The Sooner the Better

“That’s not the way I see it.” They’d been doing a pretty good job a couple of minutes earlier.

“Please go.” She unlatched the screen door.

He had no choice but to walk out. Standing on the other side of the threshold, he tried to reason with her one final time.

“My letter of resignation will be on your desk Monday morning,” she whispered, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

She closed the door.

Fifteen

The murderous look in Carlos’s eyes told Lorraine the pleasure he anticipated in killing her. She knew with certainty that he intended to torture and rape her first.

Jason had shoved her into the backseat of a car and bound her hands, almost before she realized what he was doing. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

Jason shrugged indifferently. “You brought it on yourself when you handed over my Star. Come on, you had to know I’d be looking for you.”

“The Kukulcan Star didn’t belong to you.”

“Ah, but it does. The person it didn’t belong to is you, but despite that you gave it away. You had no right.”

Carlos jumped into the front seat and started the car, revving the engine loudly. The two men exchanged a few gruff words in Spanish before Jason reluctantly shoved back the seat and got into the front next to Carlos. No sooner had he slammed the door than the vehicle sped off, accelerating wildly. Lorraine was thrown from one side to the other as the car barreled around corners.

Traffic was horrendous. The hotel was situated on the outskirts of the city, closer to the airport. Tossed around as she was, all Lorraine could see were the tops of high-rise buildings, many with bright neon names and logos.

Once, when she did manage to sit up and look out the car window, she thought she might have seen Jack. Her heart instantly soared with hope, which faded almost as quickly. What she’d seen, she decided, was a man in a shirt similar to the one Jack had been wearing. The faint hope that he’d come to her rescue died a sudden death. It wasn’t going to happen. He’d said his goodbyes and had no way of knowing the trouble she was in. If she survived this ordeal, it would be by her own wits. Ruthlessly hurled around the backseat of a fast-moving vehicle, hands bound, she had few if any options. But that didn’t prevent her from formulating her escape.

“Isn’t there a way to negotiate myself out of this?” she asked Jason, thinking she’d appeal to his sense of decency, if he had one. That was highly questionable, of course, but anything seemed worth a try. They’d been on the road about thirty minutes. “I don’t have any argument with Carlos,” she began.

“You embarrassed him.”

“Not on purpose. Tell him how sorry I am.”

Jason relayed her message, to which Carlos responded with a hearty laugh.

“The only thing Carlos wants at this point is revenge.”

“Where’s he taking me?” She could see that they’d left the city proper and were now driving through a sort of shantytown, desperately poor, that went on for miles. At least an hour passed before they reached a two-lane highway that was freshly paved and seemed to lead directly toward the jungle.

Surely Jason had some idea what Carlos intended. She asked him.

“I wouldn’t know,” Jason said, as if it was of little concern to him.

“I…know who has the Star.”

“Too late, Lorraine,” Jason continued, sounding bored. “The time for deal-making is long past.” His gaze darkened as he glared at her. “You gave away my Star. It was mine.”

“Jason, please.”

Carlos pulled off the main road onto a dirt one. A plume of dust followed them. They hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred feet when he slammed on the brakes. The sudden stop propelled Lorraine forward until her face struck the seat in front of her. Pain exploded in her face, and her nose started spurting blood.

Jason yelled at Carlos—obviously something about his lack of driving skills—and Carlos yelled back. Lorraine couldn’t understand most of it, although bastardo was a word she had no difficulty recognizing.

Blood dripped profusely from her nose. Carlos climbed out of the car and shoved back the driver’s seat, then caught her by her arm and jerked her roughly out. With no way to maintain her balance, she stumbled, falling onto the ground. This clearly angered Carlos; he reached for her a second time and backhanded her across the face. The pain stunned her, and it wasn’t until her mouth filled with fresh blood that she realized her recently healed lip had split open again.

“Hey!” Jason shouted. He bent down and helped her up.

Lorraine pressed her tongue to the corner of her mouth. “Please,” she whispered, her eyes imploring him. A bloody nose and split lip were minor injuries compared to what they planned for her; she was sure of that much.

“I’ll help you get it back,” she said next. “The Star…” By now she was trembling with fear. Her only hope of surviving this ordeal lay with Jason.

Carlos pushed Jason aside and came at her again. Dammit! Lorraine thought. She wasn’t going to let him use her as a punching bag! She bounded to her feet with a dexterity she hadn’t known she possessed and ran at him with her shoulder lowered, the way she’d seen linebackers charge on a football field. He hadn’t expected her to defend herself and was caught off guard.

Carlos stumbled backward. He scrambled up again, fists swinging. Lorraine ducked in the nick of time, then kicked him in the groin. Hard. As hard as she could.

Leaning against the car, Jason roared with laughter. “You’re a little hellion, aren’t you?”

She didn’t waste time answering. Nor did she give Carlos, who’d doubled over, more than a passing glance. This was the perfect time to make a run for it. If she got back to the road, she might find someone driving by, someone who could help her. Having her hands tied was a definite hindrance, but she still managed to run.

Jason’s laughter echoed from behind her. At least he wasn’t chasing her. For that she was grateful.

Carlos shouted something at him and then she heard the distinct sound of a weapon fired. She glanced over her shoulder and gave a spontaneous cry of horror and shock.

Carlos had shot Jason in the head. Blood had sprayed across the hood of the vehicle and he’d slumped to the ground in a sitting position, his eyes open and staring in her direction.

The next bullet whizzed past her ear.

Lorraine screamed in terror and veered off the dirt road and into the jungle. Thrashing through the undergrowth, she blundered forward, not stopping, not thinking, running for her life. One wrong step and it would all be over.

She had to hurry. Had to find a way to think clearly, to outsmart this maniac and save herself. She knew that if he shot and killed her on the run, she wouldn’t face the torment of rape, wouldn’t have to endure his sadistic revenge.

But she wanted to live. That instinct overpowered everything else. She refused to give up, refused to let Carlos win, refused to die.

Splinters flew from a nearby tree as a second bullet narrowly missed her. Adrenaline surged through her and she ran faster than she’d thought possible, struggling to maintain her balance as she crashed through the tangled undergrowth and jumped over exposed roots.

The paved road was within sight, not that it would help her now. She had to stay hidden as much as possible. If Carlos wanted to use her for target practice, she wouldn’t make it easy for him by racing down an open highway.

The moment her feet hit the smooth pavement, she felt as if she were flying. She cut across the highway at an angle and into the jungle on the other side without a pause. She heard a car approach behind her and prayed it would distract Carlos long enough to keep him from noticing where she’d entered the trees.

In another minute Lorraine knew she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t gone more than twenty or thirty yards when she saw the cliff. Breathing painfully, her heart pounding, she stared down at the rocks jutting out of the river below. A jump or fall would kill her.

“No, no!” she wept frantically. She backed away from the ledge and started running parallel to the cliff, heading into the brilliant sunlight with the hope that if it blinded her, it would blind Carlos, too.

She raced ahead, squinting, breathless, fighting panic and fear. Her left eye had started to swell and she could barely see out of it.

Perhaps that explained why she didn’t see Carlos until it was too late. He stood with the handgun pointed directly at her, his shoulders heaving with exertion.

Lorraine stopped abruptly. She couldn’t breathe until she leaned forward, arms lifted awkwardly behind her, hauling in deep drafts of air. What surprised her was how calm she felt. Emotionless. Maybe he’d already killed her and she just hadn’t figured it out.

Then Carlos smiled, that smug smile she’d seen far too often, and Lorraine realized she was very much alive. But his look of triumph told her she wouldn’t be for long.

Marjorie Ellis walked back into her kitchen and sank onto a chair. She’d been serious when she told Gary she intended to hand in her letter of resignation first thing Monday morning. She didn’t want to leave her job, not when she was beginning to establish a new career, form new friendships, make more money. She was proud of her growing success in the corporate world.

But what else could she do?

She covered her face with her hands as she tried to analyze why everything had gone so wrong.

This attraction to Gary Franklin had started early on, she admitted, almost from the day she’d been hired. After Mark’s death, she’d continued working at the bank, but she related well to people, and several of her friends had suggested she try sales. It’d taken her a year to find the courage to give up the security of her nine-to-five job. Then she’d had a couple of negative interviews before landing the job with Med-X. She’d fit in right away; in fact, she’d succeeded beyond her expectations. Everyone had been kind and helpful, offering helpful advice and frequent reassurance.

Especially Gary Franklin.

Yes, she’d liked him immediately. In those early weeks he’d been stiff and just a little pompous, but she’d soon discovered that was all a front. She’d worked hard to get him to smile that first time and felt like she’d made a million-dollar sale when he did. His smiles seemed to come more easily and more often after that.

Only recently had she found out he was engaged. It’d shocked her, and discouraged her, too. He’d never spoken of his fiancée. Not one word. She supposed he was the type of man who left his personal life outside the office.

Then she’d learned that his fiancée was vacationing out of the country. In Mexico, according to office rumors. It made no sense to Marjorie. The woman Gary had chosen to marry was taking an extended vacation only a few months before her wedding. An extended solo vacation.

Her mistake, Marjorie acknowledged, had been inviting Gary to dinner and introducing him to Brice. The two of them had hit it off instantly. And it wasn’t just Brice who was crazy about Gary. She’d set herself up for heartache and had done it knowing there was no other possible outcome. Still, she couldn’t seem to stop.