by Dale Mayer
However, she should have stuck to her guns and said that she had never agreed to come. It was their problem and not hers, and what a crappy way to force people to show up for their event by promoting them and then saying it was their fault? She even wondered now if the organizers weren’t part of her kidnapping.
After a lot of emails back and forth, she’d gotten quite disgruntled and unhappy over being pressured to show up for something she hadn’t agreed to. She knew she’d been deceived, and, by showing up, the con had worked, and that just made her even angrier because look at where she was now. She’d also come alone instead of with her assistant, Maggie. Considering Charlotte’s circumstances, she was grateful for that, except that they would have stayed in the room together, and maybe her assistant could have put out the word. On the other hand, her assistant would likely be lying in this truck beside her.
Charlotte was happy Maggie had stayed home. She was a good person; she didn’t need this. She had a bum knee and lots of stomach issues. She was also on the back side of sixty and had already slid well into her grandmotherly type of role, whereas Charlotte herself had just crossed over the thirty-three-year-old mark, with no children or even a boyfriend or future husband in sight.
And maybe that was her fault. When Rowe had died, she hadn’t wanted to try marriage again. She’d been a devoted wife, but he had gotten ill very soon after their marriage. Medical bills had been a huge issue, and they couldn’t afford the best in the way of treatment. The bank had offered a loan to help, but Rowe needed specialized treatment for a particular brain cancer and not enough funds were coming in their direction, not even with a bank loan.
So, instead of being a happy wife, starting a family, and becoming a mother, she’d ended up as an overly tired and very inexperienced nursemaid. She had done so willingly, but it had taken its toll on her. By the time Rowe had passed away, his regrets and apology still in her ears, she’d been so exhausted that it had been almost a relief. And, of course, the guilt had eaten away at her, keeping her stuck in the same time and place mentally for a lot longer than it should have.
He had died six years ago, and she’d still not moved on. Maybe it was out of guilt because she hadn’t been able to save him. She was an anthropologist and had always loved cultures that had come and gone before her. After Rowe’s death she’d finally turned her attention to bringing awareness to the current world and how much change was needed. She’d known that her time being an activist was over and that she would return to writing books that would hopefully open up people’s eyes and make them think and listen a little more.
As the planet slid into a climate crisis, she understood on a more global scale just how much people were damaging Mother Earth and its inhabitants. It was no longer just about the cultures of the people who had gone before them but it was also about the cultures of today who were inhaling the resources without care, multiplying and breeding well past the point of capacity, so that the planet itself was under siege.
She knew if she even started writing books on this subject that, for every two people in front of her, one would think she was a fool, and the other would call her a saint. That’s how divided the people were, particularly in her own country. It made her sad. But, in a way, she was also glad she wasn’t bringing children into this. She couldn’t even guarantee the planet would be here in eighty or ninety years to see any of her own children grow up. Of course she’d be long gone by then, but what kind of an attitude was that to take? Take what you wanted and then die? That wasn’t her style.
But this? … Her future might be only a byline in a newspaper article and then buried, gone—forgotten. How sad.
She glanced around again at the four walls of the truck and the men down at the one end, playing cards. At least the one guy had put out his cigarette. The other one though? Looked like the tip of his cigarette hung with an inch of ash still attached to the end of the filter. But then she didn’t even know if he inhaled his cigarettes or if it was just more of a habit to light them. He’d live longer if he gave it up, but she’d be happy if he’d drop dead right now.
She shifted and moaned at her aching arms and legs. They were at least tied in front of her with duct tape, so she could roll onto her back and stretch her shoulders ever-so-slightly, but the band around her mouth was painfully tight. Her throat was dry, and she could hardly even swallow anymore. She kept trying to work the saliva in her throat to stop her from choking on the fibers she inhaled, but, as soon as her mouth got completely dry, it’s almost like she’d spasm, trying to get liquid across her raw tissues.
She couldn’t imagine being out in the desert for three or four days and still surviving. This had only been overnight and beyond that into today, for however many hours—at least from what she could determine without a watch or a window—and she was in agony. With any luck, somebody had reported her missing, and a full investigation would be done.
But she also knew that half of the people would probably consider it a good thing to have her gone. She hated to think that that’s how the world would remember her. And yet she knew that she’d stirred some people in the right way. If that’s all that she could do, then that’s all she could do.
Chapter 2
Charlotte tried to bring up Rowe’s face in her mind, to see that glimpse of the man she’d loved so much. He’d been such a different personality at the end of his illness though. The drugs had changed him and his body. He had suffered terribly from the disease and the chemo and the medications. He’d reacted almost worse to the medications. He’d finally been put into a hospice, and she’d been at his side right to the end.
Every once in a while though, he’d be attacked by his own anger at his situation, and it would hit him hard, and he’d lash out at her because she was still young and healthy. She tried to forgive him for those times, realizing it was just his circumstances talking, his own rage at his own inability to change his situation at the time.
But, when she’d walked out those hospice doors on that last day, she’d gotten into her vehicle, and she cried and cried and cried. Partly for the loss of the Rowe she knew but also partly for relief because she hadn’t thought she could make it one more day with the angry version of him.
Her own body had been right on the edge of exhaustion. Her mind and emotions had been stretched so thin, and yet to still have him berate her for being allowed to live? She knew death hit everybody differently, and the one thing she could hope for herself was that she would walk through those pearly gates kicking and screaming right to the end, so that she could enjoy every last moment.
But then, when faced with no other recourse, she’d accept that destination and take that final step forward bravely. What she really didn’t want was to turn around and blame those around her for her impending death—if she was lucky enough to have anybody around her at the end of her life. She was an orphan, having spent the latter part of her childhood and most of her teen years in foster care, hating every day of it, yet had been old enough to understand that life wouldn’t get any better unless she made it better herself.
As soon as she could, she had left the foster care system.
But something about meeting Rowe and going through everything she had with him felt like she needed a cause. Some form of action that she could take to make it seem like she was doing something. That she’d picked up her husband’s causes and that had been how she’d started but they’d quickly become her own. Watching him going through what he had … she’d been helpless to do anything but be there for him. Support him emotionally … Taking up his causes had given her a voice. She finally had to open up and to say all that she could say because, all through his illness, she hadn’t been able to tell him how she felt about his life. Her life. What their life had become. About his treatment. About the ramifications of his disease and how badly it had ravaged him.
She’d written down everything that she could in order to drain those emotions and those thoughts from her system, so she didn’t t
urn on him when she got up in the middle of the night and once again changed the soiled bedding for a man who held so much hatred. She never blamed him. How could she? He was just devastated by what the disease had done to his body. If anyone was more ashamed and humiliated, it’s that a man, so big and strong, had fallen down to be nothing more than an organic waste.
They both cried at times, holding each other close, and she’d wanted to rail and scream at cancer, and at this stupid man that could mean so much, and yet said so little about what was eating away at him. She’d gone through so much torment by the time of his death—both her own emotional distress and that caused by Rowe when in one of his rages—that she’d quickly buried herself in her studies, finished her education, got involved in her causes in a big way plus she started writing more as a necessity than anything because of her ever-worrying guilt.
Guilt that she could have done one more thing for him. That she should have done one more thing for him and yet hadn’t been able to or couldn’t do more because nothing more could be done. As she lay here on her back, she whispered in her mind, I’m coming, Rowe. I’m not sure how far away I am, but I’ll be there sooner than expected.
And she closed her eyes and sank back into a restless sleep, tears drying on her cheeks.
Nico double-checked the hotel’s security camera feeds but there were no recordings from that hallway leading to her room on the night Charlotte had been taken.
Now physically on her floor, he came up behind a second security camera and carefully tossed a towel up on the top, just like he did for the first camera, catching it and blocking it out immediately. And, with that, he and Keane donned gloves and moved to the room on the other side of Charlotte’s. Having checked the hotel’s register, he knew this one was empty. He took a moment to open the door, swiping one of the master keys he had taken from a maid’s uniform hanging atop a cart outside in the hallway. He wasn’t sure where the maid went, but it had been convenient, so he’d taken advantage of it. He even wondered exactly why the maid wasn’t here.
As he went in, Keane followed him, and they quickly closed the door and walked out onto the balcony. Then they opened up their gear and used a rope and an anchor and quickly hooked on to the other railing, which was just a little too far to span otherwise. And, with a short rope, they quickly crossed over and jumped to the other side. He left the rope there in case he needed to make a fast getaway. He entered in through the locked balcony doors, quickly picking the lock and popping inside.
He did a search around the room. The bed hadn’t been disturbed, yet a glass had been unwrapped and used in the bathroom. She hadn’t touched the minibar, and no obvious belongings were left behind. He bent to look under the bed but found nothing there either. Frowning, he checked around and wondered if any fingerprints or something forensic had been left behind. Had the hotel security team even checked? He quickly pulled out his phone and asked.
The hotel security staff assured me that they’re on it.
Nobody’s been here, from what I can see, other than our victim and her kidnappers. And the cops have not been here. I saw no crime scene tape at the door and no fingerprint dust in this room.
Are you sure you’re in the right room?
Six hundred twelve?
Yes.
The locals have done nothing?
Maybe they think they are to back off completely on investigating this one.
Maybe, he said, but that’s not good. It’s been almost a full day already.
Nico did a quick search, going into the closet, checking everything, including the drawers. The bottom drawer held pants, the second held shirts, and the top held underwear, socks, bras. He found no luggage here, so, if she hadn’t unpacked all her luggage, when the kidnappers grabbed her and her bags, the kidnappers thought they had taken it all. But underneath her lingerie were her return tickets and passport. He quickly mentioned that to his team.
Take it all, Miles said. You can leave the clothing if you want, but she’ll need the passport to get herself into the country.
Is it safe to disrupt the crime scene, do you think?
We need to get her first, and then we need to get her out of there. Papers will make it easier to get her back home again.
Not to mention we have some US military help, correct?
Navy for sure, Miles said with a thumbs-up emoji.
Nico quickly pulled out the passport and the paperwork, then glanced at it and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He went through the rest, wondering if he should pack up the clothing. Noting how very little was here, she must have come for just a couple days. On a whim, he rolled it all up into a tight ball and stuffed it into the back of his tactical bag. And then, just like that, he and Keane were out crossing between balconies again, then exited the other hotel room and reentered the hotel hallway.
As he walked past, he removed the towels from the two security cams, and they disappeared into the stairwell and back to their room, removing their gloves and pocketing them as they went. As he got in, he swore, “That was a complete waste.”
“Not really,” Keane said. “We know she didn’t leave on her own if she didn’t take her passport.”
He had to give him a plus on that one. “But we took evidence from the local cops. Except they don’t seem to be doing their jobs.”
“I’m sure our guys will tell them when necessary.”
Nico sat down and pulled out the paperwork, then went through her passport. Nothing different here. He looked at the rest of the stack of papers. Some of it appeared to be part of her speech for the keynote talk, while other sheets appeared to be notes of some kind, maybe for a book. They seemed to be more amusing anecdotes or sad journal entries. And she had a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills as well. He frowned. “These are still in US dollars. She didn’t even convert to Australian dollars.”
“No time maybe,” Keane said.
“Or she was going somewhere else.”
“Or she needed it for something. Could even be that’s her level of comfort zone though.”
“And yet we found no purse,” he said thoughtfully.
“So, she didn’t keep her passport in her purse or this kind of money there either.”
The two men looked at each other and frowned.
“Either she expected a problem or just assumed there could be one.” Nico quickly folded everything together, then added the papers and the documents to the rest of her things stashed in his bag. It still didn’t help them at all in locating her, although it would make getting her back into the country easier. He sat down with the video feeds and checked all the entrances and exits.
At that point in time, Keane crowed. “Okay, so we have a helicopter that arrived not the night she was taken but after the kidnapping.”
Instantly Nico focused on his friend. “When did it leave?”
Keane kept tapping away on his keyboard and then said, “It hasn’t yet.”
Ever so slowly, the two men stared at each other.
“What are the chances that that’s how she’s getting out of here? That the pilot stayed at the hotel overnight? Or was he paid to deliver it and not paid to wait around?” asked Nico.
“I still like the laundry idea for sneaking her from her room to the basement and then out on some truck,” Keane admitted. “But having a helicopter would be way better for the kidnappers to escape.”
“Did the hotel security team search all the kitchens and laundry rooms too?”
“Apparently, yes.”
Nico sat back and thought about it. “Okay. If she’s not in the hotel, then they won’t use the helicopter, will they?”
“They’d have to bring her back in again in order to get her up to the helicopter, and that would be dangerous.”
“The helicopter being here makes me think Charlotte has to be here too. So the kidnappers must have her hidden somewhere that the hotel’s security people couldn’t find her.”
“Also don’t you think that, even if they ha
d her hidden in the hotel, they would have already moved the helicopter as soon as possible?”
“Unless there was a hitch in those plans,” Nico said thoughtfully. “Anyway, check who owns the helicopter and what its plans are.”
“I’m digging into that. Plus I have something on the two penthouses in this hotel. We’ve got a businessman staying in one, and the other has an ongoing relationship with an import-export company.”
At that, Nico rolled his eyes. Because import and export covered everything from drugs to cars to women. And probably 90 percent of them were legit, but the ones that weren’t gave everything else in that whole business arena a bad name. “Let’s see if there’s a pilot around that we can talk to.”
“On it.”
Nico continued studying all the traffic cameras, looking to see if she’d been smuggled out another way. He kept rubbing his eyes as the vehicles swam on the screen in front of him. It was a stupid system where he had to keep watch on multitudes of vehicles all at the same time. “If they had planned to take the helicopter, they would have stayed in the hotel building. Or at least nearby.”
“Makes sense. But, if they were taking her out in a delivery truck, they would have stashed her until the next one was scheduled.”
“But lots of deliveries were moving all through the night and into the morning. They only needed a place to store her for a few hours, and then they could easily have moved her out in the next laundry or food truck or any other truck.”
“I agree with that,” Keane said. “So, if they’ve taken Charlotte from this hotel, what we need are all the names of all the staff who worked in the kitchen and in the unloading bays and in the laundry and see how many of them are still at work today.”