night on the hard floor, he shuffled to the door. They locked Nick and me in behind him.
Nick looked around the small storage hold. “So, I guess it wasn’t just a bad dream.” He lifted his tied hands and I ducked beneath his arms. He pulled me to his chest. The seriousness of our situation had really struck home sometime in the middle of the night when I was trying to find a comfortable position on the canvas, and I wondered how this would end. In general, it didn’t seem that kidnappings ever ended well. And I was sort of a meaningless entity in the whole thing. Nick and David were the valuable people. I was just an extra mouth to throw crackers at. And the thought of crackers made me realize that I was feeling nauseous with seasickness.
A few minutes later David returned. “I apologize in advance for whoever is going next.” He plunked back down on the floor. “I’m as weak as newborn puppy,” he said. “Being stuck down here is definitely not speeding along my recuperation.”
One of the guys waved to me next. Nick stood too and they all aimed their guns toward him. He lifted up his hands. “I’m going along with her. You’re not taking her alone.”
Boone peered over their shoulders. “What’s going on?”
“Boone, I’m going along when they take her. I don’t fucking trust them.”
Boone said something to them and they lowered their guns. I released the breath I’d been holding. There was nothing but teal-blue water surrounding us. The air was brisk out on deck, and all I had was a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Tied hands made it impossible to wrap my arms around myself so I hunched forward to avoid the cold breeze.
I used the restroom and then Nick went in. He gave the men on deck a warning glare before closing the door behind him.
I took the opportunity to glance around the boat without making any eye contact with the armed captors. There was one large inflatable raft tied on the far end of the deck and some old rusty cages that looked like lobster traps, but otherwise, it was a fairly empty deck. I wondered momentarily where Francesca was hiding. No doubt she’d gone back to Hawaii to wait for her cash to roll in. She would have never spent the night in such pathetic surroundings.
As we walked back to the hold, Nick kept glancing over the side as if he were plotting an escape overboard. It seemed to be agitating the man behind him. He shoved the barrel of his gun into Nick’s back and Nick swung around. The guy cowered for a second but then seemed to remember that he was the one with the weapon. Nick turned slowly back around and kept walking, but this time as he glanced over the side of the boat, the gunman practically impaled his back with the barrel of the weapon. Nick spun around, grabbed the gun, and hit the guy on the head with the butt of it. Blood spurted from the man’s forehead. Instantly the kidnapper who’d groped me the night before had his gun pushed into my temple again. Nick froze. Boone came up on deck from wherever he’d disappeared to.
“Goddammit, Nick, drop the gun. You’re outnumbered and I can’t promise you that they won’t shoot her.”
One look at my face and Nick dropped the gun to his feet. The guy with the bleeding forehead reached down and picked it up. He muttered something to his two buddies. They grabbed Nick by the arms and the third guy pummeled him with his fist.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Boone, tell them to stop!” I pleaded. Nick dropped to his knees. Blood was pouring from his mouth.
“Enough,” Boone finally spoke.
“What the hell is going on up here?” a female voice shot over my head, and I cringed at the sound of it. High heels marched up behind me. Ridiculously, Francesca was wearing a tight designer dress and expensive shoes. She stopped in front of me and shot me a look that felt as if her icy fingers had momentarily reached around my throat. She walked in front of Nick and stared down at him.
“You’re the one that thought he would be less dangerous in captivity, Frankie,” Boone snarled. He pointed to the guy with the bloody forehead. “I think that was a bad call.”
She sneered down at Nick. “That’s because you men don’t know how to control him. Chain him up.”
They dragged us back to the cargo hold. One of the men pulled what looked like a simple bicycle lock from his belt. Nick struggled against them, but it was obvious he was still in a lot of pain from the beating. They hooked the chain around the chain of his cuffs and put the end of it through a metal loop that was bolted to the ceiling. The lock was the kind used for lockers at school. They snapped it shut and Nick’s arms were chained up above him.
Tears burned my eyes.
David stood and braced himself against the wall. “What the hell are you doing, Boone? Let him down. He’s already shackled and now your thugs have beat him to a pulp. Get me something to clean him up.”
“Shut the hell up, David,” Francesca barked. “I’m just giving these worthless fools a lesson on control.” She lifted her hand and was holding a small gray box.
“Frankie, come on. It’s enough,” Boone said.
She resembled a slit eyed snake as she glared across the room at Boone. “I always knew you were too wimpy for this whole thing.”
Boone’s face stiffened at her remark.
She walked
up to Nick. He opened his eyes and stared down at her. “I always thought you were pure evil, Francesca, but now I realize you are just fucking nuts.” He kicked out toward her.
She waved at the men. “Grab his legs.” It took two of them to hold Nick’s legs. David pushed off the wall, but the third man shoved a gun barrel beneath his chin.
Like a true sadist, Francesca was slow and deliberate with her movements. She pushed up Nick’s shirt and then leaned forward and dragged her tongue up the hard muscles of his stomach. “It works better with moisture,” she sneered and then touched him with the box. Electricity buzzed though the air and the sickening smell of burnt flesh followed. Nick jerked and stiffened before collapsing in a groan of agony. I covered my mouth to muffle a cry.
Even the men who took pleasure sticking their guns in everyone’s faces looked shocked by Francesca’s actions. She pressed suggestively against Nick and stared up at his face. “And that was on low.”
Then a gasp circled the room of men as her fingers trailed down Nick’s abdomen to the top of his jeans. She started to unbutton his pants. Weakened by the first jolt, Nick struggled to free his legs but it was useless.
“Boone,” I yelled, “do something.”
Boone’s face was white. He stood in the doorway a moment longer before walking away.
David struggled against his captor’s hold, but one hearty shove sent the weakened man into the wall. He regained his balance but the gun went beneath his chin again.
Nick glared down at Francesca who had opened his fly completely. “I just realized something, Frankie, you’re cold and selfish outside of bed too.”
Francesca licked her surgically pumped up lips and reached her hand into Nick’s pants She grinned up at him.
His mouth was pulled tight as he stared down at her. “What? No moisture this time, bitch?” he said through gritted teeth.
She lifted the box up with a smile. “Nearly forgot to switch it to high.” Her long nail flicked a switch and she lowered the box.