She needed to explore the room but she was just too tired. She lied back down and closed her eyes. Before she knew it she was asleep.
* * *
Jessica’s eyes snapped open as if waking up from a nightmare. She gasped and tried to make sense of all the thoughts jumbling through her brain. Where was she? What if it had all been a terrible dream?
She speedily gazed around and her heart sank. She was still in the same bedroom. The only thing that made it bearable was that it was just as dark as before with the lamp glowing faintly next to her. So she had either been out for 24 hours, which was unlikely, or she had dozed off only for a short time.
She sat up and found that most of her headache was gone. Small blessings, she reminded herself. She looked down at herself was relieved that she was still wearing her clothes. With everything that had happened today, she was happy not to add sexual assault to her misadventures. Her necklace was thankfully still around her neck and she rubbed it for good luck. Her purse was however nowhere to be seen.
Think, think!
She stood up and walked around gingerly as if the place was booby-trapped. It was hard to judge the room in the semi darkness. She went to the door and sure enough she found a switch. She turned on the light; it came from a ceiling fixture/fan. Both came on at once and the breeze felt wonderful.
The wattage of this light wasn’t much higher than the nightstand lamp but being in the center of the room gave her a good view of her surroundings. The walls were covered with wallpaper depicting tropical scenes. She normally hated wallpaper but this one was high-quality and very attractive, the kind you found in castles and mansions.
The bed was an antique with shiny brass posts and headboard. The floor was made of dark teak boards and polished to a sheen. Running on instincts, she went back to the door and turned the knob. It didn’t budge, the door was locked. She hadn’t really expected it to swing open but it was yet another hurdle. She was sick of hurdles.
There were other doors. The one on the left side of the bed was a closet. It was empty; the wire hangers had been removed. Hell, even the pole had been taken out so she had no weapons.
The door on the right side of the bed opened on a small bathroom. The shower was encased in glass so again there was no metal pole she could use to defend herself. There was a window but an anorexic dwarf wouldn’t have been able to fit through it, a pointless idea anyway since the window didn’t even open.
She returned to the room and considered her last option. The ceiling fan was making drapes billow. She hurried to them and flung them apart. She almost yelped in excitement when she revealed two French doors leading outside. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as her fingers curled around the handles.
“Please don’t be locked…”
She applied pressure and the handles moved! She pulled both doors open and cool air blasted her in the face. She had never in her life felt relief like that. She rushed forward and found herself on a veranda that was about twelve feet long and six feet deep. There were two chairs and a table on one side and a potted palmetto tree on the other.
Yet, darkness surrounded her. The only thing orienting her was the thundering sound of crashing waves. She moved forward until her hands were on the railing and she let her eyes adjust to the night. Second later clouds were blown away and the moon shone down dimly.
“No,” Jessica whined.
Looking left and right, she understood why the balcony doors hadn’t been locked. Her room was on the second floor and the house itself was right on the edge of a cliff. There was a beach down below but she would need to fall almost 100 feet to get to it. Even through the darkness she knew that there was no way she could climb down.
She came back to her room, leaving the doors open behind her. The wind soothed her anxiety. The only thing that remained for her to check was a cedar armoire against the far wall. She looked inside of it but again it was empty. There wasn’t even a paperclip or bobby pin with which she could attempt lock picking, not that she knew how.
She sat on the edge of the bed and thought about her alternatives. One thing was certain, she couldn’t stay here. Every minute she remained in this house was another minute awaiting her death. She would end up like Daphne, whatever that was. If she wanted to survive, if she wanted to stand a chance to go back home, the answer was easy.
She needed to escape.
Okay so there are no weapons, and all I know about self-defense amounts to blowing into a whistle and yell fire. Her eyes roamed across the room, taking in everything at once as in her experience the smallest details were always the most important. She stopped moving and her plan began to form.
She went to the other side of the bed and turned off the lamp. It was elegant if not exactly luxurious. It was shaped like a vase, brass to match the bed, and the cover was oversized. She removed the lampshade and switched off the light. She took the whole thing in her hands to gauge its weight. It was heavy but manageable at half the height of a baseball bat.
She unplugged it and wrapped the cord around her right hand as she lifted the lamp. She went to the locked door and switched off the light. The bedroom instantly became completely dark and she had to fight her will to turn the light back on. She steeled her resolve and went ahead with the plan.
“Please, help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs while she banged on the door. “Come quick, please! Help!”
She heard footsteps on the other side and quickly backed away 30 inches. She raised the lamp like a star slugger for the Washington Nationals and held her breath.
Keys jingled and the familiar sound of tumblers falling into place was the only thing she could hear. The door opened in a flash.
Jessica was too excited about her plan working to be blinded by the bright light coming from the hall. The man standing in the doorway was the diminutive Hubrecht and there was a look of panic on his face.
“What…”
She didn’t wait. She couldn’t wait! She swung the lamp as hard as she could directly at his head. She heard the bone of his forehead cracking against the brass and he went straight down.
She had a moment of horror about just having hit someone unconscious. For all she knew, she had just killed a man. This said, she couldn’t dwell on it. She had to escape now!
The thought occurred to her to search his body for weapons but she was terrified that it would waste valuable time. She peeked in the hallway and took off.
She realized the room was located in the middle of the corridor. She gazed at both ends and when she saw an opening she figured it was the stairs. She took off in this direction.
The staircase was wide and it curved on the way down like some ancient American plantation home. She paused when she heard voices. They were faint, decidedly far away, but becoming louder. She didn’t have a choice, not if she wanted to survive the night.
She flew down the steps, her feet barely touching ground, and once she reached the lower floor she looked around to get her bearings. The area was huge and the voices were stronger. The men were fast approaching.
Tightening her grip on the heavy lamp, Jessica located the front door and sprinted to it. She grabbed the handle and pulled but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked! Panic was starting to overtake her and she fought it with every breath she took.
There were two deadbolts and she twisted them. Her biggest nightmare was that only one of them was locked and that she would waste precious seconds locking and unlocking the door trying to find the correct combination. But no, as soon as they were turned the door opened.
She ran outside and was elated. She was almost free! If she could only make it to the road, she thought. There were footsteps behind her. The captors had noticed her absence by now and were chasing her.
She didn’t trust her legs to carry her for long but she had to try. She took off away from the house. The driveway was sinuous and lined with trees but the street had to be close by. She rounded some bushes and stopped in her tracks.
“Please stop, Jessica.”
Standing in front of her was Ryker. It wasn’t his stern expression that made her freeze. It wasn’t the authority in his voice or the way he towered over her. No, all she could see was the very big nickel-plated pistol he had pointed at her face.
Chapter 9
The idea of turning around and running away occurred to her but before she could do anything both Vurnon and Hubrecht appeared behind her, the latter holding a handkerchief against his head where she had hit him. A third man, young and chubby, was with them. The three of them had guns pointed at her.
“Are you done being ridiculous, Jessica? You cannot escape my house.”
“Just let me go, please.”
Ryker lowered his Desert Eagle. “I will, soon. For the moment however, I would like some answers.”
He spoke Dutch and Hubrecht nodded. Jessica was grabbed by the shoulders, relieved of her makeshift weapon, and led back into the house. Her eyes watered as hope gave way to despair. They walked her back up to her room and she didn’t need a translator to understand that sitting on the bed was the smart thing to do this.
While she was wiping her eyes, Ryker came in. He spoke in hushed tones and the three men left them alone, leaving the door open. The Dutchman fetched a chair from the corner and carried it back to the bed.
“I suppose it is time to talk.”
He put his gun on the nightstand and sat down. Jessica stared at the weapon and wondered if she’d have time to snatch it before he stopped her. Maybe it was a test, she thought. Chances were it wasn’t even loaded and she’d only be giving him another reason to kill her.
“Did Sam Tollefsrud send you here?”
“Who?”
“Is this how we are going to have this conversation, Jessica? I ask questions and you pretend not to know what is going on? It will take a really long time if this is what you want to do.”
“I’m not playing, I don’t know who that guy is.”
“Sam Tollefsrud is with the CIA. You were sent here by this person, were you not?”
“No. I’m here on vacation. You know this, I told you already! I told you before you took my clothes off.”
His nostrils flared and they peered into each other’s eyes. She was determined not to look away first. After 10 seconds, he smiled, understanding what she was doing.
“You were heard at the hotel. You said in a loud enough voice for people to understand that your friend – Daphne, is it? – she works for the CIA. Do you deny this?”
Jessica frowned, wondering where he’d gotten such a cockamamie idea. And then she understood.
“It’s not the CIA! Well, yes, technically. Daphne went to the Culinary Institute of America. Everybody calls it the CIA; everybody who’s not a homicidal maniac.”
Ryker was flustered for a second but then his I-know-everything face was back. “You expect me to believe this? You expect me to believe she does not work for the CIA, that she was innocently walking around my boat?”
“It’s true! You can check it out if you want to. She just graduated from the Culinary Institute, you can call them!”
“An intelligence officer would be astute enough to have the proper credentials.”
“Look, if she really was a spy, do you think she would create a fake identity that included the CIA cooking school? I’m telling you, it’s all some big misunderstanding.”
She banged on the mattress in desperation and tears ran down her face. She didn’t want to appear weak but now her body was betraying her. She buried her face into her hands and for the next minutes she simply cried.
Ryker got up and went to the bathroom, coming back with a box of tissues. She took a few, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose while he sat down again. Appearing unladylike was the farthest from her mind right now.
“Tell me everything, Jessica,” he said softly.
She didn’t have the will to fight anymore and shrugged. Being defiant had never been who she was. She was tired of posturing.
“We came here on vacation. I finished grad school, I’m about to start working for the US Geological Survey and there’s no telling when I’ll be able to take some time off anymore. It was Daphne’s idea. She’s the wild one.”
She lifted her feet on the bed and hugged her knees. Ryker was looking at her intently.
“She met this guy when we were parasailing,” she continued. “And this morning she went sightseeing with him on Little Curaçao. The guy, Ricardo, he told me she wanted to explore the shipwreck. He said everyone knows the place is off-limits because it’s yours.”
“Correct.”
“She went ahead of him and he saw you and your men waving guns around. He saw you taking Daphne. He ran away.”
“Firstly, yes, residents know that I have an interest in the shipwreck. I do not deny it. But I did not kidnap your friend. These men were not my men, I was not there. After I left your hotel, I had breakfast at the Avila Beach Hotel with a member of the Council of Advice, from the Governor’s office. There are witnesses, our meeting lasted until 11 o’clock. At what time did Daphne disappear? Was it before 11 o’clock?”
“Yes,” Jessica reluctantly agreed.
She believed him. A part of her was relieved that Ryker was actually not behind the abduction though she was still reeling from being held hostage. Yet, the gun on the nightstand remained troubling, as was the fact that he hadn’t denied being a dangerous man.
“You see,” he said softly. “I may not be a saint but I am not a monster.”
“Then I guess I’m not here against my will, am I?”
He stood up and picked up his handgun. “You are tired. Try to get some sleep and we will talk more in the morning.”
He walked to the door, turned off the overhead light because he didn’t trust her with a table lamp anymore, and left. Jessica heard the door being locked.
She didn’t have the energy to protest again. It was obvious she wasn’t going to escape tonight and she needed rest. She took off her shoes and slid under the covers.
* * *
When Jessica woke up, she realized she wasn’t groggy. She’d had a series of bad dreams but had otherwise slept like a brick. The entire bedroom was bathed in light, the thin veranda curtains unable to keep the sunshine at bay. She rubbed her eyes and heard a knock at the door, undoubtedly what had woken her up in the first place.
“Yes?” she asked, feeling silly that as the hostage she was acting so civilized.
The door opened and Hubrecht walked in. He was carrying what looked like a tray.
“Good morning, Miss Densley.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. Ryker asked me to bring you these. I have a toothbrush, a dress. He would like you to join him for breakfast when you’re ready.”
She noticed it wasn’t a tray he was carrying but folded clothes with items on top. He put everything down on the chair Ryker had used the night before, nodded, and walked out. She didn’t hear the door getting locked and briefly wondered if she should try escaping again. In the end, she realized she was famished and decided that it would have to wait after breakfast.
She got out of bed and went to inspect what the henchman had brought her. There were some toiletries, fresh towels, and a pile of clothes: a red summer dress, matching bra and panties, and a pair of tan espadrilles. Everything was the correct size.
“Hey, wait a minute…” she whispered to herself. “This is my stuff!”
She was torn between being angry because they had obviously stolen her luggage from her hotel room, and yet it was comforting to have her own clothes to wear. She brought everything with her into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Fifteen minutes later she emerged fully dressed and had more energy. She went to the door and knocked. Hubrecht answered her within seconds.
“I’m ready.”
He nodded and motioned for her to follow him. It felt weird to not have a weapon pointed at her, not to be running. She again had t
he urge to make a run for it while they went down the stairs but no, the time wasn’t right.
Yet.
In the foyer they turned left and went past the kitchen. She took in her surroundings. The house was magnificent with high ceilings and modern paintings on the walls. The furniture was high-end but not ostentatious. They went out through a back door.
A narrow flagstone patio extended to the side of the house where it became spacious. It was built on two different levels with flower beds dotting the landscape. There was a curving swimming pool, the water blue and inviting.
As gorgeous as the setting was, her eyes were drawn to the right, to the ocean. A cliff dropped straight down about 75 feet to a pristine beach. She mentally crossed out this escape route.
“Miss Densley…”
She continued following Hubrecht. They went off the patio to a large gazebo halfway between the pool and a tennis court, in a lush garden. The sides had been rolled up and she spotted Ryker sitting at a table. He was dressed in white Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt. He stood up as she got closer.
“Good morning, Jessica. I trust you have slept well.”
She didn’t reply. Hubrecht brought her all the way to the table and her eyes were riveted to the food laid out before her.
“Go on, you must be hungry. We will talk after.”
He spoke Dutch to Hubrecht and the short man left them alone. Jessica promptly forgot her manners and stuffed a croissant into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten in months.
Chapter 10
As a radio softly played Good Morning Baby by Bic Runga and Dan Wilson behind them, she sat down and piled watermelon slices, crispy bacon, and scoops of thick yogurt onto her plate. Ryker smiled at her enthusiasm and poured her a glass of orange juice followed by a cup of coffee.
“You should have said so before if you were hungry.”
She drank all her juice and dove into her bacon.
“Would you like my cook to prepare you an omelet? Eggs Benedict perhaps? Yes, you must try his eggs Benedict.”
The Alpha's Touch Boxed Set (14 Book Bundle) Page 107
