by Diane Capri
Still lying on her back, Jordan felt her eyelids closing. A raucous round of laughter forced her eyes back open, and the van fishtailed left and right. Her stomach revolted and she clamped her jaw tight again.
“That’s enough staring, princess.” Hugo sounded not the least perturbed. He tossed a roll of duct tape in Gordo’s direction. “Tie her up. And tape her eyes closed.”
Gordo’s large hands dwarfed the roll of duct tape. He ripped off a piece with his teeth and plastered it across her eyes. He did the same to her mouth.
Jordan gagged, struggling to pull enough air through her nostrils.
Gordo grabbed Jordan’s hands, forced them together in front of her stomach, and bound both wrists with more duct tape.
The driver cut another hard turn. Jordan rolled onto her stomach like a watermelon. With her nose almost touching the floor, she noticed the floor smelled like dead fish and the air smelled like ganja.
CHAPTER 17
The driver accelerated, and she slid across the floor on her stomach. Three guys in the back laughed.
Her face was numb. Her head throbbed. And her entire body ached. The world around her was now dark. She could hear and smell. Her feet were unbound.
She flopped onto her back and tried to grip the floor with her running shoes. Maybe she could feel for an exit and kick her way out.
One of the men grabbed both ankles, allowing her to squirm around using only her torso for a while.
Jordan finally relented. Wasted energy. And she didn’t like them touching her.
He waited to be sure she’d given up before he released his hold on her ankles.
After that, she lay quietly in the dark behind the duct tape.
She’d lost all sense of direction the moment they’d slammed her head on the van floor and closed the door. She guessed the van was traveling about thirty miles per hour, but they were stopping a lot. She heard street traffic. They weren’t on the interstate. There were no windows in the back where she was, so no hope of passing traffic spotting her.
The four men spoke to each other in Spanish. Jordan hadn’t taken a Spanish class since high school, but she liked to believe she remembered more of it than most people because she was a leftie. Lefties were said to have a special talent for languages.
Barco. What did that mean? Something about a boat? They were talking about a boat?
Then Cuba. She knew that one. Were they planning a trip to Cuba in a boat?
She imagined herself tied up, on a boat, managing somehow to hurl herself over the boat’s edge and swim back to Florida. She was a good swimmer once. She’d won competitions in high school, but she’d used all of her limbs.
“Boss says stick to the plan. Take her to the base and stay there.”
What base? The only base Jordan knew anything about was MacDill Air Force Base at the end of Bayshore Boulevard. Surely these creeps weren’t taking her there.
But if they did? There were armed guards everywhere at MacDill. She’d get away. She’d find help.
She felt a bit better about her situation.
Briefly.
The van hit a pothole. She bounced off the floor and flopped down again. A deep pain in her side evoked an involuntary, stifled scream. She could be bleeding internally, but there was not a thing she could do about any of it. These creeps wouldn’t even notice.
A lump formed in her throat when she remembered that today was Tuesday. She wasn’t expected back at work until Thursday afternoon. She couldn’t count on colleagues to rescue her anytime soon.
Her dad would wait a long time, too. He struggled not to be a burden no matter how many times she told him she wanted to hear from him.
And Claire? They texted almost constantly. Claire might be the first to notice Jordan’s absence. But Claire would think she was simply too busy to answer.
She’d given all that information to Clayton and to the FBI. Maybe they were doing something to find Hugo Diaz and his crew right now. Maybe they were on the way.
Maybe her fairy godmother would reach out and touch her with a magic wand, too.
The short answer was that Jordan had to get herself out of this mess. But how?
“We wouldn’t be ready to go for two or three days.” Gordo was speaking English, presumably still on the phone. “Even then, it’s a risk. How soon can you get here, Boss?”
The others responded to him with hushes and tonto! Which she knew meant stupid.
“She speaks English, you know!” The driver. He sounded a vicious. Victor. Think of him as Victor.
Two others chimed in and a shouting match in angry Spanish erupted. Except for Spanish curses, Jordan couldn’t catch any of the furious phrases, so she tuned them out.
Gordo seemed to be the group’s weakest link so far. Maybe why he did the muscle work—it’s all he was good for. But he seemed to be the one on the phone with the boss, too. So maybe he had more authority than the others.
Maybe he was the link she could exploit to escape.
If she could come up with a viable plan while all their yelling restarted her pounding headache.
CHAPTER 18
The van slowed onto a rough gravel path. Every bump rattled Jordan’s headache, and jostled her bruised body.
The argument raged on, but the van stopped. The side door slid open, slammed against the hinges, and slid closed again.
Gordo’s hefty arms yanked her out of the van as forcefully as he’d thrown her in. He set her feet on the gravel and grabbed her bicep to lead her up a staircase.
When she stumbled, he jerked her upright, nearly dislocating her shoulder. She walked more carefully after that.
She stepped into a cavernous room, cold and drafty, possibly with some metallic fixtures. It smelled mostly like old Spanish cedar used to wrap and store cigars.
Her feet bumped into what felt like scraps of something heavy on the rough floor. Jordan took a big whiff. Sweet, yet spicy. She sniffed deeply again. That had to be the faint but lingering aromas of an old cigar warehouse.
Jordan’s brain fog had begun to clear. Maybe the drug they’d given her had worn off. She thought hard about the van ride. The big bump that landed her hard on her side could have been train tracks. The length of time she’d been in the van was consistent with travel time to Centro Tampa, too.
Jordan had lived in Tampa all her life. She knew the part of town they called Cigar City well enough. The more she thought about it, the stronger she felt about her hunch.
The group’s base was an old cigar warehouse in Centro Tampa. She wasn’t that far from home. The knowledge lifted her spirits.
Not as great as being on MacDill Air Force Base, sure. But she could work with this location. She’d know where to run when she escaped.
Under her light jacket, Jordan’s skin prickled with dried sweat. Before Gordo picked her up, she’d run for miles—more miles than she’d run in a long time. Her body was sore all over from the running and the van ride—and she was parched. Dehydrated from the run, maybe from the drugs they’d given her, too.
She tried to work up a little saliva and swallow but it got stuck halfway. Okay, maybe she was a little bit afraid, too.
Gordo plopped Jordan onto a wooden chair and continued to speak angrily in Spanish. She tried to pick up on their plans from their tone. Was this a full out panic? She couldn’t tell, but maybe the boss had set them off by something he’d said.
She picked up on some disagreement, which she hoped meant everything was not going smoothly. Maybe she’d be able to prey on that weakness.
“Tell her. TELL HER!” One of the men ordered.
Jordan’s legs started bouncing. The argument was about her. That couldn’t be good.
“Hey.” A finger flicked her chin, and she winced. Was that Emilio’s voice? “Listen up. We know you ran tattling to the FBI.”
Jordan’s breath caught. They’d been spying on her. How long?
Before Claire’s boyfriend, Salvador Caster, was arrested, Clayton had
told her El Pulpo was tapping her phone. She’d thought that was over.
But the dead pilot, Dennis Raine, was a DEA agent investigating El Pulpo, Agent Hunt had said yesterday. Which meant El Pulpo was still active in Tampa. Still watching her. And Claire.
Now Jordan’s entire body vibrated with fear. El Pulpo had sent a letter bomb to her house. She’d been there to save her dad.
But she wasn’t there to protect him now.
What would they do to him?
“And we know you made a little field trip to the athletic building on campus.” Emilio kept talking. “Clever move, Jordan Fox.”
Gordo growled. “Too clever.”
Jordan’s head swirled. Was this one giant nightmare? She’d pinch herself, but her hands were taped together.
They knew about the backpack. They were sent to cover Evan’s tracks. Maybe even Dr. Wren’s. They knew everything.
Jordan remained silent. She struggled to slow her brain down, along with her heart rate. Be cool. Be cool.
That was her plan. Be cool. Get free. Escape.
And then what?
Heavy footsteps echoed away from her chair. A hefty metal door slammed and she heard steps descending down the stairs. One person had left the room.
Fewer people meant better odds, right?
Jordan grunted repeatedly, trying to sound like she had something to say. She felt a hot presence in front of her, then a thick hand on her shoulder.
Another thick hand ripped the tape off her mouth. The pain was sharp and quick. The opposite of the dull and extended pain everywhere else on her body.
“I need to use the bathroom.” Her throat was dry and her voice barely audible.
In the movies, that line scared men. Like they didn’t know what would ensue if they said no.
“Not an option.” The confident voice was Hugo’s.
“Please. I have to go.” She cringed, squeezing her face tight, like waiting was so painful they might pay the price.
The trio muttered among themselves in Spanish. Hugo said, “Fine. But make it fast.”
Still blindfolded, Gordo grabbed her sore bicep again and led her across the room. He opened a wooden door and pushed her forward.
“Leave the door open,” Hugo said.
Jordan whimpered. “I have a right to privacy.”
“No, you don’t.” Gordo shoved her into the bathroom.
“Come on. There are three of you. You’re all bigger than me. What are you afraid of?”
Gordo slammed the door.
“I need my blindfold removed. Or I might make a mess.”
She imagined them looking at each other, shrugging. At least that’s what she hoped they were doing.
The door opened. One beefy paw held her head and then rip. It hurt less than the tape he’d ripped off her mouth, although she wondered if she had any eyelashes left. The first thing she saw was a pocketknife. Coming straight towards her wrists. She clenched her eyes closed. One solid slice, and her hands were free.
Her thoughts were less clouded now. She peered through the open door. She took in as many details as she could.
She saw one big room. Wooden beams crossed the ceiling. Red and blue graffiti painted the walls, which were part old red brick and part dark wood.
Dilapidated brick arches topped windows painted with dust, allowing almost zero visibility.
Her guess about an abandoned cigar factory seemed accurate.
Jordan rubbed the skin on each of her wrists. Still intact. She did the same to the skin around her mouth and her eyes. All still intact if a little sticky with glue residue.
Next, she examined and analyzed the space around her. There was a small window, barred. She looked outside and confirmed they were in Centro Tampa—the city’s historic district.
But not the nice part of the district in the middle. Somewhere along the crime-ridden edges. She shuddered. If she went out there, she could end up worse off than she was in here with Hugo and his crew.
Why hadn’t she agreed to let Clayton teach her how to shoot guns instead of video?
Hugo said, “Lock her in there. Keep her out of the way.”
Gordo slammed the door, the noise amplified by the bathroom’s small, tiled dimensions. The metal doorknob jiggled from the outside, as if he’d jammed something against it.
Inside, there was a toilet, a sink, and one light bulb in the fixture over the sink that probably didn’t even work. A plastic box about the size of a baby’s bathtub had been tossed in the corner.
Jordan ran the water in the small sink and cupped her hands under it. She splashed her face and sipped a bit. Lukewarm, but it tasted wonderful to her. She closed the toilet lid and sat down to think.
They were still figuring out their plan. It was pretty clear they weren’t about to kill her yet. They could’ve done it already. She figured they were waiting for The Boss to arrive.
Why?
Her guess was that The Boss wanted to find out what she knew. And who else knew it. Then they’d kill her. Because these guys had killed before. At least five murders that Jordan knew about here in Tampa in the past three months.
No doubt they’d kill again without so much blinking. Unless she could escape first. Before The Boss showed up.
How much time did she have?
Then, she heard a familiar beeping from the other room. Her cell phone. A text message received.
She’d had her phone with her when she was running and she’d lost it in the scuffle. They must’ve grabbed it. Now it sounded like it was locked away inside a metal box. A file cabinet or something.
Pick up the phone, she willed. No such luck. A couple more beeps sounded.
How much time did she have until her phone died?
CHAPTER 19
Jordan had never had a problem with claustrophobia, but she was starting to understand it now. The tiled walls in the tiny bathroom seemed even closer somehow.
She leaned against a wall and pushed against it. Absolutely no effect on the size of the room, but it made her feel better.
Jordan had no watch, but through the small window she noticed the waning daylight and wondered what time it was.
The cold of the tile floor crept up her legs, and the peeling paint spooked her, too. She ripped a piece of paint off the walls, as if to show the room who was in charge. Her thinking was muddled, fanciful. Maybe she was still dehydrated.
She turned on the faucet until the water ran clear again. She cupped her hands for a long, indulgent swallow. Then she splashed her face again and dried off with her T-shirt.
“Take it one step at a time, Jordan. Don’t panic.” Her voice was stronger. So that was good. “No one will discover you’re missing until Thursday when you don’t show up for work. Be proactive. Figure it out.”
If only she could get a hold of her phone. Maybe after they went to sleep, she could send a text message.
“Yeah, right, Jordan. What are you going to wish for next? Get a grip.”
Jordan took a deep breath and did a few stretches to keep her muscles from hardening.
Still thinking about her phone, Jordan remembered something important. After she almost lost her phone in his pile of rotting leaves, Keith had installed a special app on her phone. He’d set the permissions so that he could track the phone’s location as long as it was turned on.
Maybe her technology-obsessed friend would notice she was missing and would think to find her. Fingers crossed.
A few minutes later, Jordan’s phone beeped the death signal—the alarming warning that it was out of battery and shutting off.
Keith’s ability to track her would die with it.
CHAPTER 20
Daylight faded to dusk, and Jordan’s stomach growled. Surely Hugo and crew must be getting hungry, too. The heavy-footed guy who left earlier was still out, as far as she knew. Maybe he’d be coming back with sandwiches. Thick, warm Cuban sandwiches…with plantain chips…and a Diet Coke.
Her stomach growled agai
n. Another handful of water was all she had to silence it.
She heard them talking rapidly in Spanish. She called out, “Anyone wanna go pick up sandwiches? My treat!”
She heard a pause, then laughter, followed by the ding of a cell phone and more rapid Spanish.
“The Boss messaged us. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.” Hugo said in English. “The Boss says, ‘Transport mission too dangerous. I come to you. Treat package carefully.’”
Jordan heard nothing but silence from the other room. Whatever they thought of the message from The Boss, they didn’t discuss it.
Possibly, she was the package. If they’d been ordered to treat her carefully, that meant The Boss wanted her alive. He’d ordered Hugo to keep her alive. Maybe.
But for how long? Could she escape before The Boss arrived? Because she knew for sure that after The Boss showed up, nothing good would happen.
Still, the news that she’d be okay for a while longer was welcome.
They were speaking Spanish now. Rapid communication, talking over each other. No way could her rusty language skills decipher any of it. But she heard what she hoped was the word pizza.
Jordan heard footsteps. One of them left the warehouse. Please let him be going to get pizzas. She felt like her stomach was beginning to consume itself.
Maybe half an hour later, the greasy aroma of cheese and pepperoni seeped into the bathroom through the crack under the door. Her stomach rumbled so loudly, they could probably hear it.
Pizza.
This was the time to start talking. From her best count, there were three or four men out there. Big, hungry men. They could devour multiple pizzas in no time.
“Excuse me,” she shouted from her little bathroom. “Would you happen to have any food?”
Raucous laughter.
She said, “I feel sick. You don’t want me to pass out. Right?” If The Boss had told them to take care of her, maybe they’d think about feeding her, at least.
“Shut up, zorra,” Gordo said around what sounded like a very full mouth of ooey gooey goodness.
