Taken (17 page)

“Oh, right! Tell that to my father!”

“I swear! I swear that is true. And I’ll prove it to you. I was going to let you go tonight no matter what. Even if Reyes said not to. Even if Monnonk said not to. I was going to find a way to set you free.”

We both looked back at the field. The dome light inside the Mercedes was on again.

Dessi bent and looked in my eyes. “So you got
yourself
free. So let’s keep going. I’ll go with you; I’ll help you.”

I looked down the country road into endless darkness. I was desperate enough to ask him, “Where? Where can I go?”

He pointed at the row of trees. “There are houses down there, houses for the fruit pickers. Dozens of them. You can hide out in one. Then I’ll call for help on the two-way.”

I stared hard at Dessi, wanting to believe him. In the end, I had no choice. I said, “All right. Come on. Let’s run.”

Dessi jumped down and landed beside me. He cupped his hand under my arm. We climbed out the other side of the ditch and started running down a narrow path between rows of citrus trees. Both of us tripped and stumbled on the clots of dirt and the tall weeds, but we made steady progress.

Then we heard Albert’s voice ringing sharp and clear: “Neve!” We froze until we realized the voice was coming through the two-way. “Neve! Where are you? Where’s Charity?”

Dessi pulled the two-way out of his pocket. Albert continued, in a shrill tone, “Neve! Where are you? You better answer me, or you’ll regret it!”

Dessi looked at me. “What should I do?”

I pointed toward a space between two trees. “Throw it in there. He might use it to trace us.”

Dessi didn’t hesitate. He flipped it away in a sidearm motion that sent the two-way crashing into the dark undergrowth. Then we started running again. When we reached the end of the row, we found ourselves outside a circle of six wooden houses all resting on cinder blocks, all painted light blue.

Dessi stared at them for a moment, then decided: “No. Not enough cover. Not enough houses. Let’s keep going.” So we ran on, up a hill, to the edge of a blacktop road. “We’re not very far from Mangrove,” he told me. “We drove around for a while so you wouldn’t know where you were. Do you think you can run for five more minutes?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

We climbed up onto the roadway and turned left. I ran as hard as I could, two steps ahead of Dessi, who kept turning to check for the ambulance/truck. When he finally did see its headlights, he grabbed my arm and jerked me to the right. We fell and rolled down an embankment, crashing to a stop in some sharp branches.

Dessi whispered, “Keep your head down. Don’t look at them, and don’t move.” The white truck drove by, slowly. When it was safely past us, he said, “We have to find a place to hide you, fast.”

We struggled to our feet and looked around. A cluster of cement houses lay thirty meters to the right. We ran toward them. The houses appeared to be abandoned. Beyond them were some old trailers arranged in a haphazard line. Some of the trailers were inhabited. We could hear faint sounds coming from them, and we could see the blue glows of vidscreens.

Dessi said, “This will have to do. We’ll hide you inside one of these empty houses. I’ll check out the trailers. I’ll find a friendly house that’ll let me make a call. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Dessi said, “Point to a house. Now! Don’t even think about it.”

I pointed to the fourth one. We ran to its front door and tried the knob. The door pushed open with a low creak. The light from the half moon peeked in through the door and through a cracked front window, but only for about three meters. The rest of the house was in complete blackness, like a monster’s cave.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the low light, and it was not a pleasant sight. The house had been abandoned for so long that it was returning to nature. Weeds were growing up through cracks in the cement floor. Spiderwebs and animal nests filled every corner. I could not see bugs, or rodents, or other animals, but I could hear them scurrying.

Dessi whispered, “Stay away from the door and the window. Stay as far from the front as you can.” I peered, terrified, into the blackness before me. He added, “I think I heard some Creole in that first trailer. Maybe they’re my
frès.
Maybe they’ll let me make a call. All right?”

I stammered, “All right.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So I’m going now.”

I grabbed his arm. “Listen, Dessi?”

“What?”

“I want to thank you.”

“All right.”

“And I want to tell you what I’ve been thinking.”

“All right, but hurry.”

“I was thinking that this is exactly what Ramiro would do.”

“That’s what you’re thinking!”

“Yes.”

“Well, start thinking about surviving; about keeping away from the front; about keeping your head down.”

“Okay. All right.” I lowered my head immediately and turned toward the back.

Then Dessi tried to leave, but he never got past the first step. I could feel him freeze just a meter away from me. Instinctively, I turned back to see what had happened. As soon as I did, I stifled a scream.

A big, menacing figure now stood before Dessi, blocking his getaway. And there was no question who it was—Albert.

Dessi stammered, “How? How did you get here?”

Albert raised one hand up and pointed at Dessi’s U of Miami sweatshirt. He spoke calmly. “I’ll show you. Empty your left pocket.”

Dessi and I exchanged a hopeless look. Then he slowly obeyed. He held something up in his hand, something too small for me to see clearly.

Albert told him, “It wasn’t hard to track you, Neve.”

Dessi was suddenly outraged. “The GTD! You planted that on me! How could you?”

“Keep your voice down.”

Dessi held the little ball bearing up. “This is what you think of me? This is how much you trust me?”

Albert spoke quizzically: “What are you saying? That you didn’t lose your nerve? That you didn’t just betray us and run away?”

“I thought this was about trust. And respect.” Dessi threw the ball bearing at his uncle’s feet. “This is not respect!”

Albert took one step back. He reached to his left and pulled in a bag from outside. A large black trash bag. Even in the dim light, I could see that it was packed to the ripping point with currency.

He held it out toward Dessi. “
This
is what it was about. And it’s time to take your share.”

Dessi now seemed on the verge of tears. “Oh, is that right? I thought it was about my mother, and you, and me.” He took two steps forward and, with a karate-like kick, knocked the bag right out of Albert’s hand. Wads of tightly bound multicolored bills spilled out onto the cement floor.

I thought to myself,
That’s what Ramiro Fortunato would have done, too.

Albert leaned over calmly. He picked up the wads of paper and stuffed them back into the bag. Dessi and I exchanged another quick, desperate look. Did we dare to make a run for it? I backed a little farther into the house, looking for a possible way out through the blackness. I looked hard at the rear wall, but I could see nothing, not even a window.

When I turned around again, there was a second figure blocking the doorway.

Dr. Reyes had come up behind Albert. He was carrying a black bag, too, but it wasn’t filled with currency. I knew what it was from the time I spent in my father’s office. It was a doctor’s emergency bag.

Albert stepped toward us. He spoke softly to Dessi. “Don’t you understand, Neve? It’s over now. We have succeeded.”

Dessi spat back, “Succeeded?”

“Yes. Take your share of the currency. It’s a small fortune. Take it and build yourself a new life.”

Dessi’s eyes flashed. “No!” He kicked at the bag again, but Albert pulled it away quickly. “No! I won’t take one cent of it. And neither should you.”

Albert set the bag on the floor behind him. He mumbled, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I do feel that way! We lied and robbed and killed to get that. We hurt innocent people. That money is poison!”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is! Don’t you take it, either, Monnonk, or you will be damned. Do you hear me? You will be condemned to death, and executed, and damned to hell!”

Albert answered quietly, “I’m so sorry it came to this, Neve.” His hands moved lightning fast. He grabbed Dessi by the left arm. Dessi tried to fight back, swinging his right arm and landing a glancing blow to the back of Albert’s head, but it had no effect. Albert was too big and too well trained. He twisted Dessi around and pinned both his arms behind him. Then he forced him across the floor, toward Dr. Reyes.

Dr. Reyes reached into his medical bag. He held up a syringe in the moonlight. He tapped at the liquid within.

I screamed “No!” and launched myself at Albert. He turned himself so that I crashed with all my fury into his back and bounced right off.

I had no effect on him, either.

I screamed again, for all I was worth, but it didn’t matter. Dr. Reyes calmly plunged the needle into Dessi’s arm.

Dessi struggled for a few seconds, and then it was all over. I watched him fall lifeless to the floor.

Dr. Reyes put the needle back into the bag. With his free hand, he took hold of Dessi’s sweatshirt while Albert took hold of his feet. They dragged him just beyond the doorway, where Albert hefted his body up and bent it over his right shoulder. Then Albert carried him off.

All I could do was whisper, “Thank you for helping me, Dessi.”

Dr. Reyes remained in the doorway, blocking my escape.

I knew that I was next. He would kill me next. What could I possibly do about it? Could I hurl myself through the front window? That would lacerate my face, but I might get through; I might hit the ground running; I might have a chance.

Dr. Reyes was staring at me. Hideous. Small. Evil. And I thought,
No, damn it. I’m not running from him to die beside the road like a stray dog. He’s a common thief. A murderer. I am better than him.

I dared to look him in the eye. I would not be cowardly at the end of my life; I would be defiant. I would be brave—like Patience, like Victoria, like Ramiro. I told him boldly, “So you got your trash bag, full of trash. Congratulations. That’s all it is, you know. Dirty paper with dirty ink on it. It’s trash. And so are you.”

Dr. Reyes closed up his medical bag and laid it down. He took one step toward me and held out one hand in a “calm down” gesture.

I sneered, “So what are you going to do now? Reload and kill me? Or is Albert next? Is that it? A big surprise for Albert? You don’t need him anymore. Will you stick a needle in him? Then me? Then everyone will be dead but you. And who are you?” I hocked up what little liquid I had left in my throat, leaned forward, and spat on the floor like I had seen Victoria do. “You are a small, ugly, evil man with a big bag full of trash.”

He lowered his hand and, to my surprise, spoke. “Who am I?” He held both hands out. “I am a fellow passenger to the grave.”

He straightened his back. It must have been a trick of the moonlight, but he actually seemed to grow taller in the process.

He peeled off his surgical scrub shirt and then his pants, revealing a white cotton T-shirt and blue jeans beneath. He reached his right hand up and, in swift, methodical gestures, pulled off his surgical cap and mask, his dark glasses, and finally a black wig.

Then he stood before me, immobile, daring me to believe my own eyes.

Oh my God,
I thought to myself, too stunned to even whisper the words aloud. My whole body shook back and forth with one great spasm of shock, like I’d been standing in a field where they had tested a nuclear bomb.

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open. For there before me, risen from the depths of Deep Lake, was my father, Dr. Hank Meyers.

After a long, long pause, I managed to whisper, “You…No. You’re dead.”

“No. Not dead. I’m alive.”

“I saw you die. In the lake.”

“No. You saw a helicopter crash.”

“Your helicopter.”

“My drone. With no one in it. My drone, made to look like the real thing; shown from far enough away to look like the real thing.”

I went on whispering, like I was talking to myself. “I saw you get in the real one. At the helipad.”

“Yes, but you didn’t see me get out. I landed it on the floodwall of Deep Lake. I put my shoulder under the fuselage, and I tipped the whole thing into the water. Then you saw me walk to the ambulance.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” He held up the Dr. Reyes mask and wig. “Dressed like this.”

“But…But you couldn’t have. You drove there with us, in the ambulance.”

“No. I didn’t. Neve opened and closed the door and made noise like I was getting in. But I wasn’t there. He was up front alone.”

I stood, working my jaw, for a full minute before I finally allowed the thought to get through. “You’re not dead.”

He dropped the costume to the floor. “To the rest of the world, I am. And I’m going to stay that way. But not for you. Not for you.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain that soon. It’ll take some time, though. For now, I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to think I was dead. I’m sorry you had to get so sick. I’m sorry for all that bad stuff.”

I started babbling random words directly from my brain. “How? Why? What?”

Albert came back in, alone. He took one glance at my face and said, “It looks like you told her.”

My father’s voice answered, “I told her the basic fact. We need to talk at length, Charity, but not here. We can wait until we get back to the house.”

A syllogism started running through my head:
People are either alive or dead. My father is not dead. Therefore…

Albert picked up the trash bag full of currency and started out the door. I had no idea what to do next, so I followed him, walking zombie-like out to the waiting truck. Albert stashed the bag in the back. Then he and I climbed in. I sat on the front seat, while he slipped behind me and sat on a jump seat. I whispered, “Where’s…”

Albert assured me, “He’s on the stretcher.”