Chapter 38
When Rory appeared at the edge of the cliff, dirty and breathless, Zara held her breath, hoping that Lincoln would be right behind him. Mathilda ran to Rory, who caught her in his arms.
“You’re bleeding!” she cried.
“Yes, can someone run me a hot bath?” he said dryly. His gaze met Zara’s and he gave a little shake of his head to her unspoken question. “Lincoln’s out there making some kind of deal with Tanaka. I was deal point number one, apparently.”
“I am never going to say a bad word about Lincoln again,” Mathilda swore. “He’s my new hero. After you, of course.” She peppered Rory’s face with kisses.
Zara’s stomach clenched. Lincoln was all alone with a whole crew of armed thugs working for Tanaka. He’d sacrificed himself for Rory, which, okay, maybe it was heroic, but it was also crazy. After all this, he’d just handed himself over.
And she’d let him go without telling him how she felt about him. Maybe she hadn’t even known how she felt about him until now. And now—it could be too late.
Rory saw her face. “Lincoln will be okay,” he reassured her, but she could hear in his voice that he wasn’t sure of that himself. “I’m sure he’s made provisions in case the worst happens.”
Zara flinched. The worst?
Rory saw his error immediately. “What I mean is, he has a plan and probably a backup plan or several. Lincoln is very smart and very determined. He has nerves of steel. I’ve never seen him sweat in a negotiation. He’s impossible to read and impossible to outmaneuver.”
Impossible to read? She didn’t find him so. Maybe that’s how the outer world saw him, but she didn’t. Not anymore. She exhaled a long breath. Freaking out now wouldn’t help Lincoln.
“What do we do now?” she asked. Suddenly she felt very alone. She’d just met all these people yesterday. Lincoln had brought her here; without him, what was she even doing here in the jungle?
The rest of the crew was already packing up their tents. “We go back to Nahele,” Rory told her. “See what kind of damage they did there. Make sure…” He didn’t finish that sentence, but Zara knew what he meant. Make sure they hadn’t found the laptop he’d hidden.
The trek back to the camp took a couple of hours, since they were all moving more slowly after that rough night.
Zara spent the whole time worrying about Lincoln.
Only occasionally did the beauty of her surroundings break through.
Once, when an achingly graceful white bird with long tail feathers soared overhead—a white tropicbird, Mathilda told her.
They were usually seen over the Kilauea caldera, but occasionally elsewhere.
Another time, she nearly bonked her head against a hard, lumpy fruit that looked like a small sack of potatoes. It was growing from the trunk of a tree, and Sasha told her it was a jackfruit.
“Zara found breakfast,” Sasha called to the crew. “Or it found her.”
Robert harvested the jackfruit with one stroke of his machete, and they all took a break to enjoy handfuls of its yellow inner flesh, which tasted vaguely like banana, but juicer.
Zara’s mood lifted as she felt the sunshine on her face and tasted the delicious wild fruit.
Lincoln would be fine. He could take care of himself.
He’d come back to her. A man like him would make sure to.
And when he did…she’d tell him everything in her heart.
The joyful, the wary, the ambivalent, all of it.
Sasha, the tropical botany expert, came to squat next to her. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
Despite her silvery hair, Zara judged her to be still in her thirties. Her eyes were a shade of blue that was closer to purple, a deep indigo that changed according to the light.
“Sure. Anything.”
“Out of everyone here, I got to know Lincoln the best when he was with us. But I can’t say that I know him well, since he was out of it most of that time.
Even when he regained consciousness, he didn’t make much sense.
He was having dreams, or flashbacks, or something, when he came out of his coma. ”
“He still has those dreams,” said Zara. “But he doesn’t talk much about them. If you want to know what they mean, I have no idea. I get the impression he’s processing something through the dreams.”
Sasha frowned thoughtfully. “Mathilda has been experiencing something similar. Very interesting. Both had prolonged exposure to this crystal Rory’s been talking about.”
“That’s strange.”
“Yes. I’m hoping to study it more, maybe interview Lincoln when he gets back.”
Zara deeply appreciated her use of the word “when.”
“The thing is, there was a date he mentioned. He seemed almost fixated on it when he first came out of his coma. He mentioned it several times. But it was a date in the future. May twentieth of next year. Do you have any idea what that was all about? I’ve always wondered, but I never got the chance to ask him. ”
“May twentieth?” Zara searched her memory. “That doesn’t ring a bell. He never mentioned it to me, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can ask him. When he gets back,” she added, echoing Sasha’s words.
“That’s right. When.” Sasha smiled at her. “Let me tell you something, that is one tough guy. I’m not sure even he understands how tough. And now he has something to live for.”
Zara felt her face turn scarlet. “I…ah…”
Luckily, she was saved from answering by the resumption of their trek back to home camp. Had Sasha really been implying that Zara was Lincoln’s reason for living? Lincoln must have a billion reasons…literally.
When they reached the camp, a surprise was waiting for them—the same helicopter that had brought Lincoln and Zara. She recognized the pilot, a muscular man with a wide grin named Malcolm.
She ran over to him. “I’m so glad you’re here. There’s a boat we need to follow. Lincoln’s on it and he could be in danger and—”
“Sorry, ma’am. Lincoln told me to pick you up and under no circumstances take you anywhere except home.”
“What?” She blinked at him. “How…”
Malcolm pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.
When she opened it, she found a note written on Seaside Paradise letterhead.
“Zara, please go with Malcolm. This is one of my backup plans. Please don’t worry about me.
I’m so sorry I got you into this mess. It’s important for me to know that you’re safe, and the best way for that to happen is for you to go with Malcolm. ”
She glanced up at him. “When you say ‘home’…”
Was it safe to go home? Her father was there, and he was up to his schemes again. Home was probably the last place she wanted to go right now.
“You’ll see. All the arrangements have been made. My job is just to get you there.”
Sasha and Robert joined them at that point. Sasha’s eyes narrowed as she took in the burly pilot—or rather, the extremely fit and well-muscled pilot. “What makes you think you can keep Zara safer than we can?”
“Ma’am, thank you for asking. I’m former special forces, Purple Heart recipient, four years on the ground in Afghanistan, double Olympic champion in the sports of target shooting and pole vaulting, spent some time in mixed martial arts, taught English as a second language, and won a blue ribbon for biggest pumpkin at the Minnesota state fair when I was twelve. ”
Zara couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, and then couldn’t stop, even when Mathilda and Rory came running over to see what the hilarity was about.
“See, Sasha? He grew a giant pumpkin. I’ll be fine,” she finally said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Sasha folded her arms across her chest, still in a standoff with Malcolm. “What kind of pumpkin?” she finally asked.
He didn’t blink. “Dill’s Atlantic Giant, of course. It’s really the only option.”
“Correct.” She shrugged and relaxed. “I’m a botanist, so you’re lucky you have a good answer.”
Rory was looking Malcom up and down with a wary expression. “I don’t know you. Did Lincoln hire you recently? I was his pilot up until a few months ago.”
“I don’t work full time for anyone. I’m my own guy. I’ve been doing investigative work for Lincoln, but I have experience flying helos. That’s why I’m here.”
“Look, I appreciate you all giving this guy the third degree, but he had me at pumpkin,” Zara told them. “Relax. Lincoln’s the one to worry about, not me.”
As she hugged them all goodbye, she hoped she was right about the “not worrying about her” part, and also wrong about the “worrying about Lincoln” part.
And then Malcolm whisked her away on that magic carpet ride back to her previously scheduled reality.
“Could you fly over the ocean so we can look for Lincoln?” she asked him, as the helicopter lifted into the air.
“He said to take you directly back home. He doesn’t want you involved anymore, for your own safety and that of your family.”
Well damn. She appreciated that, and yet it also infuriated her. She was already involved. Besides, she really didn’t like other people making decisions about her life.
We’ll see about that, she thought, but didn’t say it out loud. Malcolm didn’t need to know her intentions. If he did, he might try to stop her.
She wasn’t ready to dump out of this particular wave yet.