Chapter Twenty Seven Jenny: Wake Up Call
It felt like that really deep sleep you get into when you take a nap in the afternoon—the kind where you are aware and conscious, but you can’t move your body. Except, I wasn’t napping, and I wasn’t all that conscious. I couldn’t move, and my hands seemed to be tied behind my back. My eyelids felt so heavy that when I tried to open them, it took the movement of my entire forehead to only open them to be slits.
Where am I? My shoulders hurt from the position of my arms behind my back. I was sitting down on some hard ground, and my back was up against some kind of cold wall. My legs were bound together, too, and there was water up to my waist. Cold water. I could hear voices speaking. Spanish.
The water sounded like dripping water in an echo chamber, and the air smelled like the inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney.
Oh my god. I’m in the cave. Fragments of memories started to come back. Being grabbed, the wet cloth over my mouth and nose.
The voices outside the cave started to get louder, and I could tell that the men were arguing. I was no Spanish linguist, but I understood the words “mujer,” “matar,” and “muerto.” “Woman,” “kill,” and “dead.” They were arguing about whether to kill me or not!
My eyes flew open, as my body went into fight or flight mode. Not that it mattered, because I still couldn’t see anything other than the faintest sliver of light in the distance. A scream threatened to rise up in my throat and it took all of my mental strength to swallow it back down. My best bet was to let them think I was still unconscious.
You have to get out of here. No one even knows where you are! These men could kill you, and you’ll have just disappeared without a trace.
But, how?
Just then, I heard footsteps coming toward me. Squeezing my eyes shut in fear, I thought, This is it. This is the end.
Knowing I needed to stay calm in order to survive this situation, I worked to slow my breathing. It was so dark I couldn’t see a thing. Okay, if I remember correctly, the crates are over there and the coconut wheelbarrow is next to them. That means that the exit to the cave is that way.
I just needed to figure out how to get my hands and legs free and then I might be able to slip out of the cave. If this water keeps rising, I might be able to swim out.
I was reminded of that news story with the Thai boys stuck in a cave. If the water kept rising like this, I might be able to use the direction of the water flow to find another way out. There might even be a tunnel that led to a different way out of the cave. The key was to use your senses as guides.
I remembered that there was a smaller cave right next to this one. Maybe if I got free I could hide in that one long enough to escape. I sure wish Liam were here now. Two heads are definitely better than one.
But, he was still sleeping in bed, and Julie was up in our room, probably off in dreamland herself. No one was coming to rescue me, and this was going to be something I had to take care of myself.
Okay, the first step is getting out of these ropes. Didn’t I see a YouTube video on this?
I scooted over to the side of the cave where the crates were and began rubbing my wrists on the sides of one of the wooden crates in an attempt to shred the rope. After five minutes or so of rubbing my wrists back and forth against the sharp wood, I felt that the rope was starting to tear. It was working!
I had almost freed my hands, and the rope was almost all the way cut through when I heard the men coming back into the cave. Dammit. If I could just get my hands free then I could untie my legs and hide!
Unfortunately time was not on my side, and the men realized that I wasn’t where they left me.
“Rico ven aqui! La mujer se ha ido.” Rico, come here, the woman is gone.
Suddenly, four men came rushing back to the cave. I held my breath in the darkness of the cave, hoping they wouldn’t find me. But, one of the men came over and grabbed me by the wrists and yanked, hard.
“Ella está justo aquí!” She’s right over here.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I realized that my hopes of escaping had been dashed. And now they were mad. They grabbed me and began to drag me out of the cave, angrily. This is not looking good. But instead of taking me out to the open beach, they dragged me into the smaller cave that was next to the one I’d been in. Frankly, I’d rather they took me outside, because I had a better chance of escaping that sitting in some pitch black cave that was rapidly filling with rain water. Maybe that’s their plan. Just let me die here. Or maybe they’re going to rape me first and don’t want to be seen.
Chapter Twenty Eight Liam: Not Out of the Woods
I overheard some commotion just outside the mouth of the side cave I was in. The water was sloshing and rising quickly, and I heard voices yelling about a woman. Jenny! The same guys that got me probably got her too. That was the scream I heard.
Before I could work to free myself, I heard sloshing and struggling coming toward me. I could hear them dragging Jenny out of the cave she was in.
“Stop! You’re hurting me!”
I heard them shove her in the cave, and I held my breath to be quiet. It was pretty stupid of them to put us together. Either the person who had Jenny didn’t know I was in here, they were too stupid to be strategic, or they wanted us to both die in the same place.
I could hear Jenny quietly crying and I wanted to comfort her but it wasn’t safe. I didn’t know if she was wearing a hood too, or if it was so dark that she didn’t know I was in the cave with her. But, I needed to wait until it was safe before I spoke.
“You stay in here. There is nothing to rub your ropes on in this cave. Stay put or you will be killed, do you understand that? If you try and escape, there will be no discussion. You will be killed.”
I continued wriggling my arms and legs to loosen the ropes. I heard another voice outside the cave. This one spoke in perfect English. It sounded a lot like the property manager, and he was talking to one of the men that had kidnapped us.
“I don’t want to have to kill them, Rico. The woman has a sister staying at the hotel. There are too many loose ends and it would raise suspicion. We need to make it look like an accident.”
“What kind of loose ends? We have the protection of the police and the government. This system has been working for months. You allow us to store the drugs in the caves on your property, our cartel pays you, and gives kickbacks to police and drug enforcement agencies who look the other way at what happens on private property. I don’t see a problem.”
“I still don’t like it, Rico. If guests from my hotel just start disappearing, the media will get hold of it. Remember the case of Natalie Holloway, the student who disappeared in the Caribbean on a high school graduation trip? They are still talking about her. It’s too risky, and we can’t afford the bad press.”
“I don’t see any other choice, Simon. She saw us in town today. The man already reported the drugs to the police. They both know too much. We can make it look like an accident.”
“How?”
“We come up with a believable excuse for an accident. They are lovers. They came to the caves on a midnight stroll looking for a place to make love, and went too far back and it started raining and they drowned.”
“I don’t know, Rico. It sounds risky.”
“What else, then? If we let them go, they will simply go to the police.”
“So? The police have been on our side since the beginning. Money talks.” Simon didn’t sound too sure.
“And, then when they get home? Then, what? They go to the DEA of their country and testify to what they found in the caves. Killing them both is the easiest solution.”
“What about the sister? She’s staying at the property too.”
“We make it look like an overdose. She was so distraught over losing her sister that she killed herself.”
Simon let out an audible sigh. “Well, she did spend several days in the infirmary... I just hate this. This is not the w
ay things were supposed to turn out. You should have done a better job of covering your tracks, Rico.”
“So, what do we do? Kill them?”
“I don’t know. Let me think about it some more.”
I could hear the voices getting fainter as the men went toward the mouth of the cave.
Dammit. I need to get us out of here. They are going to kill all three of us.
The irony of his situation was not lost on me. All of the months since Grace died that I prayed to God that I wished I had died too... all those nights trying to drink myself to death. And now, when I finally did find myself in a life threatening situation, my survival instincts kick in and I’m fighting to live.
Helen was sure right when she said that I was still alive for a reason. Right now the reason is to get Jenny out of this cave.
I waited until the voices were gone before I spoke. Whispering, I said, “Jenny?”
“Liam? Oh my god, are you here too?” Her voice sounded frantic.
“Shhh... whisper. We don’t want them to hear us.”
“Where are you? It’s so dark I can’t see a thing.”
“I have a hood on. I don’t know exactly where I am. Can you follow my voice and swim over to where I am?” The water was rising very quickly and was up to my waist.
“I think so. I’m not wearing a hood but my arms and legs are tied up.”
“Me too.”
I could hear her moving and so I spoke softly, “I’m over here.”
Within a few moments, I could feel her next to me. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. What’s a handsome guy like you doing in a cave like this?”
“All the girls think I look better with a hood over my face.”
Jenny chuckled and I was glad for a moment of tension relief. “Even though my wrists are tied together, I can still use my hands and fingers. I should be able to get the hood off you, even with the rope still on.
“Okay. I think it might be tied in the back.” I turned my back away from her, and slipped down as low as I could, the water up to my chest now. Jenny stood up and faced away from me, using her hands tied behind her back to try and find how my hood was tied so she could untie it.
“It seems like the string is tied... right here. Hang on. This isn’t as easy as it seemed in my mind.”
“It’s a good thing you’re a woman with fingernails. A man would find it harder.”
“Just. One. More. Minute... Okay, I got it loose. Now turn around and face me and I’ll grab the top of the hood and you can pull out of it backwards.”
I did as she suggested, and with her bound hands she grabbed the top of the hood and I wiggled out of it.
“We did it!”
The success boosted our morale, and despite the fact that we were both tied up with our hands behind our backs and our legs roped together, I felt optimistic.
“Okay, now what?” Jenny asked. “My shoulders are killing me from being tied back like this for so long.”
“Yeah, mine too.”
Jenny sat back down next to me, but the water was rising so much that it was almost to the top of her shoulders. “The water is really cold. I think we should stand up. Hypothermia is a real possibility here, even though we are in the Caribbean.”
“I agree.” We each used the wall of the cave as stability for us to stand up despite the flowing current of the water.
Jenny moved closer to me and said, “Your body is nice and warm. It feels good to be close.”
“We should definitely stay in bodily contact. You know. To keep warm.”
We could still hear the men talking outside the cave, but they were too far away to really be understood.
“This is crazy, Liam. I can’t believe I’m sitting here tied up in some cave in the Bahamas. Usually the craziest thing I do in life is get whipped cream on my Frappuccino. This isn’t my life.”
“Tell me about it. I’m an architect. My whole life is about creating mathematically precise predictions about the buildings I’m going to create.”
“Yeah, your job is to predict and then create reality. My job in advertising is to take reality and make it look better.”
“There was something I tried to tell you before, but I couldn’t say the words.” I was grateful for the darkness and not having to look her in the eyes. “I killed my wife and child.”
“What?” She sounded confused. “What do you mean?”
“It was a car accident. I was driving. The other guy was drunk and I tried to swerve but we went over a bridge and...”
“Oh my God. Liam.”
I didn’t want her pity. I wanted to explain.
“I have spent years being angry and trying to get over it. And... now... with you...”
“I had no idea. You must have been devastated...”
“I was. It’s no wonder that Grace’s death upset me so much. I mean, losing a spouse and child is hard enough. But when it was my fault...something that I couldn’t predict or control... it made it worse. My job is to plan so that accidents and mistakes don’t happen. And yet it did, and the worst thing imaginable was the result.”
“Liam, you need to stop beating yourself up about that. People die all the time. I’m obviously hoping that my time isn’t right now. But, Julie and I never thought our mom would die so young.”
“How did it happen?”
“She was only 62 years old. She’d been dating this man for a few years, and neither Julie or I really liked him. He was arrogant and pompous, in our opinion. Not very nice to her. So she’d started taking diet pills and antidepressants and then sleeping pills at night.”
“So she overdosed?”
“No. One night, she’d gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and just dropped dead right there on the floor. Heart attack from all the medications.”
“Oh my god. How awful.”
“Julie found her.”
“How long after?”
“A few hours. They were supposed to have breakfast that day and when she didn’t show, Julie went over to her apartment.”
“What happened with the boyfriend?”
“He was upset for awhile, understandably. Moved away. I see him on Facebook still and it looks like he has another girlfriend now.”
“How awful.” I noticed that Jenny was starting to shiver a little. “How are you doing?”
“My arms hurt and I’m starting to get a little cold. You?”
“I’m okay.” I was silent for a few moments. “Before they brought you into the cave, I was thinking about how funny life is. Here all of this time I wished I were dead with Grace and Nora, and now I’m here fighting to live. With you.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Liam. I was scared without you. But together, I think we can make it out of here alive.”
“I do, too.”
We were silent for a while, and then Jenny said, “I don’t hear any voices anymore.”
“Me neither. Maybe they left.”
“Okay, so how are we going to get out of here?”
“We need to get out of here without them noticing so we can get to Julie.”
“Let’s stand back to back and see if you can loosen my ropes with your hands. I got them pretty loose before they brought you in here.” I turned to face away from Jenny.
“Okay, yeah, I was almost able to cut through mine on those crates.” Turning to face away from me, she fumbled to reach the knot that tied the rope together. “My hands and fingers are pretty numb.”
“I only need like a quarter inch and I should be able to slip my hands out.”
Jenny moved the rope back and forth underwater, in an attempt to loosen the knot. I was moving my hands back and forth and closing my fingers to make my fist smaller.
“I got it!” The rope floated away. Relief flooded my mind and my arms.
I then turned around and worked with my numb hands and fingers to untie Jenny’s knots but they were too tight. After working on them for several minutes, I was no
closer to getting them undone. “This isn’t working. I’m going to try and snap what’s left of the rope by opening your arms sharply. Okay?”
“Okay.” I grabbed Jenny’s elbows and pulled them out. The rope snapped and her hands were free!
“Oh thank you!” Jenny rubbed her shoulders and then threw her arms around me. “Thank you so much!”
We each kneeled down to untie our legs, underwater and stood up. “Okay, let’s find our way out of here. Don’t forget there are cameras in the cave, so we need to stay low.”
We crouched down and waded in the water up to our necks. I figured we had a better chance of not getting seen by the cameras if we were almost underwater. The water was cold and I was fighting a pretty strong current as the water flowed into the cave from the beach. I barely noticed, though, as all of my attention was on getting us out before our captors killed us.
Making our way toward the mouth of the cave, the rain appeared to be letting up a bit. “I don’t think we should go out the main exit unless we have to. It might be safer if we find another exit.”
“I agree. The water seems to be going this way, let’s follow it and see if there’s another opening.”
We waded along, following the current as it wound its way deeper into the cave. We were holding hands, as it was pitch black. At least the water level was going down pretty quickly.
Some parts of the passageway were so narrow that we had to squeeze through one at a time.
“Look, there’s an opening right there!” Jenny said.
Sure enough, there was a sliver of lighter darkness, and what appeared to be a small opening.
We sloshed over to it, and realized it was a very small opening. Jenny would be able to fit through, but I wasn’t sure I could. “Ladies first.”
Jenny got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the narrow passageway. When I tried, my shoulder got stuck.
“Do it like they do when a woman is giving birth. Rotate your shoulder just a bit to slip it out first.”
Provocative Paradise: A Secret Stranger Romance Page 13