Dictator s Daughter

by Angell, Lorena

  Once the car stopped completely Jacquline opened her door. “Stay here while I make sure the area is safe.” She used her key to enter the hotel.

  “She’s cute,” Ryan stated with a smile as if it was his duty to recognize beauty.

  “How do you know her, Sean?” Sara asked.

  “I met her last night in the lounge. She lives here. Her father operates the hotel.”

  Ryan’s eyes watched the rear-view mirror. “Shit, shit, shit, Sean put on your wig. Cover up back there, we have trouble. Shit!”

  Victor Rawling’s cavalcade was coming up behind them in the alley. Ryan put the car in gear and started rolling forward to leave the alley and hopefully not draw attention, but a black sedan pulled in from the other direction and stopped. Two black suits got out of the car and approached them.

  “Uh oh, what do I do Sean? Shit!”

  “Just stay calm. They don’t have their guns drawn. Roll your window down.”

  Ryan stopped the car and depressed the window button.

  The man on the driver side pushed his jacket opened a bit to expose his gun. “Miss, this is a secured area. Drive on.”

  Ryan’s girlie voice replied, “Oh, I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” The man waved Ryan on and Ryan gladly obliged. He rolled his window up as he pulled forward past the black sedan. “I’m going to need to change my underwear.”

  Sean chuckled. “Me too, Ryan, me too. You’re doing great, pull off in the driveway to the left. We can hide behind the large bushes.”

  Ryan positioned the car with a good view of the alley. Lyndee and Sara sat up and removed their blanket. They all watched as Eliwese was ushered in through the private door along with several other people. Soon after, the cavalcade of cars moved out and drove away.

  A few more minutes went by and Jacquline exited the door and looked up and down the alley. Ryan flashed his lights and caught her attention and she waved him over.

  “Is this a good idea?” Sara asked.

  “It’s all we’ve got, Mom. Go ahead, Ryan.”

  They pulled up to Jacquline and Ryan rolled his window down. “I don’t know how you managed to slip through his fingers right there, but wow. We must hurry while the coast is still clear. Leave the keys in the car and I’ll move it later.”

  Sean helped Lyndee and supported her weight to help her walk. Ryan gave aid to his mother. They followed Jacquline into what appeared to be a stock room. Tall stacks of boxes created a hallway which they walked through. They came to another door and Jacquline turned to them. Sean noticed right away she was sweating.

  “Through this door is the laundry, I excused all the workers for a ten minute break and I disabled the cameras. We will enter the service elevator and take it up to my floor.” She opened the door and led them through the abandoned laundry room.

  Once inside the elevator, Ryan glanced up at the camera in the corner. “What about that one?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s a fake. It keeps our maids from stealing.”

  “Wait,” Ryan said to Jacquline as the doors slid opened. “What about the hallway camera?”

  “There’s only one and I can erase it easy enough. Let’s just get to my room first, alright?” She crossed the hall and unlocked her door.

  She had the equivalent of two suites put together which created a space with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Her furniture was not the usual hotel variety, although this particular hotel had rather fancy furnishings, hers had exquisite style.

  “Very nice, Jacquline,” Ryan complimented as he helped his mother to a couch. She gave him a smile and nod of her head. He’d already removed his wig but his lips still had the bright pink lipstick.

  Sean had already helped Lyndee lay down on the opposite couch.

  “I’ll go down and move your car and take care of the video in case it caught us in the hall. Stay very quiet.” Before Jacquline left the room she caught Ryan’s eye and pointed to her own lips to throw him a hint.

  “Can we trust her?” Sara asked.

  “I hope so.” Sean pulled out the envelope from his pocket and removed the cash. He sorted it into four equal piles. “Eliwese and I set up a bank account this morning. She moved this money to the account.” Sean handed each of them their portion of cash.

  “What’s this for?” Ryan asked wiping his lips with a tissue.

  “In case we get separated.”

  Lyndee’s eyes opened wide.

  Sean continued. “Eliwese had my name placed on her account, giving me authorization to transfer money. The money Victor Rawlings transferred to her account has now been moved to mine where he can’t get his grubby fingers on it.”

  “That was clever,” Ryan said.

  “How much money?” Lyndee asked.

  “Eliwese wanted him to move five-million,” Sara and Lyndee gasped at the amount, “but he moved a bit more than that.”

  “Well, go on, how much did he transfer?” Ryan asked hastily.

  “One-hundred million.”

  “Holy shit!” Ryan exclaimed.

  “Ryan!” Sara chastised Ryan then turned to Sean. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Yes, he can,” Ryan answered excitedly. “I heard Rawlings and Eliwese during their discussion. She asked for five and he became arrogant. He didn’t believe her threats so he said ‘this is how confident I am you don’t have another DVD’ or something like that. But one-hundred mil; I’d say he’s not just arrogant, he’s stupid.”

  “I didn’t know how much the transfer was until the bank teller told me the balance of the account.” Sean pulled out his cell phone and thumbed through the saved phone numbers. He found the one he was looking for and pressed send.

  “Who are you calling?” Ryan asked in a hushed voice.

  “The other courier…Ah, hello, Frank…it’s me, listen closely, do NOT deliver the disk. Again, do NOT deliver. You need to break it in half and throw it away. Your life is in danger, Frank. They killed Dr. Randall… and they killed Suzzette and took her disk…Yes…I can’t tell you where we are… we got Mom and Lyndee but they took Eliwese … Oh and Frank, destroy the cell phone too. They can track you down if they link us to you. Good luck.” Sean closed his phone.

  “What do we do now?” Lyndee asked.

  “I’m not sure. Victor Rawlings is going to want his money back, that’s for certain. But I want Eliwese back, so maybe he’ll trade.”

  “Yeah, well I want to get the hell out of here. I say we keep the money and go get Dad and skip the country,” Ryan said without thinking.

  Sara lost all the color in her face as the thought of her husband being beaten and then killed in front of her flooded back into her mind.

  Sean noticed his mother’s countenance change immediately. He also saw Lyndee’s chin drop to her chest. Sean knew that what he was about to tell them would make their day. No, it would make their year.

  “Mom, Lyndee, Dad’s alive.”

  “What!? No, no I saw him get shot in the head.” Tears instantly sprung to Sara’s eyes. “He can’t possibly…”

  “It’s true, I saw him. He’s ok. He had some kind of a metal plate in his head and the bullet glanced off it and saved his life. Dr. Randall…”

  And there it was.

  Dr. Randall had died. Sean had been avoiding thinking about it, hoping maybe it wasn’t true. He had done so much for the family. He donated his time and supplies to help multiple crossers. He had helped Paul after being shot and took care of Eliwese too. He had gone above and beyond the call of duty many times over and now he was dead. The silence that had fallen over the room told Sean everyone was thinking of him.

  Sean continued. “Dr. Randall fixed him up. I saw Dad when I left the cabin to get Dr. Randall’s car. Dad didn’t suffer any long term injuries at all. He is himself, completely.” Sean looked over to his mother who was taken with relieved grief. She sobbed quietly and Lyndee tried to sit up on the couch to give her comfort. Sean helped her up and turned to find Ryan holding hi
s mother in an embrace, comforting her. Sean and Lyndee joined them.

  “Where is he?” Sara asked in a whisper.

  “He’s in the basement prep room at the mortician’s home.”

  “Well, that would be the perfect place for Dr. Randall to take him.” She wiped her eyes. “He would have pronounced him dead and then ordered the ambulance to take him to the mortician. But Sean, I don’t understand how you were able to meet with him if you were looking after Eliwese at the cabin.”

  “Well, Eliwese sent me to get Dr. Randall’s car.” Sean realized his story didn’t start there. It started at the point when Lyndee informed him about her crosser, Beth. So that’s where he began his story.

  He relayed how Eliwese took a bullet, what he did to help her, the information he found out through her delirium, her marriages, the quest for an heir, Riley and the underground, Ryan arriving, but he left out Ryan’s blunders, his own intimacies with Eliwese, and everything his father told him concerning his mother.

  Sean wrapped it all up with, “The DVD she made detailed her exact reason for crossing; she plans on taking her father down.”

  “She what?” Sara asked.

  “She has sensitive information he doesn’t want spread around and he was willing to trade both of you for Eliwese. I’d say it was pretty distressing to learn what she knew. I’d even say that it would get him removed from power.”

  “Well,” Sara said, “that would explain something. Before we left the palace, Riley told us how the meeting would go. He said you two would have to choose which one of us to trade for Eliwese and that, in fact, you wouldn’t end up getting either one of us. He said the two of you would be hunted down and shot afterward. But things seemed to have gone differently. It must have been her DVD which altered the outcome.”

  “It put the fear of spit in his soul, that’s what it did.” Ryan said. “He realized he could very well be brought down by his own daughter and it scared the sh…stuffing out of him.”

  Sean continued, “Well, back to the time at the cabin, Eliwese thought we needed a white vehicle to drive to Northtown and I remembered Dr. Randall had one. She sent me to go borrow it from him and that’s when I saw Dad.”

  “Yeah, and Dad told Sean not to tell me he’d survived.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “Go figure.”

  “Sounds like Dad,” Lyndee said.

  “Well, he also told me to take Dr. Randall back to the cabin to evaluate Eliwese. He recommended that we take her to his secret hospital. So we did and he fixed her up.”

  Jacquline entered the room carrying many assorted bags and gave everyone a start. The conversation ceased and Sean was about to jump up and help her, but Ryan beat him to it. Sean remained seated and watched as they set the bags down and emptied the contents. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he wouldn’t have believed the dramatic change in Ryan’s behavior over the last few days. Jacquline seemed to like Ryan, Sean thought, and a smile crept over his face. Good thing she didn’t meet him last week.

  Jacquline addressed the group. “I have food and snacks in the kitchen. With the bedroom and the pull-out, there are enough places for everyone to sleep tonight.”

  “I’m fine with the floor,” Ryan volunteered.

  “Me too,” Sean added.

  Jacquline hesitantly said, “I just need to… I mean, I would really like to know what happened.”

  The four Cutler’s looked at one another and Sara, being the matriarch, spoke. “We operate a crosser home in Slaterville, and for the past little while, we’ve housed Eliwese Rawlings.”

  Jacquline’s hand flew to her mouth. “The news said…”

  “Never mind what you saw on the news.” Ryan jumped in. “The only true thing about the report was our house burned down.”

  Lyndee gasped and a shell shocked expression covered her face. “Our house burned down?”

  “You were there, Lyndee,” Ryan gently pointed out.

  “I don’t remember anything after Beth was shot. I think they drugged me.”

  Sara put her arm around Lyndee and continued. “Eliwese escaped her country and her father, and came here. We did not kidnap her. Victor Rawlings wants everyone to think that.”

  “Alright, you house crossers, and you housed Eliwese, where is she now? Did they find her?”

  “She traded herself for our release,” Sean said quietly.

  “What happened to Lyndee?”

  Sean looked at Lyndee and wondered the same thing. “Lyndee, what happened to you?”

  “Well, like I said, I don’t remember anything after he shot Beth, until I woke up in a strange place with strange faces around me.” She paused looking around the room at everyone. “They questioned me and threatened me with everyone’s deaths along with my own if I didn’t talk. Riley started beating on me, he…I was…” Lyndee looked to her mother for help.

  “You don’t need to say any more, baby.” Sara comforted her adult daughter, knowing the rest of the story was deplorable, and would haunt Lyndee for all of her days. The hellish situations she had been through would forever be imprinted on Lyndee’s mind and Sara understood this all too well.

  Sara picked up the story. “I was at the house with my husband Paul when the men came to the door. Everything happened so fast, I wasn’t even aware Sean and Eliwese had evacuated. Paul tried to reason with them, he tried to explain but Riley wouldn’t hear it. Ryan tried to help us but there were too many of them.” She smiled at Ryan and reached out and took his hand. She continued, “Beth was shot point blank.”

  Sean jumped in for Jacquline’s sake of understanding. “Riley shot his own mother, can you believe it?”

  Sara continued, “The men beat on Paul and Ryan and then took us outside, and that’s where they shot Paul.” Her voice cracked. Even knowing he was alive still couldn’t take the horror out of the memory. “Lyndee and I were the ones kidnapped. They handcuffed me to the inside of the vehicle and proceeded to light our house on fire. As we drove away, I remember feeling like I was being ripped from everything and everyone I loved.” She didn’t tell them that it was déjà vu all over again.

  “I too, must have been drugged at some point, because I don’t remember anything about crossing into Rendier. I don’t remember going to the palace, I only remember waking up there. It was some time before they took me to see Lyndee. She was in worse shape than she is now, if you can imagine. I was with her for only a short time, before we were all brought to this hotel.”

  Jacquline let out a sound of disgust, “That’s why they requested no services, because you were in the suite. And I was sitting in the lounge with you,” she motioned to Sean, “telling you how kind Victor Rawlings is to the staff and such a generous tipper, when all along, he had prisoners, no, hostages in his room!”

  Ryan moved to Jacquline and placed his hand on hers. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up over this. You couldn’t have known any of those details. Rawlings has worked very hard to keep a squeaky clean image in everyone’s mind; he certainly had me fooled. I used to get in arguments with Sean, accusing him of blowing things out of proportion and being paranoid. I bought into the whole ‘good guy’ image the dictator falsely portrays through his propaganda, even though we housed defectors from his country. I just thought the people running were wimps or cowards, but I was sooo wrong.”

  Jacquline had a sudden realization. “I allowed Riley to view the computer records this morning. He was looking for someone in particular and at one point he used his cell phone and spoke quietly. Was he looking for you guys?”

  “Riley doesn’t ever stop looking and locating people for Rawlings.” Sean thought to himself that she unknowingly exposed their location to Riley and this was how Dr. Randall was found.

  “Ryan, what happened to you after we were taken away and how did you hurt your hand?” Sara asked him.

  Ryan looked at the hand Dr. Randall had wrapped. Then he looked at Sean and the bruise on his jaw line. “My hand and Sean’s jaw are related.”


  Sean remembered the events of the morning as if they’d taken place last month and placed a hand on his sore jaw. “My jaw didn’t do that to your hand, it was the wall.”

  Sara let out a groan of motherhood. “And just when I thought I’d raised my sons to adulthood.” Sara looked down at her own hand and the bruises on her knuckles from landing a couple of solid punches on Victor’s jaw. She realized they all had the fighting spirit.

  Ryan started in on his story. “Well, I think my story is the dullest compared to yours.” He still had his hand on Jacquline’s. Sean thought those hands fit nicely together.

  “They’d lit the house on fire, taken you two, and pounded on me a bit, but before they left, Riley gave me a cell phone with instructions to call him once I found Eliwese. I knew where Sean took her, but I was in no hurry to get there. I stalled on my way to the cabin, you know, to see if I had a tail. Once I made it, I found that Eliwese was in real bad shape. Sean definitely had his hands full.”

  Sean looked over to Ryan at the last comment. The corners of Ryan’s mouth curved up.

  Ryan continued. “Eliwese came up with the blackmail plan and she sent me on the errand to arrange the plan with Rawlings; only, I screwed it up. I thought I could second guess her plan and in the end, I messed it up. She railed on me and that’s why she sent Sean to complete the errands, to get Dr. Randall’s white SUV. He brought back Dr. Randall with him to evaluate Eliwese.

  “We took her to Dr. Randall’s underground clinic and he patched her up. Sean and I along with the help of many other people pulled together the plan for the mall meeting. Once the four of us were reunited in the courtyard of the mall, I knew everything would be OK. Dad was alive, both of you were alive and the whole family would survive.”

  “Eliwese sacrificed herself to make it all happen, Ryan,” Sean pointed out in a quiet voice. It all made sense now. She’d told him it wouldn’t work without her and she was right. She had also said they needed to wait for her father to mess up and then act upon it. Well, he had certainly screwed up and Sean was absolutely going to take advantage.