39. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
C ARLY
My head hurts.
That’s the first thought I have as consciousness returns in bits, along with the knowledge that the floor is somehow moving underneath me jaggedly in a rhythm that makes me sick. All my limbs are heavy and my head feels leaden and filled with fog. Eventually, I manage to pry my eyes open and try to make sense of my surroundings. Boxes are propped up in front of me, in front of a window with trees flying across. The ground is moving still. Where the hell am I? A car? I feel metal on my hand, and then a pillow under my head as though someone wants to make sure I am comfortable. It smells like grease and paint back here. The scent of paint is so strong that it worsens my headache and I want to throw up, but I don’t want to vomit all over myself.
So, I simply crane my head and peer up at the roof in wonder.
I’m in a van, I realize. And it’s moving. And then slowly I start to regain awareness of my body, noting that my hands are tied in front of me and so are my feet.
It takes a second for the alarm to kick, and for me to begin struggling to free my limbs. I groan as the struggle makes my head hurt worse, and then, suddenly, a low voice says, “Relax. You don’t want to hurt yourself and I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
I crane my neck toward the direction of the voice at the front of the van. It’s coming from the driver whose face I cannot see but who’s wearing familiar-looking boots.
There’s another man in the passenger seat. He turns to look at me and the second our eyes meet, recognition flashes.
I gasp.
It all comes rushing back to me.
Of course.
It’s Hal’s father. Jordan. While I was sitting on the park bench someone walked up and called my name. It was him, and I was shocked to see him here in New York. He told me that he was here for a special surgeon’s visit, and he needed help getting something just around the corner. In hindsight, it was all a sketchy excuse, but I didn’t think much of it then. I stupidly followed him. The next thing I knew someone was putting a foul-smelling cloth on my nose and the world was going black.
Damn it. I wouldn’t have fallen for it if it had been a stranger, but since I knew Jordan through Hal, I let my guard down. But why’s Hal’s dad kidnapping me? What have I ever done to him?
He grimaces as though he can hear my questions and says, “Sorry, Carly. This isn’t personal. It’s just about getting something that should have been mine in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?’ I keep struggling, giving into my inherent instinct to panic. I try to twist my wrists out of their bindings as I stare up at the man who regards me with a calm and almost apologetic energy. “I never took anything from you.”
“You didn’t,” he admitted. “But someone did very long ago.”
“What the hell does that have to do with me?”
He sighs.
“The Pink Pearl,” he says. “It was my father that found it in the first place, you know that? No one knows of course. That little bit of history was wiped from the history books and even if they knew they didn’t care about that. All anyone cares about is who presented it to the hotel. When my dad found the pearl, he didn’t know what it was at the time. He was an old fisherman, a country bumpkin who thought he’d just found a cute little trinket that he could give his wife. At most, he figured the gemstone could act as some kind of family heirloom. And then when the hotel manager, Pierce, offered him a hundred bucks for it, a big deal at that time, he was over the moon and gave it right to him. Not knowing that that very same thing would now be worth millions.”
The cable ties aren’t budging. Of course, I know they’re much tougher than I can handle, but I was hoping to at least get them a little loose.
Oh God. A frustrated sob breaks out of my throat. My wrists are turning red with my effort as I utter helpless cries. My legs still feel very noodlelike and it’s hard to move them much less remove the ties from my ankles.
Eventually, I have to accept that they tied me up too securely, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be escaping these bonds any time soon.
I have no choice but to listen to what he’s saying.
“When the pearl was displayed at the hotel, for all those rich folks to come and salivate over, we finally realized what it was worth. And Dad was pissed that he’d been had. Tried to go to the police, but they didn’t care. They said he’d been an idiot to sell it for that price in the first place. Then he went to his good friend Pierce to get more money, but Pierce said ‘No can do.’ It wasn’t happening. And so what choice did he have? He had to get the money somehow. His family was hungry and that hundred bucks didn’t stretch as far as millions of dollars. He had to get the pearl back one way or another.”
The story starts sweeping away the fog in my mind as I follow it and put two and two together. Suddenly, everything becomes starkly clear.
“You hired the thieves to steal the pearl,” I say.
He coughs and then says, “They were supposed to be the best in the business. I thought it would be easy, they get the pearl and then we all split it four ways. But one of them had to go and fall in love and ruin all our plans.” He sighs and shakes his head. “We’ve been trying to find them, or to find the pearl for years but nothing. It disappeared off the face of the Earth. But then your grandpa fished the pearl out of the water again. The same damn water where I go fishing every damn Thursday and yet Crane is the one to get it.” He laughs bitterly. “What kind of dumb luck is that?”
“He didn’t mean to,” I try to reason with Jordan. “Look if it’s money you want, I’m sure Declan would be willing to pay you a fair price for the pearl. More than that even. Look, just call Micah and ask for however much you think it’s worth and drop me off. I won’t tell anyone it was you and you can disappear into the sunset.”
But he shakes his head and my heart sinks. A part of me expected it. There’s no way it would be that easy, especially since he has no qualms about exposing his face to me.
If he’s exposing his identity to me, then it means he probably doesn’t plan on my getting out of this alive.
Especially when he gives me another regretful look and says, “I’m afraid it’s beyond that, Carly. A lot of people got hurt trying to find that pearl and at least one of them is very angry. And he’s out for blood.”
‘“Oh, God.” I start struggling again screaming, fear taking hold. I hope that someone can hear me even though it seems like we’re driving through a forest of some kind.
“Stop that hollering,” the man in the driver’s seat says. “I don’t want to have to gag you.”
“But I have nothing to do with this!” I say. “Please I don’t have anything to do with the pearl.”
“You have plenty to do with it. You are Crane’s granddaughter’s best friend and one of the hotel owners is your boyfriend.”
“And I already told you that they’ll pay your ransom if you want.” At least I’m confident Micah will.
Jordan shakes his head again. “You don’t get it.” He sighs. “But you will when we get to our destination.”
I glance through the windows again wondering where the destination is. Right now, all I see is woods. So we’re probably out of New York City. Are we upstate? Are we in a different state? There’s no way he drove all the way back to Laketown, right? Surely, I haven’t been out of it that long, right?
My brain scrambles for what to do or what to say to get myself out of this situation. I doubt my phone is still on me. It probably got left behind so they couldn’t track us. I need to call for help so I’ll have to get one of their phones. I don’t think screaming will work because we look like we’re in a very remote area, if not, they would have gagged me already. But the fact worries me that they’re not wearing masks and they’re letting me see their faces. So, they almost certainly intend for me to die here.
I think about my child.
I feel so sad for the baby that will never get to see life, never get to take its first breath. It’ll never know what a kind and wonderful father it has, a father that will probably love it dearly. And then I think about Micah, who’s probably panicking right about now. I was supposed to wait outside for him and now he’s probably wondering where I am.
I never should have gone with Jordan. I never should have left that bench.
But it’s too late for regrets.
I hope Micah doesn’t blame himself if anything happens to me.
I also think about Emma and Mrs. Peach and Grandpa Crane and Nate. I don’t really think about my parents because I don’t know how sad my parents will be if I die. I know my mom will make a big deal at the funeral, and she might try to convince people that all this is Micah’s fault. And she’ll try to extort money from him too. But she won’t truly grieve me like a mother should.
And it’s weird that I’m figuring all this out now when I’m assigned my doom. So why did I waste so much time trying to please them, trying to take care of them? What was all that for, when they’ve never once shown they cared for me?
Micah is right. They are just vultures using me and I should have figured that out a long time ago.
But I didn’t. And now here I am.
The van eventually stops moving, slowly swerving into a park. The two men get out of their seats and a few seconds later the backdoor slides open. Hands reach out for me and I think about struggling but decide it will probably not do me any good. I’m too weak to even fight anyone off right now even if I didn’t have my hands and legs tied.
He pulls me out like a sack and heaves me over his shoulder. I bite back a shout and he says, “Good girl. You keep up the behavior and you might get out of this unscathed after all.”
Yeah, right. Like I’m going to fall for that.
But I won’t fight back now. I just need to lull them into a false sense of security while I wait for an opening, a chance to get out of here. And then once I get that chance, I take it.
Even hanging upside down, I see where they take me– into a drafty mobile home that smells like mildew and old clothes. And dust. Lots and lots of dust. Unfortunately for me, the mobile home isn’t surrounded by others. It’s on its own in the middle of the woods, and it reminds me of where they reportedly took Amelia after they kidnapped her.
They’re such a cliche.
As they set me down on the floor, I finally get to see the face of the man holding me. He’s older than I expected, almost as old as Jordan. And his eyes are grim.
But it’s the hand that has my heart racing in my chest.
Oh my God. There are gnarled scars on his hand.
He’s the burned man.