Chapter 12
Something was different with Knox. Amy saw it in his eyes. Could she ask what had changed?
Not now. Maybe once they got to the extraction point where they could huddle up while they waited for the chopper. This was a conversation that needed to take place between two people, no offense to Lorna.
Knox set up the hammock in a matter of minutes. The man could do anything and everything. Amy was thoroughly impressed. Ranger school did him good.
Amy and Lorna sat sideways on the hammock, shoulder to shoulder, as Knox paced, scanning the area.
“Let’s see what you got,” Lorna said, excitement in her tone.
This is what they’d come for. The anaconda might not set records or prove anything, but the footage, this story, would have interest. Amy could finally see the possibility of her career taking off. The thought of leaving the Honkey-Tonk improved her mood tenfold. Even if the film didn’t get the attention she hoped, it was time to find another side gig. She couldn’t go back to the bar. That much was obvious to her now.
Before this trip, she’d been in a rut anyway. Her mom was moving away from Texas. Amy wasn’t interested in Seattle. Maybe it was time to find where she fit at this point in her life.
Moving cost money, a voice in the back of her head reminded.
Fingers crossed she made enough from this film for a fresh start. Where would she go? Colorado? California? Her main requirement was somewhere with cooler weather. No matter where she landed, she would be a Texan through and through.
Amy found the spot on the film with the anaconda. She glanced up at Knox.
“I didn’t realize you were Tarzan,” she quipped. “Maybe Jungle Man should be your new nickname.”
“You’re bad at this,” he said without hesitation. “That sounds too much like a compliment.”
Amy laughed as Lorna studied the footage on the small screen.
“Hold on a second,” Lorna said, her forehead creasing with concern. “What is that in the background?”
“Holy shit,” Amy said. “Wasn’t Donnie wearing a yellow t-shirt?”
“Let me see that,” Knox said, already closing the distance between them. She handed over the camera and told him to blow up the righthand corner.
Knox did.
“Sonofabitch,” he said. “He’s tracking us.”
“Why would he do that?” Amy asked Lorna.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Does he think you have something on the camera that you’re not talking about, so you can keep the profits?”
The camera. That was all Donnie cared about anyway.
Knox handed it back to Amy before placing an index finger to his lips. He glanced first at Amy, then Lorna, and back. His slight head nod said they should keep talking while he investigated.
The thought of Knox moving out of sight, even for a few seconds, set Amy’s nerves on edge. It was important that Donnie not realize Knox was on the move.
“I have film for the documentary going all the way back to when I left Houston,” Amy said. “I prefer to stay out of the shot, so I capture everything around me instead.” She paused, thinking back. “The anaconda is the big deal. The rest is just to give viewers context. Much of the footage won’t even make it into the final product.”
“He must have expected us to continue on with the original plan,” Lorna stated but that didn’t make any sense.
“Why would we do that?” Amy asked.
“He thinks everyone is as obsessed with work as he is, for one,” Lorna pointed out. “I’m just throwing out ideas.” She shrugged. “Like I said, I thought I knew him until I realized I’d made most of it up based on the ‘show’ he put on to keep his hooks in me.”
Her cheeks flamed. Being taken for granted by someone she cared about didn’t make her a fool. It made Donnie an asshole.
“One thing I know for certain,” Lorna finally said. “Donnie would do anything to get the film. Including follow us to figure out if we already had it.” She rocked her head back and forth a couple of times. “In fact, he was poking around to find out if I knew what kind of film you have, now that I think about it. Bastard.”
“Why didn’t he hang around to find out for himself?” Amy asked as Knox almost disappeared for how stealthy he was being as he secured the area and searched for Donnie. The explorer should be no match for Knox, who’d suspected Donnie from the get-go.
“He was intimidated by Knox, for one,” Lorna said.
“I’m sorry Donnie turned out to be such a jerk,” Amy said. She might not have liked the guy but Lorna did. She’d trusted him and given the man her heart. “Sucks that it turned out this way.”
Lorna pursed her lips. “You know what? I’m not as sorry as I thought I would be. He’s a jerk, don’t get me wrong. But I learned a lot through this process. No one will ever take advantage of me again now that I know what to look for.”
“Those guys who seem too good to be true early on usually are,” Amy agreed, not that she was an expert or having better luck in the relationship department. Deep down, she’d held onto feelings that weren’t reciprocated. And even if they were now, Knox seemed determined to keep her at arm’s length. She was in no position to judge others.
“I’ll see the red flags from a mile away now and not waste three years of my life on anyone else who wants to use me,” Lorna said.
“Ever watch that old show Golden Girls?” Amy asked.
“As a matter of fact, my grandmother used to have it on when I visited,” Lorna said with a smile.
“If neither of us are married by that age, I say we rent a house Golden Girls’ style,” Amy said with a laugh. Of course, she would never fully trust Lorna again. She was forcing a light-heartedness she didn’t feel, considering Donnie might be out there lurking around. Again, she wondered how he’d survived after they were separated. Knox found her dehydrated and hungry. Come to think of it, Donnie had been in much better shape.
Was there a tribe nearby that he knew about? That he’d visited? He couldn’t get out of the last village fast enough.
The thought sent icy chills racing down Amy’s spine. Or was he connected to the men with guns? At the time, he’d given no indication that he knew the men. Hadn’t they fired at both of them?
At this point, it was all a blur. She’d gotten the hell out of Dodge and so had Donnie. He gave no indication that he had a connection with the men who’d been chasing them. Had they captured him? Had they formed an alliance? To what end?
Those men certainly didn’t seem interested in a film of anacondas. They didn’t demand her camera. Wouldn’t they have done that? Asked for her camera? Why start shooting at her?
Maybe because they figured they could take the camera off her dead body and slip her into the river, never to be found again. An involuntary shiver rocked her at the thought. Hadn’t Knox mentioned something about a body not lasting long in this jungle? Any meat would be picked off the bones—bones that would disappear in the jungle to be discovered weeks, months, or years later if at all?
Her mom would search for her, but she wouldn’t have the money to launch an expedition and she didn’t know Amy had diverted her mission into the jungle.
Donnie wouldn’t have known to figure Knox into the equation if Lorna’s ex-boyfriend was in league with the gunmen. He might have been told by Lorna that Amy’s brother was an Army Ranger who’d died.
When Amy thought about it, she was an easy target too.
“Did Donnie ask a lot of questions about me?” Amy asked Lorna.
“Yeah, I guess he did,” Lorna supplied. “You’re a good friend of mine, though, so I probably volunteered most of it. Donnie and I would have wine and I’d go on about you. He was a good listener. Or so I thought. Now, I know he was probably just storing information that he could use later.”
“I probably would have done the same,” Amy said, trying to reassure Lorna.
“No,” Lorna contradicted. “You operate with your cards close to your chest. Always have. You’re a lot more cautious than I am. I just leap. You think about a situation first from a few angles. Analyze it.”
Amy might do that with most people but it had never been that way with Knox. Her heart refused to listen to logic when it came to that man. It was on its own track and she was helpless to stop it. Didn’t mean she couldn’t change directions once this was over. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she needed to move on. No matter how strong her feelings might be. One sided relationships didn’t work. Plenty of the men she’d dated had given her that advice.
Was a small piece of her always holding out for Knox? Wondering what it would be like to run into him again, as an adult this time?
Or did she hide behind her feelings for him as an excuse not to get too close to anyone? Losing her father at a young age and seeing how strong her mother tried to be left a deep impression. Did she always assume she would lose the person she loved one way or another? Did she try to avoid the grief—grief that had been crippling—by not showing up to any relationship? Dating men who were easy to walk away from. One of whom tried to rape her freshman year after she’d said no to sex. Alone in his off-campus apartment, she’d fought back and received more than a few bruises in the process. She’d been too embarrassed to come forward then, figuring the story would be twisted to make her look back since Collin had been a star athlete.
Damn. Why did the biggest realizations show up at the most inconvenient times?
By the timeKnox reached Donnie’s last known position, the man was gone. He either knew the jungle better than he let on or had made friends who did. Of course, the yellow blur might not have been Donnie. The person’s face hadn’t been visible through the vines. For all Knox knew, Donnie could have been killed and his clothes taken off in the middle of the night after he left the village. These things happened.
At this point, the best course of action would be to retreat back to where Knox had left Amy and Lorna. They weren’t far.
Half a dozen steps into his retreat, he caught sight of a pit viper. Venomous. Deadly. Not more than three feet away from him.
Knox gave it a wide berth. Locals didn’t have the same sensibility about conservation as the outside world. A hunter would have killed the venomous snake in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t want a deadly creature anywhere near his village where children played. He also would have chopped it up and likely fed it to his dog as part of the circle of life. Knox was fine with more of a live and let live approach. The jungle wasn’t his home, so he didn’t have a dog in this fight. The snake wasn’t following him and they would be moving out of the area in another five minutes. Sticking around to rest was off the table now.
As soon as he stepped into view, Amy grabbed her heart. “I didn’t see or hear you until you were right on top of us.”
“Then, I did my job,” he said.
“Donnie was noisier, and he relied more on A.J. when we had him,” Amy recalled.
He decided against relaying his theory of what might have happened to Donnie. There was no reason to upset Lorna. She might have decided to move on from the relationship but her feelings were still fresh, raw. She might feel a sense of satisfaction for a few moments but it wouldn’t last. And then she would be even more hurt.
Again, he didn’t see the point when he couldn’t verify the hypothesis.
“I just don’t see how he could survive on his own out here,” Amy said.
“Maybe we’ll get the chance to ask him,” Knox pointed out. “Now that I know he could be following us, I’ll know what to look for.”
He made quick work of returning the hammock to his pack while everyone had a piece of fruit. After another round of mosquito repellant, they were ready to move on.
Wet clothes didn’t bother him. Breathing in the soupy air did, for the effect on the others. It slowed them down, especially civilians. Lorna wasn’t able to move as quickly as he would like. Amy seemed to be doing well. Still. They were most likely going to have to find a place to camp for the night. Based on experience, Lorna had another couple of hours in her before she would need to stop again. They could methodically make their way through the jungle, stopping every three hours to give Lorna half an hour of rest. At some point, she might need more. At the very earliest, they could make the extraction point by tomorrow midmorning.
Staying in one spot wasn’t ideal. They’d be like sitting ducks if Donnie really was in cahoots with a cartel or government out here.
Three hours passed by faster than Knox realized. He stopped to give Lorna a break.
“I can keep going,” Lorna pushed.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because the worst thing you can do out here is overestimate your abilities.”
“We don’t need to stop for long then,” she reasoned after a thoughtful pause. “Maybe just long enough to have another piece of fruit and a drink?”
Knox nodded, stopping long enough to accommodate the request. This went on for the rest of the night. By morning, earlier than planned, they made it to the clearing without further incident.
The chopper wasn’t there, but Knox hadn’t really expected it to be. He signaled for pickup and waited for a response to confirm the chopper was on its way.
“What do we do now?” Lorna asked, the annoying whine returning to her voice. To be fair, she was trying to be a trooper. She hadn’t slept. She looked emotionally wrung out and physically exhausted.
“You can sleep,” he said after pitching the small tent and setting up the hammock. “There isn’t much else that can be done except lay low and keep quiet.”
“Someone is coming, though, right?” she asked. Her voice had a more hysterical quality to it now. She’d hit a wall.
He glanced at Amy, who was already moving to reassure Lorna.
“I’m not going to promise you everything will be alright,” Amy said in a surprise move. “But we’ve made it this far together and I have hope that we’ll make it out of here alive. I don’t think I ever thanked you for calling Knox, though. Lorna, you saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t made that call. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Lorna’s chin quivered.
“I’m the reason you’re in this mess in the first place,” she said. “It’s all my fault, Amy. You could have died and your blood would have been on my hands. I got so caught up in Donnie’s vision that I forgot about my own dreams. And I became like him, willing to use anyone to accomplish my goal.”
Amy was shaking her head before Lorna finished her sentence. “You will never convince me that you’re like Donnie. First and foremost, you wouldn’t have left me alone in the jungle.”
“I sent you in there alone,” she countered.
“That’s not true,” Amy said. “You trusted Donnie with your life, and A.J. is supposed to be the best guide. You sent me in because you thought you’d be joining me in twenty-four hours. You couldn’t have known A.J. would freak out and take off. Or that Donnie would turn out to be a self-serving asshole.”
Knox’s fist came up, his signal to stop and be quiet. His gaze locked onto something or someone moving across the clearing. On closer study, there were several people moving. Shit.
He motioned for Amy and Lorna to get down and make themselves as small as possible. His watch vibrated twice, meaning a chopper was on its way. How long? That was anyone’s guess. Could be anywhere from half an hour to end of the day. The only information transmitted was that the chopper was on its way.
Would it get there in time? Because Knox realized the folks coming toward them were also circling them.
How many were there?
He glanced at Amy. She was huddled down, comforting Lorna.
Knox hated the thought of leaving them alone, but he needed to assess the threat and he couldn’t do that if he stayed put.
He shot a look at Amy that he hoped she understood. She gave a slight nod. That was his lady!
If nothing else came out of this, he realized that he had to come clean with her. The thought of her believing he was some kind of hero for being with Garrett when he died, when in reality Knox was the reason her brother was dead, would haunt him the rest of his life otherwise.
Since he never half-assed anything, he would also tell her about his feelings. But first, he needed to keep them alive. He pulled his Glock 19 from his thigh holster. He’d been holding onto it until absolutely necessary, not wanting to waste a single bullet.
The folks closing in could be tribe members who meant no harm. He wouldn’t be able to tell until he got a closer look.
Crouching low, he moved away from Amy and Lorna, out into the thick vines so he could circle the men and get a sense of how many numbers they were up against. As he moved around the perimeter, he saw two men step into the clearing, pushing someone in a yellow shirt. From here, he couldn’t see faces but the man being pushed had to be Donnie. The others were in green fatigues, just as Amy had described.
“Help,” came Donnie’s voice.
“Donnie,” Lorna screamed as Knox moved to a spot where he could get a better visual on the situation.
“Lorna, I’m so sorry,” Donnie whined.
Knox found a good spot and realized Donnie had the barrel of an automatic weapon poking in his back as he walked into the center of the clearing.
“If everyone doesn’t come out where they can see you with your hands up, they’ll shoot me,” Donnie’s voice shook as he spoke.
Was this legitimate?
If Donnie made an alliance with the men who’d chased him and Amy a couple days ago, he might be innocent. Based on the scene unfolding right now, that was exactly the picture being painted.
Knox crouched low and aimed. There was no way he could shoot from this distance and guarantee that he wouldn’t hit Donnie. He could circle around the back. Nah. Wouldn’t work. A stray bullet could hit one of the ladies instead. He couldn’t risk shooting Amy or Lorna. He might have had his suspicions about Lorna before, but her actions indicated that she was innocent in all this. She’d been burned. Unless she’d pulled off one hell of an acting job, she wasn’t part of this.
Donnie was still suspect, though. This could be a rouse to get the three of them out in the open.
Lorna and Amy stood up.
“Donnie!” Lorna broke free from Amy’s grasp, and bolted toward her ex.
Dammit, Lorna. That was a critical error.
The shot would be impossible to make now without risking hurting an innocent party. So, he couldn’t take it.
New plan. Rescue Amy. Get her the hell out of there. And then figure out a plan to take Lorna back.
Right now, the opponent had the advantage. First of all, they had Donnie. They were making it appear as though he wasn’t part of the plan. Maybe not. It was feasible that he’d been captured by the men who…
Hold on a second. Why wouldn’t they shoot Donnie? Why use him as leverage at all?
Amy’s camera. It had to be. It was the only explanation for keeping her alive. She’d evaded them the first time. By the time Donnie found her, Knox was on the scene.
Had Donnie sold his soul to these men? Promising to get the camera back if they let him live? Didn’t he know they would kill him the moment they got what they wanted?
The explanation rang true. It could explain why he’d been acting so squirrely. Why not take Amy’s camera and disappear?
The simple answer was probably the correct one. But Donnie might have been in league with these men from the beginning. How would that play out, though?
Would A.J. have been involved?
The second scheme was elaborate. Too elaborate? It would involve the hired guide and the so-called accidental meet-up with the men with guns. Lorna getting sick might have made the whole situation easier for Donnie and company. In fact, Lorna getting sick might not have been a coincidence at all. Donnie might have slipped something into her food or a water bottle. She would have thought nothing of him handing her a drink. She’d trusted him implicitly.
Bad move on her part.
Lorna was paying the price with her heart and probably her pride.
Right now, though, all Knox could think about was getting Amy secured. Could he get her attention? They wouldn’t shoot her and risk damaging the camera. The gadget was the only thing of value in their eyes. They would want it in one piece. Out here, without internet, all the files were contained on the device. If she stored data in the cloud, she would have to wait until she got back to civilization for the upload to take place.
Oh shit.
Amy had just made a run for it.