He looked toward Abby through his sunglasses with a smile, which faded when he saw three men with her. Quickly putting a smile back on his face, he walked over. “Annie, good morning!” He nodded at the rest. “Gentlemen, good morning.”
“Last night you said you could get me where I’m going within a couple of hours, right?”
“Absolutely!” Frank consulted his watch, “If you’re ready to go, I can have you there by a little after lunch time, but we’d have to leave now. Where’s your friend?”
Eric spoke up. “Captain Frank, right?”
“Yes, sir. And you are?”
“Eric. I’m the friend.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Well, my vessel is a little on the small side, and you’re a pretty big fella. Honestly, I’m not sure we can all fit.”
JJ spoke up. “What kind of boat is it, exactly? That’s a three hundred mile trip, and you claim you can make it in a few hours?”
Frank smiled. “Oh, she’s an old girl, but she’s fast. Faster than what you’ve got here, I can say that for certain.”
Frank led them down the dock to a walkway that went around to the far side of the boathouse. As they turned the corner, tied to the dock with the sun gleaming off its windows, was Captain Frank’s pontoon plane.
To Abby, it looked like every other tiny crop duster she had ever seen, but instead of wheels it had two large floats resting on the water.
“She tops out around eighty miles an hour, but with a good wind at our back, we’ll get her into the nineties.”
Eric looked into the windows and saw that it was barely a two-seater. There was no way he was going to fit in there with them. “I don’t like it.”
Abby was a bit concerned, but optimistic. “JJ, how fast did you say you could get there?”
“Two days. Our boat tops out around thirty if we push it hard, but I wouldn’t want to work the engine ten hours straight, so we were going to break it up into two days.”
“Two days,” Abby sighed, thinking hard. She looked at Eric. “Two days, or I can be there in time for lunch. What would you do?”
“I’d take the two days,” JJ said. “No offense, Frank,” he said with a friendly nod to the captain.
“None taken. I’ve got a daughter myself, probably just about Annie’s age. I don’t get to see her as much as a father should, but I sure do hope that she thinks twice about hopping in a plane with a man she just met.”
Abby couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Captain Frank even got a little misty at the mention of his daughter.
Frank looked toward Eric. “If it eases your mind at all, I’m well known around here. I ferry folks around all the time, so this is nothing new for me. Heck, Ray stopped me out front to ask me about a few dollars I owe him. This plane is my livelihood, and I get people where they need to go. I promise you that Annie here is safe with me. But with all due respect, if we’re not going flying today, I have a charter that I cancelled so I could help her out. I’d like us to make a decision here so I can call them and maybe get them on again.”
Abby was impressed with the sober Captain Frank. Last night, when he had obviously had a few, she found him charming, and harmless. This morning, sober and sentimental, she found him even more so.
Eric was taking it in and sizing up Frank. His words were genuine, but he hated the thought of letting Abby out of his sight.
Abby spoke. “Eric, Robert said...” she stopped a moment. “Frank, will you excuse us a minute?”
“Sure thing.”
Ace took Frank by the shoulder, “Why don’t you show me around this thing.” The two went off toward the plane while Abby, Eric, and JJ walked down the dock to talk out of earshot of the pilot.
Abby continued. “Robert said that my procedure isn’t going to be as simple as yours. So, I’m thinking I take a quick flight and get there today, and you ride with JJ. By the time you get there tomorrow, I could be done.”
“For what it’s worth,” JJ said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’ve waited this long. What difference is an extra couple of days going to make?”
“I guess it doesn’t make a difference. I mean, when you were missing ten years of your memory, you took your time getting it back, right?”
JJ just looked at her. He understood her point, but he didn’t like the idea of her going off with this guy.
“Eric, how about you?” she asked. “How long did you wait to get your memory back? You did it while I was taking a nap! And your life wasn’t half as screwed up as mine.”
“Abby...”
“Don’t, Eric. Don’t. I know that I probably sound like a silly girl right now, but I disappeared from my old life. I have no idea what kind of life I left behind. All I know is my husband was pissed off enough to track me down halfway across the world to kidnap and try to murder me. Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about that. I wonder every day what happened with my family, my sister, and what else I left behind. Now that I’ve got a chance to get my mind back, I don’t want to wait another minute longer than I have to. Is that so crazy?”
Eric and JJ looked at each other. They had nothing to say.
“Frank is harmless,” Abby said, then added for good measure, “and in case you’ve forgotten, I can take care of myself just fine.”
Eric took her face in his hands and brought her close to look into his eyes, “I love you. I nearly lost you before, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
Abby smiled. “You’re not. I’ll be fine.”
He sighed, defeated. “You’re stubborn, you know that, right?”
She smiled again and kissed him. “Isn’t that why you love me?”
JJ had been watching Ace inspect the sea plane with Frank in the background, and decided to walk away from the two lovers to see what his brother thought.
“Well, she looks airworthy as far as I can tell,” Ace observed. He knew a thing or two about planes. He was a licensed pilot and had a small recreational plane back home.
Abby and Eric walked up, hand in hand. “You ready, Frank?” she asked.
Captain Frank looked a bit nervously from Eric to JJ to Ace, before settling back on Abby. “I’m ready if you are.”
“Don’t worry about them,” she said. “They’re just overprotective, that’s all.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I hope my daughter has three big, tough, overprotective men in her life.” He looked toward the men. “You boys have nothing to worry about. I’ve been flying for forty years, since I was a teenager, and I’ve come back down every single time.” He smiled, trying to put the men at ease.
Eric reached out and shook his hand. “Frank, I’ll trust you because she does. Just take care of her and don’t make me regret it, OK?”
“I most certainly will. I guarantee when you get there tomorrow, she’ll be there.” With that, he opened the door and tossed a bag into the small cargo area behind the seats.
JJ pulled Abby aside for a moment as Ace put his arm around Frank’s shoulders, his big frame and large arm enveloping the Captain, as if they were old friends. “Frank, I just need you to know, the three of us here are pretty fond of the young lady you’re transporting.”
Frank nodded nervously. “I gathered that much.”
“The man who is paying me and my brother over there to look after her, he’s even more fond of her than we are. You’re bringing her to this man.”
Frank nodded again, curious to see where this was going.
“I need you to know, Captain, if she isn’t on terra firma by lunchtime today, there’s going to be trouble.”
Frank swallowed. “I understand. She’ll be there.”
“Good, because you seem like a nice guy. But I will kill you.” Ace gave him a wink and a smile, and then smacked him on the shoulder.
There was no doubt in Frank’s mind that this large man was serious. He did some calculations in his head and prayed that everything would work out
as he hoped. He smiled at Ace. “Understood, and you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
JJ handed Abby a small phone as Frank turned over the engine and started the plane. “My satellite number is the first speed dial, and Robert’s is the second. It’s simple. Just hold down number one for me, or number two for Robert. If you need anything—anything at all—you call, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Abby said, mocking his seriousness, though JJ didn’t break a smile.
“We’ll be on the boat heading straight there. As soon as you land, call us. I know we’ll be there tomorrow, but if you don’t call us, we’re pushing through and taking our chances—so make sure you call, OK?”
“Nothing to worry about, I’ll talk to you in a few hours, OK?” Abby walked over to give Eric one last hug. Yelling over the motor, she asked with a smile, “Are you going to be OK without me?”
“I’ll be fine.” Eric pulled her close and gave her a long kiss. He pulled away slightly and whispered in her ear, “You’ve got your knife?”
She nodded. “Yes, and you know I know how to use it.”
“Absolutely,” Eric said. She would be fine; she can take care of herself. Heck, he wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for Abby. He smiled at the thought that maybe he should be worried that he wouldn’t be alright without her by his side.
The Captain hopped down. “We’re ready.”
Eric and Abby embraced and kissed one more time before he watched her climb in and cross to the far side, followed by Frank, who strapped into the pilots seat before closing the door and offering a salute to the men standing on the dock.
JJ and Ace were already back on their boat idling the engine by the time the seaplane gained speed and took off before banking hard to the left and settling on course.
As Eric watched the plane disappear, waving to Abby, he thought, She’s right – that girl can take care of herself.
JJ yelled from the boat, “Hey, what are you waiting for? Let’s get moving!”
Eric trotted back to the boat, jumped in, and the three of them were off at full speed within minutes, following the increasingly distant plane.
“They’ll be out of sight in ten minutes,” Eric thought out loud.
“That’s OK, we’ll still keep an eye on him.” Ace smiled, holding up a small glass screen that displayed a basic map and a blinking red dot that Eric assumed was Captain Frank’s plane.
“How’d you do that?”
“I put a small GPS device on the plane. It’s magnetic, no big deal. About the size of a quarter.”
“That’s smart thinking,” Eric said. “You guys are prepared for anything, huh?”
“We like to be,” Ace said. “That’s why there’s a little explosive device in there, too.”
Eric’s eyes lit up, “You put a bomb on Abby’s plane?”
“No, there’s no bomb, don’t worry. It’s part of the GPS device. It’s a sliver of plastic explosive. We usually put them on cars as a ‘just in case’ when we’re tracking someone. I figure it’ll blow a hole in the side of the plane and force him to land if we need him to. Probably wouldn’t even make them crash.”
“Probably?”
“I’m almost sure.” Ace gave him a devilish smile. “It’s nowhere near the gas tank.”
“Are you screwing with me?”
Ace laughed. “Relax, Eric, it’s fine.”
“Well, let’s plan on not blowing up Abby mid-air, OK?”
“You got it.” Ace looked down at the screen and nodded. “They’re right on course.”
15
ABBY AND FRANK had been in the air for an hour or so. Conversation was light and at a minimum. Frank didn’t have a headset for his passenger, so any conversation to be had was, out of necessity, screamed over the sound of the propeller thundering through the air a few feet in front of them on the other side of the windshield. He occasionally spoke into his headset, presumably to local air traffic control or other pilots, but not to Abby.
Each time Abby saw a group of islands coming up in the distance she got excited only to be disappointed as they flew over them and on toward the horizon.
Finally Frank leaned over and shouted, “We’ll be putting down in about twenty minutes, up ahead.”
Abby felt butterflies in her stomach. She was excited to finally fill in the blank pages that were the past ten years of her life, but also terrified about what she would learn. Would the new Abby be horrified at the life she had led? What drove Bryce to hunt her down and try to kill her? What brought her and Bryce together in the first place? The worst thought of all seemed to make her heart stop: Was I still in love with him? Will I be upset that he’s dead? That thought gave her a knot in her stomach.
Question after question swam through her mind. The high-pitched drone of the propeller got lower as Frank eased up a bit on the throttle, and they began their descent. Abby looked toward the coast of the island they were approaching, searching for the massive Victorian structure that served as Robert’s home away from home.
Abby looked over toward Frank, who was speaking into his headset, but he wasn’t speaking to her, and she couldn’t make out a word he was saying.
She had only seen the coastline once, and it was from the water, but she did not remember the buildings she was seeing now. She also couldn’t find Robert’s grand estate, which would be hard to miss. Leaning over, she shouted to Frank, “You’re sure this is the right island?”
He shot her a look and said, “Yeah, why?”
“I don’t see Robert’s house,” she shouted.
“Don’t worry... it’s around the other side.”
Abby thought a moment. “This is a sea plane. Why not just land on the other side? There’s water, right?”
Frank was quiet a moment before he shouted back, “The winds aren’t right. This will be better.”
Abby conceded the point, then had another thought, “Is that who you were talking to before? Letting them know where we are landing so someone can come out to meet us?”
Frank nodded. “Yep, that’s it.” He smiled without making eye contact.
Abby was consumed with both the excitement of getting her memory back, and seeing Robert again. It was a small island, and a few extra minutes to ride over to the other side of it wouldn’t hurt, she thought.
She took her eyes off Robert’s island in front of them and gazed out her window at the empty blue sea. It was beautiful here, and she had a hard time imagining herself leaving, but who knew how she would feel a couple of days from now when she knew more about her past.
Looking at Frank, she saw beads of sweat gathering at his temples. She didn’t think it was particularly hot, but it must be stressful landing a plane. Looking past him, she found herself staring at the beautiful blue water that stretched as far as the eye could see. Her eyes settled back on the front window as they approached the island.
Abby suddenly had another thought. Checking the side windows again, she wondered, If this is Robert’s island, where’s Trial Island?
* * *
“They’re landing!” Ace shouted.
“What?” Eric rushed over to look at the readout over his shoulder. “They’re already there?”
“Nope, they’re shy by almost seventy miles.”
“How can you tell they’re landing?”
Ace looked at him. “They’re slowing down and dropping altitude like crazy.”
“Could they be having engine trouble?”
“I don’t think so. It looks like a controlled gradual descent. They’re landing.”
JJ didn’t take his eyes off the water. “Where are they putting down?”
Ace studied the readout. “Small island, direct on the line from here to there. One of a million, and nothing special about it.”
“How far?” JJ asked.
“About a hundred miles from where we’re sitting, as the crow flies.”
“Can we go any faster?” Eric asked, though he knew the answer.
J
J shook his head no. He had the throttle pegged for the past two-plus hours. Depending on the wind, they were going between thirty to thirty-five miles an hour. JJ did some quick math. Relatively speaking, they were not that far behind, but they still couldn’t get there for close to three hours at best, and that was being extremely optimistic.
“Dammit!” Eric shouted to no one in particular, though he punched an innocent seat cushion as hard as he could.
JJ tossed him a small phone. “Hey! Calm down and see if you can get her on the line. Just punch in the number seven and send.”
Eric did just that. He waited a few seconds before the phone began to ring. “Come on... come on...”
* * *
Abby had been sitting quietly for the past few minutes, pretending everything was fine, though it was apparent to her that things were far from it. She watched the beads of sweat on Frank’s temples drip down the side of his face. He was clearly nervous. If they weren’t at Robert’s island, why was he telling her that?
They were still hundreds of yards off from the shoreline. She could see that they must be aiming for the beach in the distance. There were a few people around a large black SUV, but she couldn’t even tell their size, never mind gender.
Who is waiting for us?
Her hackles were raised, and she slowly reached down her right side and slipped a hand into her satchel to wrap her fingers around the familiar grip of her knife. Had she or JJ had the foresight to put the phone on vibrate, she would have felt it buzzing as Eric anxiously sat a hundred miles away willing her to pick up. Unfortunately, the roar of the engine drowned out any sounds in the cockpit, and her mind was racing so fast that she had entirely forgotten the phone was there.
They bounced down with a splash about a football field away from the shore. Frank kept the engine on and increased the power to keep them slowly moving toward the beach.
The SUV was clearer now, though the half-dozen people were still nondescript. She couldn’t tell who they were, or if they were men, women, or both. However she quickly decided this was as close as she was going to get to them for now.
In a flash, she produced the knife under the pilot’s chin.
Escape, the Complete Trilogy Page 33
