by Ju Ephraime
T wenty-six
Wolfe poured himself a Hennessy and sat on the terrace looking out toward the city while trying his best to achieve some level of calm before he called his sister. He felt a heat on the back of his neck and turned to investigate the source because he usually experienced this when Daphne was within his radar. Sure enough, she was standing in the doorway, as naked as he’d left her, looking lost and bewildered.
“Wolfe, what’s the matter? Please come to bed. It’s lonely in there without you.”
“I will be there shortly.” He was glad to see her coming out of her drunken haze. She was still not herself, but she was looking better. She didn’t return to the bed but remained standing in the doorway. He took her hand and led her back to bed, slipping in next to her. He pulled her to him and held her. As he felt her warmth and listened to her breathing, some measure of calmness came back to him.
Daphne woke the next morning feeling as if she’d been run over by a steamroller. She ached all over and had the mother of all headaches. She couldn’t remember very much about the events of the night before, but she knew it was bad.
Wolfe was gone for his swim, she assumed. When he returned, she would question him. What had his sister put in her drink last night? She knew it was Cecilia because she was the one who handed her the drink as soon as she arrived, and everything after that was a blur. She was so naïve. She’d thought his sister liked her, but evidently Cecilia was only pretending until she got an opportunity to humiliate her. Thank God, Wolfe had arrived when he had. She had no idea what would have happened had he not arrived when he did, but she knew it would not have been pretty.
Daphne was beginning to question her naiveté, accepting everyone at face value. She had to be more careful now. This went against her nature, but she guessed she’d have to readjust her thinking. Particularly as she was in a foreign country and she had to learn and adjust to the customs. No doubt Cecilia didn’t view what she’d done to her as anything wrong, but Daphne was not a drinker, and there had to have been more than plain old alcohol in the drink Cecilia had given her because it’d left her aching all over. She didn’t recall doing anything prior to accepting the drink from Cecilia that would cause her to suffer body aches. Also, she had experienced hangovers before, but this felt totally different.
Wolfe hadn’t told Daphne his friends had planned a stag party for him at one of the clubs on the southern end of the island. He’d debated about not attending, but then he realized it would be in poor taste. He hoped they wouldn’t try anything funny, and he could leave the place without them getting upset. He didn’t want to have to explain to Daphne if anything raunchy took place and he got caught in it.
After this he didn’t feel comfortable going to his stag party because of the episode with Daphne. He needed to discuss this with her. But then again, he didn’t want to let his friends down. Perhaps he should attend, but not drink.
Sure enough, Daphne encouraged him to go, pointing out that he was better at handling his liquor than she was. In the end, he did attend but stuck to his plan—no alcohol. He made certain to carry a full glass at all times, but all it contained was seltzer water.
They did bring in female strippers, but if they’d planned any mischief, they weren’t given an opportunity to act on their plans. Wolfe sat back and enjoyed the show. It was hilarious. His friends were all surprised and disappointed when he took his leave while the party was in full swing. He missed Daphne, and he wanted to be home with her. He still got the shivers when he thought of all the possible scenarios that could have happened had he not gotten a tip from Jeremy.
Cecilia was just a selfish bitch, and for whatever reason, she was envious of Daphne, and he felt like a fool, exposing her to the venomous nature of his sister. But no more!
It was unfortunate because Daphne could use her as a friend. She had no female friends on the island yet. He knew it must be difficult for her, although she’d told him she was used to being alone and that she was never a social butterfly to begin with. She would much rather spend time with a good book than with a bunch of gossipy women.
Daphne was busy preparing all the things she had to do personally without the help of Wolfe’s mom to get herself ready for her wedding. She had to go into the city to pick up the ring she was having resized for Wolfe, and since she didn’t want him to see the ring prior to her placing it on his finger, she needed a ride. She tried Foxx’s number but got no answer. She was just about to call a cab when the house phone rang. It was Cecilia asking if Wolfe was around and if there was anything she could do for Daphne.
Daphne told her Wolfe wasn’t home, but she’d very much appreciate a ride to the city. She didn’t harbor any bad feelings about Cecilia. She was Wolfe’s sister and her Maid of Honor. The entire bachelorette episode could have been a joke gone wrong.
“No problem, Daphne, I will take you. Are you ready to go now?”
“Yes,” Daphne responded.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Daphne found it a bit strange that Cecilia was ten minutes away from the house when she lived almost an hour away, but then she dismissed it, telling herself that maybe Cecilia was on her way to the house when she called.
As promised, she was there in ten minutes, and she and Daphne walked out of the house together, laughing and talking about the wedding. There was an air of suppressed excitement about Cecilia. She was not able to sit still; she was opening and closing her window, constantly looking in the rear-view mirror, as if looking for someone. Daphne thought it was excitement about the wedding, so she didn’t complain because she, too, was excited.
They made it into the city in good time, and Daphne was able to pick up the ring and a few other items she needed. She walked into the back of the store to use the lady’s room and saw a tall woman was already in the room. She went into the next stall and didn’t pay her any attention until she came out after using the stall and the tall woman was still standing there. Daphne glanced at her, and as she went to the sink to wash her hands, someone grabbed her from behind. A strong smell reached her, a cloth was clamped over her nose and mouth, and a bag placed over her head.
She struggled, trying desperately to move her head from the bag, but more pressure was placed to the back of her head, holding it in place and forcing her to breathe through the cloth.
Blackness descended on her.
Her last thoughts before she succumbed completely to the darkness were that Wolfe would have no idea where she was. She had no idea where Cecilia was.
T wenty-seven
When Daphne came to, she couldn’t see anything. It took a moment before she realized she was in the trunk of a moving car. The stuff that was used to drug her had left her nauseated, but awareness and her faculties were slowly returning to her.
Her hands were tied together behind her so she was helpless. She couldn’t fathom who would have taken her away from the bathroom and why. She racked her brain but could not find a motive. She supposed she’d just have to wait and see who her captors were because she could hear two voices, but she couldn’t identify either one.
Daphne felt the vehicle coming to a stop, and then after what seemed to her like forever, the trunk opened. She couldn’t see who’d opened the trunk because she was still wearing the bag over her head. She was hauled roughly to her feet and pushed against the side of the vehicle. Then one of her captors, who sounded like a woman, said something to her in French.
“Ne pas faire de ce plus difficile en nous donnant aucun problème,” a man’s voice said.
She knew enough French to piece together what the individual said. “Don’t make this any more difficult by giving us any trouble.”
Daphne noted two things. Her captors, one of them anyway, couldn’t speak English or chose to communicate in French. It was also obvious that one of them was a man. She couldn’t see his accomplice, but she could hear them talking together in Creole, and the other voice was clearly female. So she’d been kidnapped by
a man and a woman. She tried to follow the conversation, but it went too quickly for her.
She was taken to the front of the vehicle, and the smell of the sea was very strong. The bag was removed from her head, and she could finally take a deep breath without gagging.
Darkness had fallen, but she could see the gray outline of the ocean in the distance. She felt as if she was living a nightmare, and this was just a bad dream from which she would wake up any minute. Her hands tied behind her back made the reality of her situation more terrifying.
Daphne thought they were going to throw her into the ocean while her hands were tied. Not that it would make a difference because she couldn’t swim anyway, but at least she could float. However, with her hands tied behind her back, she didn’t stand a chance. She began to cry, silently. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing she was scared out of her mind. She still had yet to see her other captor.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could see better now and realized they were on the pier where several boats were loading and unloading cargo with the stevedores moving back and forth from the docks to the boats.
They continued speaking in French, and she was able to understand some of what they were saying. The tall man asked his companion, “How are we going to get her on board?”
“We will just have to wait until they are done loading the boat,” his companion answered.
“I don’t feel comfortable keeping her here all tied up. Someone might notice her hands are tied,” the man said.
“Well, what do you want to do, untie her hands?” his companion asked, sarcastically.
“No, but maybe we could find a place to stash her, and go get something to eat. I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten all day. By the time we get back, the ships will be ready to cast off.”
“I hope you can pull this off.”
“I told you I can. I’ll use my ID and throw her into a crocus bag and take her on board like a sack of potatoes. No one will question me.”
“Okay, let’s find a place to hide her.”
Daphne kept straining to make out the woman’s voice; it sounded familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it, the French accent was too heavy. Someone walked by and greeted them. Daphne wanted to scream, but she believed them when they said they had a gun. They were standing so close to the water; she did not want to tempt them to push her in.
“Bonne nuit.”
The woman answered, “Bonsoir,” and it was then Daphne was able to place the voice. It was Lena, Wolfe’s old girlfriend.
What did Lena hope to gain by kidnapping her? And then it became clear. They were going to put her on a ship, and no one would know what had become of her. She began thinking about Cecilia. Was she in on this plot to get rid of her? This would devastate Wolfe if he ever were to find out. Thinking of Wolfe, she began to weep. They had not even begun their life together. It would all end before it had gotten started.
Daphne quickly realized, if she were going to get out of this situation, she had only herself to rely on. She didn’t want them to know her awareness had returned, and she heard what they were planning. So she pretended to still be incapacitated, using her slumping weight and inability to walk to lean heavily against the man, when they began leading her toward a large building on the docks.
They took her into the building and pushed her inside of the first closet they came to. She could tell it was a closet because she hit her toe on something that felt like a broom, and the smell of cleaning fluid was very strong. She identified Pine-Sol and bleach. There were no locks on the door, because she was straining to hear if he’d slide the lock home or lock a padlock from outside. He pulled the door closed, then without a word to her, he left. Her abductor had no clue she was faking her inability to walk.
Daphne knew if she were to escape she would have to do so before her abductors returned. She tried flexing her fingers. They had gone numb from lack of circulation, but she kept flexing them until the blood began circulating in them again. She couldn’t see anything in the closet because it was very dark. She kept listening to hear if anyone was walking by, but there was nothing, not a sound.
She had to get out of this closet. The stink, along with whatever they had used to incapacitate her, was making her feel sick. She was going to take her chances and try to open the closet door while she worked on getting her hands free.
She began rubbing the tape that bound her wrists on the edge of the inside wall of the door. It wasn’t giving, but she kept at it. She didn’t know how long she was rubbing and rubbing against the door like a cat, when all of a sudden, her hands were free. She couldn’t believe it when she felt the tape fall off. She was so relieved that it took a moment for her to realize she had to get out of the closet before her abductors came back to get her.
She stumbled out and walked in the opposite direction to the way they’d entered the building. There were several offices and a room like a break room. She went inside one of the empty offices to look for a phone. Just as she was about to give up in despair of not finding a phone, she spotted one under a pile of papers. She quickly dialed Wolfe’s cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. A strong indication he was on the other line. She left him a message, telling him she was in a large warehouse on the docks and that Lena and a man had kidnapped her and were waiting to put her on a boat.
After she found a spot where she could fit herself and remain undetected, she glanced at her watch and realized she’d been gone for almost five hours.
Wolfe was frantic. He didn’t know where Daphne was. When he arrived home and she wasn’t there, he wasn’t worried because he figured she’d gone shopping. When one became two and two became three hours, and now it was five hours, he began to get worried. Somehow in his gut, he knew something was wrong. He got busy on the phone calling his family, and when that didn’t pan out, he called all the hospitals and even the police station. He was at his wit’s end on the phone with Foxx, debating whether or not to call Cecilia, when he missed the call from Daphne.
Wolfe felt his heart plummet to his feet when he heard Lena was involved in Daphne’s kidnapping. Lena was a psychopath; he didn’t put anything beyond her. If she was to harm one hair on Daphne’s head, she was as good as dead. But right now he had another problem. Daphne hadn’t been able to tell him where exactly she was on the docks. The dock was a huge place with several large buildings. How was he to find her in time?
He enlisted the help of his father and Foxx, and the three of them spread out and started searching all the buildings that might have an office. Some of the buildings were storage facilities with no offices. He didn’t have the time to look for Lena and her accomplice now. His first priority was Daphne. His poor darling must be terrified.
They’d been searching for close to an hour when his instinct pulled him into a small room that had all the lights off. Initially, when he walked by the place, he had felt the pull, but he was so stressed he didn’t acknowledge it because the place was dark, unlike some of the other offices. It actually didn’t look much like an office. Daphne had told him she was in an office that she’d found open. In his anxiety, he had been looking for an office with an open door. He could have hit *67 on his phone after she’d called, but he couldn’t take a change on alerting anyone to her presence.
He walked up to the door and placed his hands on the doorknob, and he knew immediately she was in there. He felt inside for the light switch and flooded the place with light.
“Daphne, Daphne, are you in here?”
He thought he heard her voice and began moving things like someone possessed, and then he saw her crawling from behind two file cabinets next to the wall. She was disheveled and dirty, but he’d never been so happy to see anyone in his life. He felt as if whatever was squeezing his heart, preventing him from taking a proper breath, had all of a sudden relaxed its hold on him.
God, he thought he had lost her. He had never known true terror like he’d experienced in the last f
ive hours. What had Lena hoped to accomplish by this? He had broken off with her several months before he’d met Daphne. When she had threatened Daphne at his parents’ house, he’d dismissed it as vague rambling to intimidate Daphne. Now he knew better. The woman was off her rocker. After he took Daphne home, he’d see to it that Lena was put away. But first, he had to find out from Daphne what had happened. He didn’t want to pressure her, but he needed to know as soon as possible because he was going to file a complaint against Lena and her accomplice and see to it they were both apprehended tonight.
“How did you get into the city, Daphne?”
Daphne told him how Cecilia had given her a ride and everything else, including how she suspected Cecilia was working with Lena.
“I don’t know her role in this, but she had to have known because she left me at the jewelry store and didn’t sound the alarm when I didn’t come out of the bathroom. Also, she didn’t even inform you of my disappearance, did she?”
“I have to admit I didn’t contact her, but she didn’t call me. Did she believe you walked out the bathroom and took yourself home without telling her? She had a role in this as sure as I am breathing.”
When they arrived home, Cecilia was sitting in her car waiting for them. She had her husband with her. According to her story, Lena had asked for her help in giving Daphne a scare that would send her back to America, leaving her to resume her relationship with Wolfe. She didn’t ask Lena just how she intended to carry it out, but she had no reason to believe Lena would harm Daphne. Her role was to get Daphne away from the house. She’d been on her way to the house to see just how she could do this when Daphne told her she needed a ride to get into town. Cecilia thought it was an excellent opportunity and too good to miss. She took Daphne to the jewelry store and went outside to inform Lena where she’d dropped her off. Daphne played into their hands when she went into the bathroom while Lena’s cousin was preparing his disguise to abduct Daphne.