It was hard to ignore where she was. The night sounds of the jungle seemed mere inches away. Upon closer inspection when she had returned to her room, she glanced at the screen window closing off one wall from the jungle. It didn’t have a chance in hell of stopping something that truly wanted to get in her room. Besides parrots and monkeys and jaguars and tapirs, she wasn’t sure what else was out there. She couldn’t help but feel an ominous presence right outside, not far from where the tree line began.
Was the sisimite or the sihuanaba out there somewhere watching her and waiting?
To think that millionaires paid a fortune to sleep in this room seemed insanity to her right at that moment.
For the first time, Gabriella questioned coming to Guatemala. It wasn’t Disneyland. It wasn’t Cancun. This was about as far removed from her regular life as she could be. Had Donovan felt the same way on his many trips away from home? Did he, like she did, feel so incredibly distant from her real life, that it began to feel that her life in San Francisco was something she had dreamed? Did he feel this disconnect that made kissing another person not only feel wonderful, but right?
At the same time, her brief kiss with Nico felt like an enormous betrayal. She had to admit she’d been attracted to him back when she saw him at Lake Josephine before Donovan’s plane crash. Something about his scar and sensuous mouth. How did widows ever fall in love and marry again, especially ones who did so soon after a loved one had died?
She could see how under the right circumstances, spouses who traveled the majority of time for their jobs could easily stray. She’d never been jealous of the women Donovan worked with, but now she started to question everything she had once taken for granted.
Now that she had shared a kiss with another man for the first time in years, she understood. If Donovan had strayed, she already forgave him. If, one day she learned that on one of his many trips, he had grown lonely and succumbed to another woman, it would break her heart, but she would forgive him. He would probably be harder on himself than she was about it, trying to live with that guilt.
Thinking back, Gabriella remembered their last moments together, the last time they made love. No, he had never strayed. She would know. He was the type of man who wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he had betrayed her.
Could she live with herself for betraying his memory? The wedding vows said until death do us part, but without a body did that still hold true? Without proof positive how could she even consider being with another man? That was yet another reason this trip she was on was so crucial. She would never move on until she had done everything in her power to find Donovan’s remains.
Here, deep in the jungle, she felt like a whole new and different person. She wasn’t Gabriella the reporter. Or an Italian-American Catholic woman. Or Grace’s mama. Or “Ella” —Donovan’s wife. Here she was just Gabriella.
The fragility of life was apparent every second in this country. When a large tree blocked their Jeep, they were helpless to do anything on their own. This was a country where you depended on others. She was in a wild land with dangerous terrain and perils, such as poisonous snakes and spiders, wild animals and drug lords who would just as soon kill you as say hello. For the first time, she wondered if she had risked her life to come here. Had she risked making Grace an orphan?
But it was too late to turn back.
As she drifted off to sleep, her body betrayed her again. Nico’s hot mouth was on her own and his hard body pressed against hers, she jolted awake, flushed with desire and guilt. It had been months since a man had touched her. That explained why one kiss was driving her mad. Her body yearned to be touched and stroked and pleasured.
So, she laid back and instead imagined Donovan’s face and body as she caressed herself. But his image was hazy and vague and his features kept fading in and out.
The same thing had happened with his scent two months ago. For the first month he was gone, she could instantly recall his scent. Even when it had faded from his pillow and clothes, she could recall it in her memory so vividly, it came back to her and she could really smell him. The first time this happened, she was astonished, as if his ghost was in the room with her. She did some research on olfactory recall and found it was true. You could remember a scent so vividly that your nose thought it smelled it again.
Now, lying in her jungle bed, with the screeching of monkeys and birds and God knows, maybe jaguars, all around her, she tried with all her heart to bring Donovan’s face into focus before her closed eyelids.
Sometimes she’d be so close. She’d get a glimpse of his eyes as clear as day, but then the rest of his features would fade. She’d focus on the memory of his mouth, but then when her imagination moved up to his cheekbones and eyes, she’d see Nico’s ice blue eyes with thick black lashes.
Goddamn it.
She sat up, all lust fading, replaced by her grief and frustration. She couldn’t even remember what her husband’s face looked like. It was another cruel blow she hadn’t expected. She curled up, weeping, hugging herself, her stomach cramped in pain from her grief.
Finally, she fell into a deep heavy sleep, exhausted from crying.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Do not move an inch.”
The voice in her ear was low and deadly.
A scratchy palm held her forehead down on the pillow, pressing down hard. Another hand was on her chest, also pushing her into the mattress. And yet another hand that smelled of dirt and sweat was clasped over her mouth. At least two people. And something cold at her throat. She slowly opened her eyes. Beyond a flashlight beam, she could make out the silhouettes of at least three heads hovering over her bed.
One leaned down close to her ear for a second time.
“Don’t move or the blade will slice your throat. Do you understand? Blink once if you do.”
Fear shot through her body making her want to jump up and run, but she blinked.
“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. You scream. Blade cuts. Blink if you understand.”
Gabriella blinked once, slowly and deliberately.
“Good. I take my hand away now.” He spoke in a whisper still as he moved away from her head.
She couldn’t make out features on any of the faces, blinded by the flashlight beam.
“Now, you get up and get dressed. If you try to run or scream, we cut you. And then we must also kill Concetta and Manuel so they do not tell who killed you.”
Gabriella pressed her lips together tightly. They would kill the owners of the hostel if she tried to fight.
“If you do as we say, they sleep right through and we will let them be. Agree? You can nod.”
Gabriella nodded. She would go quietly. The threat to the owners was enough to ensure her silence and cooperation. These men knew that. Throwing her legs over the bed, she stood wearing the tank top and underwear she slept in.
One of the figures tossed her pants, boots, socks, and lightweight jacket on the bed.
She tugged on her clothes and boots and stood. She began to reach for her sunglasses and baseball cap on the nightstand beside the bed, but looked up waiting for permission until one of the men nodded his ascent.
Tugging the hat on, she tucked her sunglasses into her jacket pocket. She eyed her bags on the ground. One man noticed and sharply shook his head. No.
The man behind her gave her a slight shove.
Outside her room, she tripped on something on the walkway in the dark. It was too dark to see what it was. Someone grabbed her elbow to steady her. When the man did, his flashlight skittered across the floor and Gabriella gasped. The man clasped his hand across her mouth to stifle her scream. Rafael lay propped up near her door in the hall, his throat slit in a red smile, the front of his shirt soaked with blood.
Bile filled Gabriella’s mouth. Keep it together. She couldn’t fall apart. She had to keep her wits about her. If they wanted her dead, they would have already done so. Something else was going on.
Down
the stairs, a man in a ski mask taped her hands behind her and slapped a strip of duct tape across her mouth.
He dragged her toward the parking lot, tugging on her bound wrists to guide her. They passed the remains of their earlier campfire. Cristo’s legs were sticking out of the fire pit as if he had dived into it. She couldn’t see his torso or head, but when the wind shifted, Gabriella gagged on the smell of burning flesh. Fear shot through her.
Turning her head away she said a silent prayer for the two guides. But again, the fact that she was still alive must mean something. Did they think they could hold her for ransom? Maybe they knew The Saint was her father-in-law. He not only had money, but he had immense power.
Opening up the back doors of the van, the man gestured for Gabriella to step inside the darkness. Some primal fear stopped her short. A putrid smell and general evil emanated from that dark metal encased space. Horrible things had happened inside that van. Gabriella knew it as certainly as she knew her own name. Every cell in her body rebelled against getting any closer. Without giving her another chance to comply, the man grabbed her off the ground by her waist and in one fluid movement threw her inside. Without her arms to brace her fall, she landed heavily on one shoulder and yelped in pain behind the duct tape. As she turned to right herself, she felt another body underneath her. She jerked away but then breathed heavily in relief when she felt the body move.
Someone slammed the doors to the van shut and the vehicle moved with a jolt. Light from the dashboard filtered back to where she lay. Scooting around so she could face the other person she saw it was Nico. His eyes were calm and reassuring above his own strip of Duct tape. Without saying a word, they both maneuvered until they were sitting up, backs pressed against the van across from each other.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They drove through the night. The next morning, they stopped to let her and Nico go to the bathroom on the side of the road, eat some beans and rice and drink some water. The scrabbling sounds on the jungle floor seemed to grow louder as the sun rose.
The kidnappers untied them after the first stop.
“Where are they taking us?” Gabriella ripped off the tape across her mouth.
Nico shrugged and held his finger up to his lips gesturing toward the men in the front seats.
“Why?” She mouthed, emphasizing it with a shrug.
He shook his head.
They sat in silence. She arched her neck to see into the front seat. The man in the passenger seat turned to look at them every once in a while, but didn’t seem concerned about them trying to escape.
Two big guns, one on the passenger’s lap, were a good deterrent to any attempt at overpowering the men.
At one point, Gabriella crawled to the back of the van to check out the doors. They could only be opened from the outside. With a sigh, she moved back to her seat, closing her eyes and trying to sleep.
Gabriella worried that her mother and Grace would hear about the kidnapping and be frantic. Would the motel owners, if they truly were still alive, report the kidnapping?
Remembering how frail her mother had seemed that day at the pool worried her. What if the news that Gabriella was kidnapped caused a heart attack or stroke? It was hard to accept that Maria was growing old but it was reality. Gabriella wasn’t ready to lose her mother. Gabriella wished she had called her mother on the satellite phone when they landed. Rafael had said the batteries were weak and needed to be saved in case of an emergency so she had planned on calling home when they got to Uaxactun.
Now it was too late.
During their next stop, the sun had set and the jungle had grown chilly, so while Gabriella waited for the men to finish doing their business behind the van, she stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket. The jacket was new, bought specifically for the trip, so it was the first time she’d put her hands in the pockets. Now her fingers closed around what felt like a small envelope with something inside. She pulled it out and in the light from the headlights saw it said, “Gabriella” in her mother’s familiar handwriting. Quickly, before the men returned to bind her hands, she tucked the envelope into a zippered pocket on her cargo pants where it wouldn’t fall out.
During the next stop, at dawn, Gabriella crept deeper into the woods for privacy. The men didn’t say anything to her so she went even further. After doing her business, she peered through the dense jungle and couldn’t see the men or road or hear them.
She turned and ran.
Branches and leaves slapped against her face as she darted blindly into the forest. After a few seconds, she heard a shout. She ran faster. Her boots oozed into deep mud and she realized she was in some wetlands so she changed course, straining to hear the men chasing her. Once she was on dry ground again, she paused for a second to catch her breath and tried to hear the men. She couldn’t hear a thing but she knew they weren’t far behind.
She ran toward what seemed to be a brighter patch of jungle. As she did, she heard an odd sounding whistle and knew it was one of the men signaling the other. Then, a whistle from the other side. They were close. They were flanking her and closing in.
Rounding a bend, she saw ice blue water of a river and then a small waterfall pouring down what almost seemed like large stone steps.
Now she could hear the men. The river looked too deep to cross and there was a larger waterfall below. She headed toward the small waterfall and carefully scaled the stone steps to the top. There, the water was shallow enough to cross. She splashed her way across and paused on the opposite shore, looking down at where she had come from. The two men, holding their guns in front of them, stood on the banks of the river looking downstream. She ducked into the forest, hoping they didn’t see her.
Continuing to head upstream on an animal path that seemed to flank the river, Gabriella ran until her face was bloody with scratches and her sides ached.
Then she saw something that made her freeze.
Ahead, was a small stone ruin rising from the jungle, covered in ivy and overgrown plants. It was only eight feet tall.
It was the top of a ruin sticking out of a hillside that had formed around it. As soon as she got to the ruin, something in the atmosphere seemed off, as if the pressure had increased. Her skin prickled with fear. Was someone watching her? It felt like somebody was there but she turned in a circle, squinting into the dark jungle around her, seeing nothing.
But the ominous feeling wouldn’t leave. She felt disoriented, as if she had lost her sense of direction. She peered into the fronds of leaves. Had she come from that direction? She whirled and looked to the other side. Or had she come from there? Think. She couldn’t flee the way she had come or she’d smack right into the two men chasing her. She listened for any sound that the men were close but didn’t hear anything. That’s when she realized what was off, what was wrong.
Here in this small clearing with the ruin, the jungle animals had grown deathly silent. The familiar cacophony of scrabbling creatures on the jungle floor, the singing and cawing of birds in the canopy above, and the other deeper animal noises had all ceased as soon as she set foot in the clearing.
Across the clearing, twenty feet away, off to one side of the jumble of ruins, she saw something in the bushes that looked like a person. Stepping out of the bright sunlight and into the shadows of the clearing had probably affected her eyesight. She squinted until her eyes adjusted but she didn’t see any movement. Still, there was a pale round spot in the middle of some greenery, almost like a face peering out at her. She took a step closer, eyes narrowed, trying to focus on the whitish round circle that was some five feet above the ground. She took another step and saw it was a face. A ghoulish, skeletal face. She gasped. As she did, the face disappeared, greenery closing around where it had once been.
The faintest clicking noise to one side sent terror spurting through her. She whirled in fear, expecting to see something standing on the top of the ruin, watching her, but there was nobody and nothing there.
When she turned
back, she nearly screamed. The two gunmen stood at the edge of the clearing watching her. Not saying a word.
One man gestured with his head that she should come their way.
She shook her head slowly.
The other man lifted his gun and beckoned with his other hand for her to come their way. She narrowed her eyes, confused.
The two gunmen were not talking. They also were not entering the clearing.
One of them shot a look at the other and she realized they were terrified. Petrified of something in the clearing and unwilling to enter it.
For a second, she wrote it off to superstitious natives, but then such an icy cold chill ran down her back that she nearly screamed. Instead she swallowed back her fear.
Something wasn’t right here. Some primordial evil lived here. She knew it just like she knew there was a sun in the sky.
Making the sign of the cross, she closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, all she saw were the two men. Both had leveled their guns at her threateningly. One put his hand on the trigger. Even from across the small clearing, she could see sweat drip down his cheek. It wasn’t from the heat.
He gave her a look, a warning.
She nodded and headed their way. As soon as she reached the edge of the clearing, one man grabbed her jacket and yanked her deeper into the woods. They pushed her until the clearing was nearly twenty feet behind them, just a bright spot in the dark jungle. They stopped and one man slapped a strip of tape back on her mouth, yanked her hands behind her back and cinched them together. All the while, she watched the other man, who kept darting nervous glances back at the clearing, biting his lip, sweat still pouring down his temples.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When they got back to the road, the kidnappers flung open the door and shoved her into the back of the van, where Gabriella landed with a thud.
Blessed are the Peacemakers Page 6
