Chapter 48
“Come on, honey, wake up,” a voice said, but Eddy just snuggled deeper into her blankets. It was cool outside. Fall was her favorite season. She loved the earthy scents, the vibrant colors, the taste of spiced cider and— “That’s an order, Edwards!”
She opened her eyes with a snap, but it hardly mattered. The room where she lay was as dark as a cave. She tried to roll onto her side, but her arms were confined behind her. Craning her neck, she glanced behind her. A chain was attached to her wrists and was strung through a ring set in the solid rock wall. Panic flooded her. She jerked her hands.
“Look at me.” The voice from beside her was as quiet as river water, but terror washed the sound away. “Edwards, look at me.”
She stilled her movements and turned her head to the left. Durrand was leaning against the wall, knees bent, arms bound behind his back. Blood or some other dark substance caked his face and crackled on his neck.
“Breathe,” he ordered.
“You’re alive.” They were, possibly, the dumbest words she had ever spoken, but it felt good to release them, freeing somehow, allowing her to inhale more readily.
“Take it easy,” he said, “Just relax for a minute.”
“Are you nuts?” she asked and shifted her gaze along the rock wall. “I’m chained in a cave with no—” Her throat hurt when she gasped.
“Don’t look at it,” Durrand demanded but she couldn’t help it. Manacled to the rock, not fifteen feet away, was a decomposing body. It sat with its back against the stone. A stick protruded from its right eye.
“Edwards…” Durrand’s voice was low and steady. “Look away.”
It took everything she had to close her eyes, to turn her head, to steady her breathing. For a moment, she thought she would vomit, but she refused the weakness and exhaled shakily. “I think you might have been right about Señor Tevio,” she said.
“I wasn’t even going to say I told you so.”
“Durrand…” She opened her eyes, avoided glancing at the corpse and settled her gaze on his. “I’m sorry.”
“For saving my life when I was dumb enough to get shot in the chest?”
She shook her head.
“I sure as hell hope it’s not for the sex.”
She tried to laugh and failed. “I don’t want to die here.” Her voice sounded pitifully weak, embarrassingly shaky.
“We’re not going to.”
“He did,” she rasped and couldn’t resist shifting her gaze sideways.
“He’s not us,” Durrand said, but horror made it impossible to focus on his words. “Edwards, look at me.”
She did so with difficulty.
“You’re strong,” he said. “Incredible. Nothing stops you once you—”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“You’ve beaten carjackers and drug runners and the Amazon already. What’s a pair of manacles and a leg wound compared to that?”
“My leg—”
“Is fine,” he said. “It’ll heal.”
“How do you know?”
“If it had hit the femoral artery, you’d already be dead.”
She nodded. “Anyone ever tell you that you really know how to make a girl feel better?”
“No,” he said. “Never.”
Her laugh ended on a sob. Her gaze was being pulled back toward the corpse.
“Focus on me, Edwards.”
She did so with an effort.
“Inhale,” he ordered.
She tried, then coughed. The air was heavy with decay.
“Exhale.”
That was more successful.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he promised. She nodded though she didn’t really know why. “Eventually, someone will come to check on us,” he added. “You’ll be half naked.”
“What?”
“You will have removed your shirt.”
“Why?” Her voice sounded childish to her own ears.
“To distract the guard.”
She blinked. “Won’t it seem…” She shook her head. “Suspicious?”
“You will have used it as a tourniquet for your leg.”
She nodded again. The movement felt a little more fluid. “What if he doesn’t care?”
“That you’re half naked?”
Another nod. This one was almost normal.
“Maybe you haven’t looked in the mirror lately.” His voice was soft.
She scowled. “I don’t know—” she began, but he interrupted her.
“He’ll care,” he said, voice firm again. “He’ll forget all about me and go straight to you. That’s when I’ll grab him.”
“What if there’s more than one?”
“I’ll shoot them with the gun I take off the first guy.”
She nodded, trying to believe, but her mind stuttered with uncertainty. “What if he doesn’t get close enough?”
“He will.”
“What if—”
“Holy God, Edwards, I’ve got a head wound. One more question could kill me. Ease up, will—”
A noise from above startled them both. They twisted toward the sound.
Eddy shook her head, frantic, unprepared. But a door was opening. Footsteps were descending. She snapped her attention back to Durrand. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. He twitched.
“Durrand!”
He shifted his gaze to hers and reached frantically toward her, but suddenly his hand fell away. His eyes rolled toward the ceiling and his head smacked hard against the wall behind him.
“Durrand?” She whispered his name. Terror ripped her asunder. “Durrand!”
He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. His eyes were wide and sightless, his mouth ajar.
“Durrand, no. Don’t!” A sob escaped her lips. “I can’t—”
“So he is dead.”
She jerked her attention to the left. Two men stood against the far wall.
“Help him,” she pleaded then switched to Spanish and tried again.
But they laughed. “I do not think so, señorita.”
“Please,” she said but the second man shrugged. Stepping forward, he kicked Durrand’s booted foot. It jiggled lifelessly.
“Why would we shoot him if we wished for him to live?” he asked and smiled at her. “You, though, look well worth saving.”
Terror swelled up on a fresh wave, threatening to drown her. She scooted back against the wall. “Don’t touch me.”
“Of course, not,” said the tallest of the two and reached for her with a laugh.
But suddenly, he was falling. Durrand’s hands snaked out. His chain rattled as it whipped around their tormentor’s neck.
The second man snapped off a shot, then stumbled back, gurgling on his own blood. His friend’s knife protruded from his throat.
The closest man struggled, feet swinging wildly, but Durrand tightened the chain around his neck. “The American,” he rasped. His face looked twisted in the sparse light from above. “Where is he?”
“Go to hell!” the man’s voice was garbled Spanish.
Durrand tightened his grip again. The guard squirmed, body jerked atop his captor’s outstretched legs. “Edwards, ask him where they’re holding Shepherd.”
She spoke, voice shaking.
He answered, Spanish rapid-fire fast.
“He says he doesn’t know of any other hostages.”
“I won’t harm him if he promises to do the same and tells the truth. I’ll let him get out of here alive.”
Eddy caught the guard’s frantic gaze. His eyes were beginning to bulge. His knuckles were white where he gripped the chain around his neck. She steadied her voice and repeated Durrand’s words.
The man’s body went still, but his breathing was raspy. “Señor Santiago has property west of here. A ranch. Few know it is his.”
“How far?”
“Two kilometers. Let me go and I will show you the way to—” he began, but Durrand jerked the chain tight. The man gasped, his body juddered and then he fell still.
“No! You promised! You—” Eddy rasped, but Durrand spoke over her.
“Get his keys.”
She shook her head, shocked and appalled.
“Get them!”
“I—” she began and shifted her gaze to the corpse. It wasn’t until then that she saw the gun their captor had shoved up against Durrand’s thigh. She stared at it, unblinking, unmoving as the implication of his lies burst in her brain.
“Eddy,” Durrand said. His voice had softened slightly. “We have to get out of here.”
She blinked.
“Someone may have heard the commotion.” His tone was summer night calm. “Can you reach his pocket?”
The thought of touching the dead body was almost more than she could bear, but she stretched out a shaking hand. Her chain went taut. Pulling her left hand to the wall, she pushed as far as possible with her right but it was no use. “I can’t reach it.”
“Hold on,” he said, and dragging the man by his neck, pulled him over his own body, shifting the corpse’s hips toward her.
Eddy closed her eyes and slipped her hand into his pocket.