Beside Still Waters (Psalm 23 Mysteries)

  And finally they made it into a warehouse district. Manny swerved into an alley, car bouncing up and down hard as it hit a couple of potholes. He drove halfway down it then slammed on the brakes and pointed to a side door into one of the buildings.

  “She in there, I swear it.”

  Jeremiah leaned forward and slammed the man’s head into the steering wheel, knocking him out. He got out of the car cautiously, looking around. He pocketed his penlight as his eyes continued to sweep the area. He didn’t see anyone, though, and he finally moved closer to the door.

  He tried to imagine what he was going to find inside. He should have made the driver tell him before he knocked him out. How many people were inside, whether Cindy was being held in the main room or a separate room, the kind of weapons present. All of these would have been invaluable to know.

  He wished he had a weapon of any kind, but sometimes a person could rely too much on a weapon and it could do more harm than good. He’d just have to go slow, be careful. He eased back away from the door. There might be another way in, something less obvious, something that wouldn’t announce his presence so quickly.

  He took a few steps back and looked up at the building. There were a few windows high up, but no fire escapes or scaffolding. He’d have to go into one from the roof, but that was predicated on his being able to get to the roof. He walked quickly to the back of the building, aware that every second he delayed could be disastrous. But so could storming right into a nest of vipers. Around the back of the building he didn’t see anything that looked more promising.

  He made a decision not to lap the rest of the building. It would take too much time. He just had to take his chances with the door Manny had shown him. He returned to the door and put his ear against it, straining to hear anything coming from inside.

  All was silent, though. Finally, he put his hand on the door handle.

  Suddenly, he froze. Something wasn’t right. He tilted his head. Was that the sound of a footstep? He let go of the handle and slowly turned around.

  Three guys in their twenties stood scattered in the alley, each with a gun trained on him, each well out of reach.

  “Can I help you guys?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Manny here does not drive his taxi into the alley unless he has a problem he needs taken care of,” one of them spoke up.

  Jeremiah glanced up and belatedly saw the tiny, half-concealed security camera that was trained on the entrance to the alleyway.

  There was no use in bluffing. Two seconds would show them that Manny was unconscious.

  There was nothing within his reach that could be used as a weapon. He turned his eyes back to the one who seemed to be in charge.

  “What are you doing here?” the man demanded.

  There was only one thing to do. Jeremiah had to allow himself to be captured. Nothing in him liked that plan, but he didn’t see how he had a choice at this point. In order to get out of this alive he would have to kill all three men before one of them could kill him. If he survived he still wouldn’t know where to go to find Cindy. On the other hand, if they took him hostage, they might take him to wherever Cindy was being held. “Please,” he said, raising his hands into the air. “I’m just trying to find Cindy Preston.”

  “Why you want find her so bad?” one of the guys asked.

  Jeremiah blinked. They were holding Cindy because they wanted something from her, something they thought she could get them but was reluctant to. He needed to make himself a bargaining chip that they thought they could use to get her to talk. He only hoped that whatever condition she was in Cindy would be able to figure out what was happening and play along.

  “Because I’m her husband,” he said.

  They all stared at him for a moment and then the one said, “Put him in the car.” He then pulled out a cell phone.

  ~

  Cindy heard Mr. Black’s footsteps on the stairs outside the room a moment before he came in. She wanted to scream in frustration. She had been hoping for more time.

  “So, I made a couple of quick phone calls, but I didn’t have to make many. It turns out the driver, Manny, just made an unscheduled stop and my men are going to check it out and ask him some questions.”

  Her heart thundered. What would he tell them? Surely the truth, that she was just an innocent tourist who had no way of knowing what it was that he had given her. She could feel her shoulders bunching as she strained at her restraints.

  Move, now, now, now! she was screaming at herself.

  Mr. Black’s phone rang. “That should be them right on schedule.”

  He listened for a moment and then he began to chuckle. The sound sent chills up her spine and she couldn’t help but feel that whatever had happened it was very bad news for her. After a minute he hung up.

  “Well, it turns out they’re going to have to wait a few minutes to talk to Manny. He was knocked out cold.”

  “Oh?” she said, still not sure why he was chuckling.

  “But my men did find one very interesting thing. Or rather, one very interesting person.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  His grin broadened. “We just captured your husband.”

  16

  Cindy stared at him in shock. Husband? Before she could open her mouth to say that she wasn’t married, she forced herself to stop and think. Who would make such a claim and why?

  The answer was so simple. Jeremiah, they had to be talking about Jeremiah. She could think of no one else who would possibly make such an outrageous claim. What was he doing here though? He had to be there to find her, rescue her. But now, apparently, he had been captured. That meant he was in as much danger as she was. She suddenly felt like she was going to be sick all over again. Her head swam, and before she quite knew what was happening she said, “I don’t believe you, show him to me.”

  Mr. Black chuckled. “You’ll see him soon enough. And when you do, you’ll have five minutes to tell me everything I want to know before I kill him.”

  “No! You can’t do that!”

  “Your choice,” he said. “I’ll leave you to think about that,” he said as he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  She was in total darkness. Her emotions were yo-yoing between hope and despair, joy and terror. Jeremiah had come for her, he had come to find her. Maybe he was working with the police. Her thoughts flashed to Kapono and she could feel her cheeks growing hot. Was it even possible that she was thinking about how embarrassed she’d be if the two of them met?

  Her heart was racing even as her mind was going a million miles a minute. Had Jeremiah really come to find her himself? She couldn’t imagine a police officer saying something like that. And it was an old joke between her and Jeremiah harkening back to the time the serial killer had put her in the hospital and only family had been allowed to visit.

  But why would he have risked everything to come find her? In the next breath she thought about her crazy drive up to Green Pastures camp to try and save him and she understood. This was what you did when you cared for someone. You risked it all to help them. Would she have been content to sit back and do nothing if he was the one who vanished.

  No! everything in her seemed to cry out. Maybe the old her would have, but not the new her, not the her that knew Jeremiah.

  She felt a lump in her throat even as she tried to force herself to calm down. Whatever happened next she was going to need to be alert, ready to make a move the moment she could to try and help them both escape. She just prayed that Jeremiah had a plan.

  She renewed her struggles against the ropes that bound her. In her fervor she briefly considered trying to break or dislocate her thumb. She’d heard that helped with handcuffs, but she didn’t know if she could make it work with the ropes with the way they were crisscrossed. And she was going to need to be as clear-headed as possible very, very quickly.

  She kept working at them, though, until her fingers were raw and bleeding from the constant chafing and cont
act with the rough rope. Jeremiah was coming. He was on his way. That’s what Mr. Black had said. And she needed to be ready when he got there.

  ~

  Riding in the backseat of the car between the two thugs Jeremiah was sorely tempted to try and escape. He forced himself to breathe, though, reminding himself that this was his best shot at actually finding Cindy. He thought of the tracking chip inside his sock and hoped that Kapono and other officers wouldn’t be far behind when he did find her. He was glad now that he had agreed to wear it even though it went against every instinct he had.

  The drive seemed to take forever. The mere fact that they hadn’t knocked him out or blindfolded him attested to the fact that they had no intention of letting him live. The same would almost certainly be true of Cindy.

  The best he could do was watch and be patient. When the time came to make a move it would have to be done swiftly with no mistakes. Both their lives depended on it.

  When at last they were pulling into a parking spot near a dock he thought of the entry Uncle had had in his books about the big boat man. Sure enough at the end of the pier he could see a yacht bouncing up and down on the waves.

  The guy on his left stuck a gun into his side. “You move, you say a word and you get it and so does your old lady.”

  For all that Jeremiah was sure the guy was serious, he was also an amateur. The way he had the gun angled a bullet would miss all the major organs. Again Jeremiah had to remind himself of his purpose and not just take the gun away from the man and beat him with it.

  For all he knew Cindy wasn’t on the boat and they were going to have to sail a distance to get to her. Plus, there was an awful lot of ground to cover between the car and the ship and even if he went into the water if there was any kind of lookout they’d become suspicious quickly that no one was coming from the car.

  So he forced himself to nod and tried to look frightened and submissive. At least the frightened part was true, not for himself, but for Cindy.

  All three of the thugs had piled into the car with him, leaving Manny still unconscious in his taxi. That was the one thing going in his favor. None of them knew that he could be dangerous when pushed and Manny would have been happy to swear to that. He also still had the penlight in his pocket. There were a couple of ways he could use it as a weapon if he really had to.

  They got out of the car and a few steps later they were walking down the pier. The leader led the way and the other two each had hold of one of Jeremiah’s arms. He grit his teeth in frustration. It would have been so simple to knock them both into the water, take a quick step, and snatch the gun from the waistband of the guy in front of him.

  Again, though, he had to force himself to remain calm and to not act on his impulses. This wasn’t about his freedom. It was about Cindy’s.

  He could hear the creak of each wooden plank beneath their feet, the lapping of the ocean waves, the trill of a bird. All his senses were growing sharper. Soon he would have need of all of them. There was only one way this was going to end, one way it could end.

  And he tried not to think about what would happen afterward when he and Cindy made it back to California and she could no longer look him in the eyes without seeing a monster.

  The boat was getting nearer. Twenty feet.

  He was going to make all of them pay for taking Cindy. Fifteen feet.

  He was going to personally hunt down anybody who had been involved with her kidnapping in any way. Ten feet.

  And he was going to blaze her name across the island so that everyone would know that she was not to be touched. Five feet.

  And then he would tell her the truth.

  ~

  Cindy felt the rope give way. She twisted and wriggled her right wrist until she was free. She dug her fingernails harder into the knots still binding her left hand to the back of the chair. Her fingernails were tearing and bleeding and it felt like they were on fire. Her hand was shaking from the exertion and cramping from the dehydration. And above her on deck she heard the sound of many footsteps, walking.

  ~

  Jeremiah stepped onto the boat and it was all he could do to remind himself to play the part of frantic, concerned husband. Harmless, frantic, concerned husband, he amended.

  A man was standing in front of him, white shirt opened at the neck, a pair of Dockers on. “So, the little wildcat has a husband.”

  Rage roared through Jeremiah and it passed leaving him shaking. The adrenalin was controlling him which was bad, but he could at least use it for his act.

  “Please, where is she? You haven’t hurt her, have you? Look we don’t have a ton of money, but whatever we have, it’s yours. I just need to see her.”

  The man sneered. “You really think this is about some stupid ransom?”

  “Isn’t it?” Jeremiah asked, letting all the fear he’d been feeling for her show in his voice.

  “Your wife has something of mine and I want it back.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jeremiah said.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you don’t, but she does.”

  “Please, whatever it is, I’m sure she didn’t mean to take it.”

  “Maybe and maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you’re going to help me get it back from her. Right now.”

  The man turned and led the way toward the back of the ship and then from there down a flight of stairs. At the bottom was a door. Jeremiah could feel himself gathering together, preparing. First he needed to see how Cindy was, where she was, how she was restrained. It did him no good to find her only to have her killed before he could free her.

  The man pushed open the door and shoved Jeremiah inside. His eyes quickly struggled to adjust to the dim lighting. Finally he saw Cindy, tied to a chair. She was dirty, covered in what looked to be blood, some of it fresh, and shaking. But she was alive.

  He stumbled toward her and the sob that escaped his lips was real.

  ~

  Cindy stared in shock. It really was Jeremiah. He was there. It hadn’t been some lie or trick or anything. He’d come to rescue her. Behind him in the doorway she could see Mr. Black and three other guys.

  And then Mr. Black pushed Jeremiah toward her and he was stumbling forward. His hands were shaking.

  “Honey, I love you. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay,” he was saying the words loudly and she registered in some part of her mind that they weren’t just for her benefit. He was playing the part, just like back in the hospital. But even there, kidnapped and trapped in the bottom of the ship, hearing him fake tell her he loved her sent a shiver up her spine that she couldn’t ignore.

  She stared at him, unable to think of a single thing to say in response.

  He collapsed on his knees in front of her and threw his arms around her. A moment later she could feel his fingers working at the knots that still bound her left wrist.

  “Can you ever forgive me for being such an ass?” he wailed.

  “Forgive you?” she finally managed to say, despite the fact that he was pressed close against her and she was trying to focus so she could help him with the knot.

  “It’s all my fault we’re here. I should have let us go visit your sister in New York. We could be sitting, right now, in a theater on Broadway watching that chick musical you wanted to see. Can you ever forgive me?”

  The knots were giving way and she began to sob in hope and desperation. Even if he untied her, how would they get past Mr. Black and the others?

  “I do forgive you,” she said.

  “Next time, next time, we’ll go anywhere you want, I swear. And I’ll take out the trash from now on and put the toilet seat down just like you always want me to.”

  She felt moisture on her stomach and a moment later one of the thugs hauled Jeremiah to his feet. She stared at him in shock as he registered that there were real tears rolling down his cheeks.

  And a moment later the last knot gave way. The rope fell to the ground behind her before she co
uld think to stop it. Jeremiah saw and he elbowed the guy holding him and then twisted around so that he had his arm around the man’s neck and had positioned him between them and the others.

  Cindy jumped to her feet and stood right behind Jeremiah, her heart in her throat. What was he planning? Did he really think the others would let them just walk out of there? The man he was holding on to was gasping for air and flailing, but it was ineffectual.

  Slowly they walked toward the door.

  “Move away!” Jeremiah barked.

  She held her breath, praying that they would do as he ordered.

  For a moment nothing happened and then Mr. Black applauded. “Very good, wonderful performance. I’m very impressed. Maybe I had it wrong and you are the brains of the couple and not your wife.”

  “Back away.”

  “Or what?” Mr. Black asked.

  “Or I kill your guy here,” Jeremiah said, tightening his stranglehold.

  His voice was so fierce that Cindy’s breath caught. She actually believed he would do it. She turned to look at Mr. Black, waiting to see what he would do.

  And what he did was laugh that hated laugh.

  “Go ahead. Guys like him are a dime a dozen on this island. You kill him. We shoot both of you.”

  “You need us to find your account number,” Jeremiah said.

  Cindy gasped as she realized that she must have been right about the business card after all.

  “Actually, I only need one of you. And since you’ve become a problem, we’ll kill you, kneecap her. She’ll tell me what I want to know, eventually.”

  “There’s no way out,” Cindy heard herself whisper. There was a despair in her voice she’d never known before. Until that moment she’d hoped that it would still all somehow be okay.

  Jeremiah screamed and jumped forward. He threw the guy he was holding into the others, knocking them back onto the stairs and then he slammed closed the door and threw what sounded like a bolt.

  It was pitch dark again, but a moment later she felt his hand grab hers. “There’s always a way out,” she heard him say and he pulled her back in the direction of the chair. Her foot grazed it as they moved past. She couldn’t see a thing but she could hear the screams coming from the otherside of the door.