A family of seven sat at the picnic table in front of her, enjoying their lunch. The oldest kid, a girl about her own age, barely touched her food. She was too busy listening to music on her iPhone. One of the younger children, a little blonde-haired girl of maybe six, waved when she caught Cheyenne staring.
Cheyenne gave her a weak smile and waved back before she turned to go. Her gaze landed on a police officer standing maybe ten feet away. She had no money to take a cab to the airport. She couldn’t even buy a hotdog, but approaching the police still didn’t feel like a good idea. The stern-looking officer was scouring the crowd as if he was looking for someone. Her? Possibly. The officer removed the walkie-talkie from his belt and put his mouth to the receiver. Her instincts screamed at her to run. Her heart rate escalated and her palms began to sweat as she took one step back and then another. She bumped into a pillar and caught it to keep herself from falling over. For a brief moment, the warmth of the sunbaked stone soothed her nerves. She followed the wide, solid structure around and hid behind it, removing herself from the officer’s line of sight.
Wade knew her name and her general description from her student ID. If the police were on his side, the whole force could be looking for her. She stayed behind the pillar listening for any indication that she’d been spotted. Had Wade somehow followed her here? She was hot, tired, hungry, and trembling in her Keds, but she was ready to run if she had to. Where would she go? She needed to find another phone. Maybe the teenager from that big family would let Cheyenne borrow hers?
A deafening horn blast made Cheyenne nearly jump out of her socks. Tourists started moving toward the ship. Her instincts once again screamed at her to move. Bracing herself, she ducked behind a heavyset man and followed closely behind him, keeping her head down. The policeman was still there. Still watchful, but he didn’t look her way.
The sign to the next area said “Arrival Plaza.” It contained more red brick shops with their yellow barn doors spread open for business, more cobblestones, strategically placed palm trees and an ornate fountain in the center. All that was missing was a life-size Mickey Mouse in swim trunks and dark sunglasses.
The cruise terminal sat at the point of a triangle-shaped port resembling The White House. Or maybe a fancy bank with pillars and a vestibule. When the electric doors parted, she welcomed the refreshing blast of cool air, but she could’ve done without the live reggae band jamming on the stage. They were so loud she could barely hear herself think.
Maybe someone from the cruise ship company could help her. She couldn’t see much beyond the line of tourists standing directly in front of her and the ceiling fans circulating to the beat of the music. As the dreadlocked singer sang the chorus to Bob Marley’s ‘Don’t Worry About A Thing,’ Cheyenne rose up on tip-toe scanning the crowd for someone who looked like an employee.
Deciding she needed to get closer to the boarding area, she sidled past two women who were talking animatedly and juggling a bunch of shopping bags. When she made it past them, she looked up and locked eyes with the police officer from the plaza. He was standing maybe twenty feet away. He nudged the man next to him and pointed to her. The man was Wade.
Cheyenne’s stomach sank. Spinning around, she shoved past the women again, this time knocking the bags out of their hands. They shrieked and grabbed for her but she slipped away, crouching down as she weaved her way through the crowd away from Wade and the police.
When she stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings, she discovered she was only tenth in line from the security checkpoint. The passengers heading back to the cruise ship filtered through this one spot where they stopped to run their belongings through the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detector. If she could just reach a cruise ship employee and beg them for help, she might have a chance of getting away. But the line was moving at a snail’s pace, making her more anxious by the moment. What if no one wanted to help her? What if they turned her into the Jamaican authorities? She was probably making a huge mistake, but she didn’t know what else to do. She looked over her shoulder again, half expecting the crowd to part and let Wade and the police officer through.
“Hi!” The little girl standing in front of her said.
Cheyenne tore her gaze away from the sea of unfamiliar faces and looked down at the girl. She was the blonde-haired six-year-old from the craft market.
“Hi,” Cheyenne said back.
“I like your backpack.” The girl pointed to the collage of colorful cartoon horses covering the canvas. Cheyenne had had the bag since she was ten and only used it for traveling and overnight trips.
The little girl was American and her accent was similar to Ma’s. Cheyenne’s own accent wasn’t as pronounced, probably because she’d moved around so much as a kid.
Remembering her manners, Cheyenne forced a smile. “Thanks. Do you like horses?”
The little girl’s face lit up. “They’re my favorite.”
The line moved forward. Cheyenne and the little girl followed the other kids in front of them.
“My name’s Abilene. What’s yours?”
“Cheyenne.” She smiled again, but this time it wasn’t fake. “We’re both named after cities.”
The little girl beamed. “I’m named after a city in West Texas. All my brothers and sisters are named after places my parents like to visit.”
“Cool.” Cheyenne glanced over her shoulder, feeling Wade’s presence bearing down on her.
“Cheyenne is the capital of Wyoming,” Abilene declared.
“That’s right.” Cheyenne bent her knees to make herself shorter.
The line moved forward again. A bored cruise ship employee on the other side of the x-ray machine pointed to the conveyer belt when Cheyenne didn’t automatically drop her bag.
In a droning voice, the pimple-faced man shouted to the passengers over the music. He was British. “Packages, purses, wallets, watches, anything metal, anything not attached to your person other than the clothes you are wearing… Goes on the belt.”
This was Cheyenne’s chance to speak up and ask for help, but the music was so loud and the man looked less ambitious than a dumb jock the day before spring break.
“Keep it moving, girls,” he barked and Cheyenne lost her nerve.
Not knowing what else to do, she dropped her bag onto the conveyer belt and tried not to look too conspicuous. Smiling at Abilene, she avoided eye contact with the employee. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Five plus me.” Abilene pointed to the teenager with the headphones who stood directly behind her parents and the boy next to her. “Juneau’s my oldest sister. She’s sixteen and Austin’s thirteen. Vail is ten.” She poked the little girl in front of her who turned around to tell her to stop it. “The babies are Minnie and Paul. They’re twins.”
“Wow, you have a big family.”
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Abilene asked.
“No.”
“You’re nicer than Juneau. You can be my sister if you’d like?” Abilene’s hand slipped into hers.
“I’m Vail,” the ten-year-old said. “You’re pretty.”
“Nice to meet you both.”
Vail grinned. “Are you coming on the cruise ship?”
Glancing over her shoulder again, Cheyenne thought about it. “Yeah. Can I hang out with you?”
Both girls nodded and smiled and then started talking excitedly about their plans to go to the pool with two sliding boards.
Cheyenne kept her head down when she took her turn walking through the metal detector. She picked up her bag, slid it onto her back, and then planted herself between Abilene and Vail.
Their parents were juggling the toddler twins and the purchases they’d made today.
“Here, I can help.” Cheyenne took one of the shopping bags from Abilene’s mother.
The frazzled woman smiled. “Thank you, honey. Juneau, take this other bag.” Juneau took it without enthusiasm, and the boy, Austin, caught
the bag his father shoved at him. The parents flashed the stack of boarding passes at the crewmember standing at the bottom of the ramp. Tall and British, with a kind, smiling face, the young man greeted the family warmly and scanned the parents’ tickets.
When he waved Abilene’s family through, Cheyenne hesitated. Should she step out of line and ask him for help? He seemed friendly enough, but what if she was wrong? What if when he realized she wasn’t a passenger, he turned her into the police? Their eyes met and she held her breath. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as his gaze moved over her face and then bypassed her for the couple standing next in line.
Abilene tugged Cheyenne’s hand and then she was walking up the ramp with the family.
No one asked her for ID or questioned her presence. She was just another kid. Harmless and therefore invisible to the ship’s crew.
At the top of the ramp, she looked back toward the security checkpoint and spotted Wade. Her stomach tightened into a knot as she watched him arguing with the friendly crewmember who wasn’t letting him pass. If he got through, it would be game over. There was nowhere left to go except over the side of the ship and, yeah, that wasn’t happening.
When two large security guards moved in to give the ship employee backup, Cheyenne relaxed a fraction and let out the breath she’d been holding. She was still trembling when she faced forward and followed the family to the elevators. When they stopped to wait in line, the parents turned around and eyed Cheyenne with curiosity.
Abilene’s father readjusted baby Paul on his hip and said to his wife, “Did we have another child and I somehow missed it?”
Cheyenne dropped Abilene’s hand and stepped toward the girl’s parents. In a desperate whisper, she said, “I need help.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Flying shotgun on a bumpy, four-seat propeller plane was not on Molly’s bucket list, but she’d always wanted to visit Jamaica. Just not under these circumstances when her daughter was in danger. To make this twisted nightmare even more surreal, Molly was sitting in the passenger seat of the cockpit beside Anders Ostergaard who was flying the pea-size aircraft.
This had to be some kind of divine punishment for not attending church regularly since she was sixteen or for all of those illicit daydreams she’d had about the man beside her. The saying “be careful what you wish for” never rang so true.
Obie sat behind his father reading a comic book. The plush bucket seats and high-curved ceiling made the interior feel roomier than it actually was, but the width from door to door was narrower than her Kia Rio. She could’ve reached out and touched the pilot’s door if she wanted to. She’d always been a confident flyer, but that was because she’d always sat in coach, sipping overpriced Bloody Marys and listening to her iPod, completely oblivious to what was happening inside the cockpit.
Every time Anders moved his hand to fiddle with the knobs and switches on the control panel, he bumped her arm. It couldn’t be helped, but the inadvertent contact made her nerve endings crackle. She tried to put sensation out of her mind. Tried to forget about the dull headache that was a constant reminder of the night of dissipation they’d shared. Tried to ignore the heady cologne that kept wafting toward her and the rich timbre of his voice in the headset as he rattled off numbers and such to ground control. He sounded like a professional pilot and it was sexy as hell.
They hit turbulence not long after take-off—a pop-up storm with high winds. All the while, Anders remained as loose as a goose. Nothing fazed him and that quiet confidence, real or not, reassured Molly better than any empty promises he could have made.
Now that they’d left the storm behind, Molly sat staring out the window at the wispy clouds streaming past and the blue sky beyond. There was nothing but turquoise Caribbean Sea beneath them, but she didn’t want to think about being out over the water in a tiny aircraft with no land in sight so she focused on Cheyenne.
It should’ve taken her less than two hours to reach the Montego Bay airport, but she never called Molly to say she’d made it. When a third hour had passed, Molly had a minor meltdown because she knew something had gone terribly wrong. They’d been at the Key West airport getting ready to board the plane. Anders suggested she call Mitch Thompson, who’d offered to help in any way that he could.
Mitch had a contact in Jamaica—someone reliable who knew how to find things—and he assured them that a young, Caucasian American girl traveling alone wouldn’t be that difficult to locate. Sabato Banton had a network of discrete associates throughout the island who would contact them the moment Cheyenne was spotted. That didn’t reassure Molly as much as she wished it did, because if Mr. Banton could find Cheyenne easily enough, so could the man who committed the murder… If he was real. Molly still had doubts about that.
She didn’t want to consider the possibility Cheyenne was telling the truth about witnessing a murder. Molly’s heart thumped hard against her rib cage. Was she a terrible mother for not believing her daughter? But they’d checked out the Linus estate and nothing seemed to be amiss. Would Philip Linus leave his very pregnant wife home alone if someone had been killed on his premises the night before? Absolutely not. And with all the security cameras around the estate and his private security team on alert, Molly doubted much got past the man. No, as much as it pained her to admit it, Cheyenne had to be lying. An attempt to cover her butt in the hopes Molly would go lighter on her punishment.
If she survived, the little voice in the back of her mind whispered and Molly’s chest burned. She had raised Cheyenne to be an intelligent young woman with common sense, but she’d never been on her own like this before. What if her lack of experience with people led her down the wrong path and she trusted the wrong person? Things could go bad very quickly.
“Hey,” Anders’ voice came through the headset.
She swiped a tear from her cheek and looked over at him.
His slanted eyes narrowed with concern. “Let’s talk about something. Get your mind off Cheyenne for a bit. I know you’re worried about her but stewing over it isn’t going to do you or your daughter any good.”
“You’re right. I just feel so helpless.”
“You’re doing everything you possibly can right now. We’ll get her back. I promise.”
We’ll. The pronoun wasn’t lost on Molly. It felt good knowing she wasn’t alone in this. She would’ve figured something out on her own if she had to, she always did, but for once in her life, it was nice to know a man had her back. Even if it was the last man on earth she ever would’ve expected to be there for her when she needed it the most.
“Thank you, Anders. Everything you’ve done for Cheyenne and me… We appreciate it so much.”
“I know you do and I’m just happy I can help.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Anders cleared his throat. It sounded like static as it came through the headphones. “So, what’s your favorite song?”
Molly knew he meant well, but she wasn’t really in the mood for small talk. She glanced down and shook her head.
“Come on now. And don’t suck up to me by telling me it’s one of mine because I won’t buy it.”
She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. The twinkle in his eye was hard to resist. Tentatively, she said, “Do I have to pick just one?”
“Yep. If you had to pick just one song to listen to for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
“If I answer this. I expect you to do the same.”
“Of course. Now let’s have it. You only get one minute to decide.”
“No pressure or anything.” Smiling to herself, she turned her head away to stare out the window. The light had begun to shift with the setting sun and the pure blue ocean was a deeper indigo.
“What’s the first song that comes to your mind? I got mine already.”
Narrowing her eyes, she gave him a sideways look. “You’ve played this game before.”
“Maybe.” He winked at her and then faced forward again grinning. “Forty-five seco
nds.”
“‘Crazy Love.’”
“By Van Morrison?”
“Yep.”
He pursed his lips and nodded, clearly impressed. “Can’t go wrong with Van,” he said, and then began to sing the song a cappella. His rich, decadent baritone came through the headset, crooning to her about the woman he always runs back to because he’s crazy about the way she loves him. Molly forgot about her problems, forgot about the plane that was way too tiny and the reason they were flying to Jamaica, and grinned at Anders as he hit the chorus. When he dug into the song with a growly “love, love, love, love,” the notes vibrated through her body and made her belly hum. Gazing at him through glassy eyes, she was dazzled by the sheer pleasure of hearing him sing just for her, as if the song was about her—
No. She didn’t want that. Not for real. She sat back in her seat and fought the pressure building behind her eyes. She wanted to go back to one week ago when he was some untouchable celebrity and she was just a fan. Things had gotten complicated and messy very fast. Still, how could she ignore the voice serenading her through the headset? Oh, my goodness, how could she not have it bad for him when he sang with his heart and soul… For her.
When he ended on a note she felt deep in her loins, she sat quietly for a moment, pulling herself together. When her emotions were back in check, she gave him a benign smile. “That was beautiful. Thank you.”
“I like that song a lot. I might need to add it to my repertoire on tour. I like to do a cover or two in each set.”
She didn’t want to think about him singing that song to thousands of other women, so she said, “Your turn. What’s your favorite song?”
Bahama Mama Page 20