She wondered if whoever was watching her through the camera saw her afterward, tossing and turning in the sheets with her lust.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
This morning Monica didn’t wake Donovan with her soft kisses. Instead, a man in a white suit and dark sunglasses strutted in and ordered Donovan to stand. Two other men followed, one holding a machine gun he pointed at Donovan, his finger casually resting on the trigger. This man was wiry and fidgety, which made Donovan more nervous than he might have been just seeing the gun. The gunman’s finger was trembling, twitchy, on the trigger.
Without a word, one man yanked Donovan’s hands behind his back and tied them with something that felt like a bungee cord. He pulled what looked like a feedbag tight over Donovan’s head.
This was it. He couldn’t recognize the woman in the photo and they were done with him. Donovan swallowed back the metallic taste of fear that filled his mouth. He never knew fear had a taste before. He was disappointed to find that he was petrified to die. He’d always thought he was tougher, braver than this, but right now his knees were in danger of completely giving out, sending him plunging to the concrete floor.
A hand on his back prodded him to walk. He jerked along, worried he would slam into a wall or barrier he couldn’t see.
Donovan repressed his urge to struggle. If he tried to get away from the men, in this basement, the man with the gun would shoot him on the spot. It would be messy and not ideal, but that twitching finger on the trigger would not hesitate. Better to wait and try to figure out a way to escape outside somewhere as they led him to his grave.
Donovan tried to take a step and then tripped, falling forward but yanked back by his wrists. He realized they were at the stairs leading out of the basement. Feeling his way with his toe, he managed to scale the stairs.
Hushed voices greeted his caravan as they made their way through the house. Donovan could feel cold stone under his bare feet. Just when he felt the cool morning breeze of an open door or window hit his face, someone kneeled by his feet and pushed his feet into slip on shoes. Briefly, he considered kneeing the person in the face, but the thought that it might be an innocent person, such as a maid, dissuaded him. Not to mention the feel of the automatic weapon’s barrel between his shoulder blades.
Why did they care if he had shoes on as they led him to his assassination?
Outside, he stumbled down a few more stairs, with someone gripping his elbows and then he was pushed into the back of a car. He lay there until he felt someone push in beside him. Damn. He started to sit up but was shoved back down into a reclining position.
He strained his ears to listen as they drove. It sounded and felt like the vehicle went from pavement to gravel to dirt. After about fifteen minutes, the car stopped. Donovan was yanked out of his seat and the bag was ripped off his head.
He squinted against the brightness of the sun filtering in through the rainforest canopy above. They were in a small clearing. The man in the white suit led the way, looking back for Donovan to follow.
“Vamos.” Let’s go.
The man with the gun followed, although he didn’t stick the gun against Donovan’s back.
The man in the suit led the way through the brush, letting the branches flap back and sting against Donovan’s arms. They were hiking up a slight hill and Donovan was soon sweating and winded. He hadn’t done more than a few push-ups during his captivity the past few months. Although at first, he had started an exercise regime to stay in shape, depression had soon taken over, leaving him lying on his bed for hours, unable to motivate himself to do anything but drift off.
The only activity he looked forward to each day was Monica’s visit where they would spend at least an hour wrapped in one another’s arms. Her presence was the only thing keeping him going.
He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know how he had got there.
The only clues were snapshots in his dreams that were so hazy he couldn’t tell if they were memory or his imagination. They’d told him he was a spy, but he kept getting glimpses of himself in a police officer uniform. And one shocking dream about seeing a group of men gathered around a body in a parking lot, firing bullets into the person.
That was the worst part. For some reason the majority of his memories involved some sort of dead body. It made him wonder if he was an assassin. In one dream, he stood over a beautiful woman on the floor of a cave. Her eyes were wide and unstaring and she had a bullet hole through her forehead.
He would wake from these dreams screaming and sweating.
Now, as the two men led him through the jungle, he knew he would die without figuring out who he was. When the man in front of him pulled up short, Donovan inhaled sharply.
The wreckage site. The body of the plane was somewhat intact. It looked like an eight-seater. There had to be other bodies or victims or survivors somewhere.
Something about the wreckage site made him ill. He leaned over and vomited, some repressed memory of the crash obviously didn’t sit well with him. The only thing he remembered was coming to on the ground. When he had regained consciousness, the first thing he had seen was a man crouched over him peering into his face. He sat up and looked around, having no idea who he was or where he was or what had happened. Then he saw the plane. Another man was leaning over it. A third man was dragging a body down a hill away from them. The body was bloody and nearly decapitated. Donovan leaned over and vomited onto the jungle floor.
When Donovan looked up again a man took off running in the woods, as if he were tracking something or someone.
A gunman kept kicking Donovan asking, “¿Dónde está el?” Where is he?
“¿Quien?” Who? Donovan kept asking.
The man kicked him in the ribs until Donovan passed out. Later, when he came around again, the man who had run into the woods was back, shaking his head.
He said something in Spanish, spitting on the ground, and the man who had kicked him, leaned down to prop Donovan up against a tree trunk. He gave him a water jug and then put crude bandages on Donovan’s cuts. Donovan was too sick and exhausted to protest or move. When they helped him stand, he realized his ankle was injured, making it painful to walk. The men helped him down the steep hillside and put him in the back of a car, tugging a bag over his head. He struggled, but felt the butt of a rifle sharp against his temple and then only saw black.
The next time he woke, he was in his basement prison.
This was the first time he’d been outdoors in the months of his captivity. Filling his lungs with fresh air, along with the warmth of the sun and the cool touch of a light breeze on his body made him want to weep. He hadn’t realized how much he missed being outside until this exact moment. It was a good thing they were going to kill him because now going back in that basement would be too much, too tough to take. If they hadn’t brought him out here to kill him and tried to put him back in that dark, dank basement, he would fight and they would kill him then anyway.
Donovan glanced over at that man with the gun. He leaned lazily on a tree trunk, eyelids half slit. The other man was poking around at the wreckage site, kneeling to dig through a backpack that had obviously already been searched.
Every once in a while, the men shot a glance at Donovan. He didn’t know what they expected of him or what they were waiting for. He stared hard at the plane, hoping that some type of memory would flood his consciousness, but the only memory of this spot he had was when the men found him. He walked over to the plane, expecting to be stopped at any second, but the man near the fuselage backed up and gestured for Donovan to go ahead.
Donovan peered inside, searching for anything that looked familiar. Nothing. It was just the inside of a plane. With a few bits of metal streaked with rusty dried blood. Two backpacks were outside the plane, but had been turned upside down and emptied out. He crouched awkwardly nearly tipping over to peer at the contents scattered on the ground. Donovan was sure most of the belongings already had been scavenged.
&nb
sp; After a few minutes, he heard some rustling in the brush. Then a face appeared. This man wore a Mardi gras mask and spoke heavily-accented English. Donovan saw that every bit of the man’s skin was covered. Even his hands were covered in black silk gloves. Six men with automatic rifles flanked him.
As the masked man stepped into the small clearing, the two men with automatic rifles stood to either side of him.
The masked man stood eerily still until everyone had settled and were watching him expectantly. Then he spoke.
“Good day, Mr. Donovan.”
Donovan drew back with a jolt. His name was Donovan. He knew the man was right to call him that, but he shook his head in disbelief. That was his name, but he still didn’t have a clue who he was.
“You act surprised,” the man said, cracking his knuckles beneath the thin gloves. “Do you recognize your name?”
Donovan nodded, at a loss for words.
“That is your last name.”
Donovan raised an eyebrow.
“Your first name is Sean.”
The name sent a chord of longing and heartache through him. His name was Sean Donovan. He couldn’t help it; he mouthed the name to himself in wonder.
The man saw and chuckled.
“Sean Donovan, this is where we found you. Do you remember anything about this plane or the crash or who you were with?”
Donovan slowly shook his head. He didn’t want to tell this man but the moment he heard his name out loud, a sharp memory returned: a woman with red hair, dressed in black, looking down at him and crooning his name—Sean Donovan—in a soothing voice with an Irish accent.
“I’m going to have you remain here for about another hour to see if anything comes back to you. It is very important that you remember these details. Maybe now that you know your name some of your memory will come back.”
The man turned and disappeared into the jungle again. His bodyguards waited a few seconds, glaring at Donovan as if he were going to run after the man and attack him. Then they also turned and disappeared into the jungle.
Walking around the crash site, Donovan kicked half-heartedly at the leaves that had fallen from the trees, hoping to unearth some clue. Nothing appeared on the ground, but something did catch his eye near the foot of a small tree.
He shot a glance at the gunman guarding him. The man had his eyes closed behind his sunglasses and was breathing deeply. He was asleep. The man in the white suit had wandered deeper into the jungle. He could hear the rustling brush as the man walked.
For a split-second Donovan thought about taking his chances and running through the jungle, but right when he did, he heard the other man nearby whistling. Maybe he could outrun one gun, but not two.
Instead, he continued casually kicking up dirt and poking around, leaning to look at this and that. Making sure the men weren’t watching, Donovan casually leaned down near the tree. He cupped the small rectangular piece of white laminated paper in his and slipped it into the waistband of his pants without glancing at it.
The sun hung low in the sky before they led Donovan through the jungle and back into the basement. Once the door shut on what had become his home, Donovan was filled with relief.
It surprised him. He’d tried to escape from the basement for weeks. And yet when they returned him here, he was happy.
It was because he was still alive.
They hadn’t meant to kill him. They were just trying to jog his memory. But it hadn’t worked. The only memory that had come to Donovan in the rainforest had been the face of a red-haired woman. Sitting on his futon, he wondered if the woman had been his mother.
As he undressed for bed, the white laminated card fell onto the floor. He quickly stooped to read it. It had his name and picture and read Drug Enforcement Agency. He was a DEA agent, not a cop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Gabriella paused in the doorway of the kitchen.
She spent a while in the bathroom smudging makeup under her eyes to create dark circles. Watching Esmeralda dry a large ceramic bowl, she leaned against the doorjamb and exaggerated a large and loud yawn.
Esmeralda looked up and smiled, setting the bowl down and drying her hands on the dishcloth. “Pobrecita. Mucho sueno?”
“Si,” Gabriella said. “I cannot sleep though. I have nightmares about my mother and my daughter. Can you please help me? I need to sleep. I am starting to think crazy thoughts.”
Esmeralda nodded. “Si, no sleep makes crazy people. It is torture in some countries.”
“Can you help me?
Esmeralda wrinkled her nose and tilted her head. “Como?”
Gabriella mimed putting pills from a cupped palm into her mouth and drinking a glass of water. “Pills. To help me sleep. Please.”
Looking off into the distance, Esmeralda frowned. “Possible. Later.”
Gabriella gave her a grateful smile and went back to her room.
A few hours later, Esmeralda knocked at her door. When Gabriella opened it, Esmeralda looked both ways furtively and then slipped two pills into Gabriella’s hand, patting her closed fingers. “Shhh.”
“Gracias.” As soon as Gabriella closed the door, she hurried to the bathroom, shut the door, turned on the taps, and carefully folded the pills in a few squares of tissue paper, tucking it far back in a drawer that contained clean washcloths.
She did that every night for a week until Esmeralda didn’t show up one night.
Gabriella stopped in the kitchen on the way to the pool one morning.
Without Gabriella saying a word, Esmeralda shook her head fervently. “No mas pills.”
“Okay.”
EARLIER, GABRIELLA had started a load of laundry in the room down the hall, but the clothes were still drying, so when Nico came to her room, instead of wearing her faded tank top and a pair of cotton shorts, Gabriella had searched through the big walk in closet for something else to wear. There was nothing really casual. Most were outfits fancier than she would wear to a formal dinner. Finally, she decided on a long black dress with tiny straps and a low-cut neck in a soft cotton material. She slipped that on, kept her feet and face bare and her hair loose.
When Gabriella opened the door, Nico stepped back and took her in from her feet to her eyes. She could feel her cheeks flush.
Turning away, she headed for her usual spot on the floor in front of the fireplace, with her back up against a small sofa. Nico followed her lead and started to build the fire as he normally did.
But tonight, when he handed her a tumbler of whiskey, his fingers lingered on hers. She tried to brush it off, but the room was crackling with their chemistry. It was impossible to ignore. Tonight, they spoke in low tones, almost languidly about their childhoods.
And then Gabriella asked something that sent Nico leaping to his feet.
He was talking about learning to swim in the ocean.
“I was such a natural, unlike my son—” he immediately shut his mouth.
“You’re a father?” Gabriella was astonished. She’d spent so many nights talking about being a mother to Grace. She’d shared details about how difficult it had been to get pregnant. How horrific it had been when a madman had kidnapped her daughter. How Grace was her life and how becoming a mother had changed her forever. And yet, he had never once mentioned he was a parent, as well. She’s assumed he was childless.
He jumped to his feet and started tearing at his hair, pacing. Not looking at her.
She watched him, confused.
Finally, he stopped pacing and knelt beside her. “I cannot speak of this now.”
And like he did every night, he gently kissed her cheek and left. But this time he left hours before the sunrise, leaving Gabriella to toss and turn until dawn, wondering what secrets her new friend was keeping.
Lying in bed, watching the sun rise through the windows to the east, Gabriella found herself face down on her bed, sobbing. Her mother was dying. Donovan was dead. She should just admit it. And for some reason, her captors were keepi
ng her. They had not told her of any demands or hinted that she would ever go home again. Not knowing why they were keeping her prisoner was driving her crazy. And she had to face facts:
This was her life now.
She’d been here at least a month, although it was easy to lose track. Her mother must have told Grace she was dead. Her mother might be dead now, too. Gabriella was never going to see either of them alive again. The three people she loved most in the world were out of her reach, most likely forever. The realization sent a new wave of despair through her.
She would die without the chance to make it up to Grace. To make amends for her angry outburst. Without a chance to dote on her daughter and listen to every precious word that came out of her daughter’s mouth. She would die without being able to say goodbye to her mother, to hold her and thank her for everything.
Her tears were also for her guilt. She’d been a terrible mother to Grace the past few months. After Donovan disappeared, she’d effectively ignored her daughter. The realization hit her like a punch in the gut. Grace had tried to share bits of her day, but Gabriella had tuned it all out, pretending to listen and instead, drowning in her own sea of grief. Now, she could see that Grace saw how unimportant she was during those moments. It was clear that she knew her mother was annoyed by the small interruptions throughout their evening. Grace could probably tell her mother was counting the minutes until she could escape interacting with her daughter and fall into the deep blissful oblivion those sleeping pills brought her in her dark bedroom.
Gabriella cried and begged God for the chance to show Grace her love and to see her mother before she died, if she still was alive. She prayed for another chance where she would never for one second take her precious daughter’s presence for granted, but would instead cherish every moment.
Blessed are the Peacemakers Page 10
