Chapter 2
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Trent poked his head around the curtain and saw Naomi lying there, staring at nothing but obviously fully engaged in serious thoughts. Her facial expressions were literally an index of her mind. “Hey,” he called out softly.
She was immediately startled, rolled over to look at him, then relaxed a bit and smiled. “Hey,” she muttered. Then she frowned. “Can you tell me how Ricky’s doing?”
His eyebrows shot up, and he nodded. “Give me a minute.” He went to talk to the doctor, who relayed they were cautiously optimistic. As Trent expected, Ricky was being treated for hypothermia, and the doctor would let Naomi see Ricky soon. Trent went back and relayed the news.
She frowned.
“Isn’t that good news?” he asked.
“That’s what they told me the last time I asked,” she snapped, her tone furious. “So, nothing’s changed.” She rolled over onto her back.
“You did everything you could. The staff are doing everything they can for him, so give them time,” he told her. Then he added, “And give him a chance to fight.”
She nodded. “He is a fighter,” she whispered. “I just wish everything hadn’t gone down like it did. He’s just a little boy.”
“We absolutely agree on that,” he confirmed. “I came to see if I could get a few more details from you.”
She shrugged. “I don’t … I don’t even know what to tell you,” she said. With a look of fear in her eyes, she asked, “Has anybody contacted his family?”
“We’re looking for them,” he shared. “We’re not sure where they are at this point.”
She stared at him, and the color started to slide from her face.
“That doesn’t mean that they’re dead,” he remarked, trying to reassure her, when he expected the same himself. “We just don’t know where they are right now.”
“Surely they would have stayed in town, since we were all to meet up,” she explained. “So they would have known that we were on the way.” Then she added, “God, I hope they didn’t think we weren’t going to show up.”
“Well, if you were supposed to show and didn’t, that would be logical, would it not?”
“Of course, but Ricky told them clearly that we were on the way.”
“So, when you didn’t show up, you would think that they would put out the call for help.”
“I assumed that’s what happened.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure how you guys found us otherwise.”
Trent shrugged, raised one eyebrow. “A small plane flying overhead saw you chained at the front of the boat.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yeah, they put out the call. We are currently looking for Ricky’s family, but we’re not sure where they are at this point in time. So, I cannot confirm that they even know what’s happened to you two.”
“Seriously? Jesus. This whole time I was thinking they had a huge rescue operation underway, and now you’re telling me that they didn’t even know we were in trouble? So we only got rescued because some random plane saw us and reported it? This is crazy. … It’s too much to take in right now.”
“I get that. Take a moment and think about it. Did Ricky’s parents see you when you were down at the docks?”
“I have no idea,” she grumbled, letting out a sigh.
“We were going there to meet them, but we didn’t get a chance to before we were intercepted.
I don’t know whether his parents would have seen us or not.
I was trying to scream, but obviously I didn’t get very far with that.
I got clipped on the side of the head, and, next thing I know, we were on the boat.
I was still moving though. So, I might have just looked like I felt ill, and they were lifting me onto the boat.
Therefore, I don’t know what Ricky’s parents know or what they don’t.
For all I know, they are thinking I just took off with Ricky.
I have absolutely no idea what to tell you. ”
“We’ll get a hold of them, not to worry,” he stated. “We have their names. We understand they have government ties, so we are checking various angles.”
“Government ties?” she repeated, shaking her head. “I’ve never heard that, but then I don’t know anything much about them.” Trent frowned at hearing that. She continued. “One thing I don’t understand is why you were even out there so close to us?”
“A big international incident was going on in the vicinity.”
“What kind?” she asked.
“Drug running,” he shared, yet keeping his tone light. He needed Naomi to trust him so he had to be honest with her at least somewhat … “So, that is another reason why things are a mystery right now.”
She nodded. “I don’t know what that’s got to do with me and Ricky though.”
“We wondered if those guys who grabbed you were part of the drug smuggling, and they expected you to be a part of it too.”
She frowned at him and then shook her head. “No way,” she declared, panic in her gaze. “That’s not me. I have nothing to do with that. Maybe they mistook me for somebody else, but I don’t know who that would have been.” She gave a hysterical chuckle. “I’m pretty ordinary looking.”
“It could be that they were waiting for a mule and thought you were it. It happens in these parts, and they may have been looking for ways to advance their operations.”
“I have no idea,” she muttered, staring at him. “You’ve got a couple of the kidnappers. Did you ask them?”
“They’re not talking,” he replied.
She blinked several times. “Right. I guess you can’t just put a gun to their head and say, Tell us everything you know, right?”
He smiled at the deep voice she used when she had suggested it. “We can do pretty close to that, but I think those men have a good reason for being scared enough to not say anything.”
“Ah, the drug lords over them,” she muttered.
“Yeah.”
She relaxed back. “I suppose that’s true,” she agreed.
“I don’t know if those men were a part of something voluntarily, versus being forced into it.
They did seem to be—let’s call it decisive—and then suddenly they weren’t sure they would survive it.
I think that’s one of the reasons why they were talking about just leaving us on board and getting off somehow. ”
“So, they had a backup plan of sorts?”
“Most likely. Maybe they didn’t know how to get us off because of the cables. That could have been part of the problem. One of them had put on the cables, but then they didn’t know how to get them off.”
He smiled. “If you think about it, that was a pretty major issue for us as well.”
She snorted. “You’re right. Who would have thought that those nasty cables would have been such a big deal?”
“The reality is that those cables may have saved your life.”
“Maybe,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “I just wish I could see Ricky.”
“And what would seeing him do?”
She frowned. “Reassure me.”
“In that case, I can make that happen, but you probably can’t talk to him or touch him,” he warned her, thinking it over. It was quite possible that she wouldn’t be allowed to disturb him in any way. He walked over to her and asked, “How do you feel about walking now?”
“I can walk,” she declared, flinging back the covers. Then she shivered.
He frowned. “But you are freezing.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “Let me at least see Ricky.”
*
Trent led her over to the bed beside her but behind the privacy curtain. As soon as she saw Ricky, she gasped. Ricky was not in a good shape, and Trent was half expecting this kind of reaction.
“Oh God, Ricky!” she cried out softly.
Almost instinctively Ricky shifted in reaction. One of the nurses stepped closer, watching her like a hawk.
Another nurse, standing on the sidelines, urged Naomi, “You can go closer and talk to him, but let’s not scare him.”
She reached out to hold one of his hands. She leaned over and whispered, “Hey, baby. You’ll be just fine. It’s all right, and you can wake up now. All the bad men are gone.”
It took a moment of her repeating that several more times before he slowly opened his eyes, looked right at her, and whispered, “You promise?”
“I promise, honey. It’s okay. We’re actually on a submarine.”
Ricky blinked, then looked behind her, his eyes widening as he saw Trent.
“It’s okay, honey. This man rescued us,” she shared, with a smile.
Trent stepped forward and smiled at him. “Hey, big guy. How you doing?”
Ricky frowned at him and asked sheepishly, “Are we really on a submarine?”
“We are,” Trent confirmed. “Once we get you feeling better, I can give you a tour. It’s really cool.”
Ricky’s eyes widened in joy at that, and Naomi laughed. “That’ll get him out of this bed faster than anything.”
“Hey, I’m okay with that,” Trent replied.
She smiled and looked back at the nurses, staring at Ricky in surprise. She looked down at Ricky and asked, “On a scale of one to ten, how are you feeling?”
He thought about it, and his face drooped a bit. “Maybe a five,” he whispered. “I don’t feel great, and I’m really cold.”
“I know you’re cold, honey. I am too,” she shared.
Immediately a nurse walked over with a heated blanket and wrapped him up. He cried out in joy as he snuggled under it.
Naomi stayed by his side for a moment longer. She knew all his tricks. “I’ll be close by, but listen to me. You need to take this seriously. No more pretending you’re asleep, okay? The bad guys are gone. So, when someone here talks to you, you answer, okay?”
Ricky nodded in agreement.
“They’re here to help you, and you need to let them. I’m right over there in the next bed.” With that, she pushed open the curtains so he could see. “That’s my bed over there. I promise that we’re fine now.”
He looked at her, then up at Trent, hope in his eyes. “And you’ll take me around the whole submarine?”
Trent nodded. “As long as the doctor says it’s okay.”
Naomi could hardly suppress a chuckle herself. “Yep, we need to get you healthy first.”
“I feel pretty good,” Ricky protested, struggling for a stronger, more convincing tone of voice.
A doctor came in at that moment and laughed. “I’m glad to hear that you’re feeling better, but you had us worried. When you wouldn’t answer, we weren’t sure what was going on.”
He stared at her and explained, “Lots of bad men were around.”