Chapter 3:
Get on the Plane
Time marched steadily toward 5:00 p.m. by the time Megan picked up flowers, a stuffed bear, and a card from the hospital’s version of a tourist trap.
Convenience is expensive.
When she compared the cost to the size of the apology she owed Angela, it didn’t seem so bad. A kindly nurse gave Megan directions up to her friend’s third-floor room.
The décor reminded Megan of a sparsely furnished dorm room. The entryway struck a fine balance between cramped and bare. She guessed they didn’t want anything to inhibit movement of beds and gurneys, but the designers had stuck a tiny bathroom in between adjacent rooms. A chair vying for the title of ugliest monstrosity ever took up most of the far corner beyond the bed. Cheap wooden cabinets blended in with the beige walls, both of which contrasted starkly with the blindingly white bedsheets. A faint antiseptic aroma filled the air, and a soft, steady beep provided the perfect soundtrack to going insane.
“Hey, are you conscious?” Megan asked, stepping cautiously into the room.
Angela’s eyes popped open and honed in on her.
“Get me out of here!” she demanded. “I need to go someplace with decent food and good TV.”
“There’s never anything good on TV, but I can sympathize with you on the food thing.” Megan walked around the bed to the end table where she could lay her pricey burdens down before presenting them properly. She spotted a white bag on the floor. “I see you’ve been cheating on the food thing anyway.”
Angela followed her gaze and waved dismissively.
“That was chicken soup from the hotel’s kitchen. I had to bribe Phil to bring me lunch so I wouldn’t starve, but that was hours ago. Help a girl out here.”
“Did the doctor say you’re well enough to leave yet?” asked Megan.
“This is a city hospital, honey. Spotting a doctor is like winning the lottery,” said Angela. “Sadly, it comes down to ‘he who makes the biggest stink gets helped first around here.’ I was drugged most of the morning, so I’m behind on my stink-making.”
“I can help with that,” Megan promised. “If you’re truly well enough.” She leaned down and gave her friend an awkward half-hug then handed over the teddy bear wearing a Get Well Soon T-shirt. Angela looked like she needed to cuddle something.
“The bandage is on the wrong leg,” Angela teased, smiling her thanks. She turned the bear around and folded her arms around it, so that the thing stared up at Megan with big, glassy black eyes. The bear’s right leg was swaddled in white bandages, and it had a soft, plushy crutch tucked up under its right arm.
“Sorry, they were out of left-leg bandages,” said Megan.
“At least you got the flowers right,” Angela noted with a wink. “I’m touched you remembered I love irises.”
“Anybody who’s ever stepped foot in your office would remember you like them,” Megan commented. “I think—”
Two sharp raps at the door interrupted her. Something slid across the floor.
Megan dashed around the bed to get a better look at the thing.
It was a cell phone.
“What is it?” asked Angela.
Without answering, Megan raced to the door and looked both ways. Seeing nothing unusual, she hesitated. She couldn’t be everywhere at once. There were dozens of places to duck inside and hide. Whoever had knocked and slid the phone in could be in the next room over for all she knew. If she checked along the right hallway and guessed wrong, she’d never have time to check the left hallway. In any case, leaving Angela alone didn’t seem wise. The sound of a ringing phone drew Megan back into the room.
“Talk to me,” said Angela. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” Megan admitted. She knelt down next to the phone. It kept on ringing.
“Are you going to answer it?” Angela inquired.
Unease tightened Megan’s stomach. She really didn’t want to answer the phone, but she had a feeling ignoring it would only compound the problem. Picking up the cell phone, Megan turned it over and examined it for signs of tampering. With the kind of week she’d been having, she wouldn’t put it past karma to send an exploding phone her way. A glance at Angela’s frightened expression threw a shot of guilt into the mix.
Sliding the bar over to accept the call, Megan tapped the speaker button and waited. Jogging over to the door, she closed it firmly before returning to Angela’s side and holding the phone between them. After a quick internal debate, she decided on the formal and direct approach.
“I assume you know whom you’re addressing. What can I do for you?”
“Put Angela Melkin-Pierce on the line.” The male speaker’s tone came across as business-like.
Angela’s eyes widened in confusion, but she managed to whisper a response.
“This is Angela.”
“Find the photos on this phone,” instructed the man.
It seemed a reasonably harmless request, but Megan tilted the screen in her direction so she could view the images first. If she could shield Angela from what was to come, she would. Her fingers flew over the touch screen until she found the Photos app. Six tiny images popped up. She hoped for a location tag, but she wasn’t that lucky. Tapping the first photo showed her a man she’d never met but instantly recognized from the pictures in Angela’s office. A time stamp in the corner told her the photo had been taken about an hour ago.
Each picture showed Anthony Pierce having a really bad day. In the first picture, he was bound hand and foot and staring up with haunted eyes from a large trunk. The second picture featured a close up of his face. Thin glasses perched at a strange angle on his nose. His left eye looked slightly swollen. With a broad forehead and short, spikey brown hair, Anthony was handsome in a nerdy sort of way. The lower half of his face was a mask of duct tape. The third, fourth, and fifth pictures chronicled his transfer from the car trunk to a dark room with a sturdy wooden chair. The last image showed him bound to the chair, shooting eye daggers at his captors.
Megan’s teeth clenched as she dealt with the surge of anger rising from deep within.
“Show me,” Angela pleaded, reading enough in Megan’s expression.
“Show her,” echoed the man. His unyielding tone made it an order.
“She doesn’t need to see the pictures,” Megan argued.
“You will show her them or we’ll hurt him.”
Silently cursing the heartlessness of that, Megan turned the phone so Angela could see the pictures and scrolled through them quickly. Angela gasped and tears sprang to her eyes.
“She’s seen them,” Megan reported tightly. “Now, what do you want?”
“I’m going to put Mr. Pierce on the line for a moment so you believe the promises to come.”
In a few seconds, a new male voice joined the conversation.
“Angela? Are you okay?”
“Anthony! Where are you?”
“I don’t know. I—”
Anthony’s voice cut off abruptly, but the sound of his voice had a marked effect upon Angela. Tears flowed steadily now. Her eyes searched Megan’s face, desperate for answers.
“Are you convinced?” asked the stranger with the cold voice.
“Yes, we believe you have Mr. Pierce,” said Megan.
“Good. Go home, Agent.”
The man’s simple order shocked Megan.
“Drop the tunnel investigation and catch the next available flight back to Hawaii,” continued the man. “Mr. Pierce will be returned safely once I receive confirmation that you’ve obeyed these instructions.”
Megan’s mind raced. Threatening Anthony to obtain compliance from her made little to no sense. She barely knew the man and hadn’t so much as shaken his hand in real life. A look at Angela showed her where most of the threat’s damage was being done. By telling Megan they wanted her out of the tunnel investigation, they’d revealed how much they valued whatever had gone on down there.
“I have no jurisdiction up here,” Megan pointed out. “The investigation doesn’t hinge on my approval or participation, so why take the risk of kidnapping Mr. Pierce?”
The more laws you break, the more attention you draw to yourself.
She decided not to share that thought.
“There must be more than you’re telling me,” Megan pressed. She didn’t want to upset the man, but the longer he talked, the more likely it was he’d let something slip.
“If Mr. Pierce is of no use to me, shall I have him killed?”
“No!” The emphatic answer came from Megan and Angela.
Gripping the phone hard, Megan reached out to her friend. She seriously hated giving the evil guy what he wanted in terms of a reaction, but she couldn’t help it. Angela seized her hand and squeezed hard. Megan thought it high time to wrap up this little heart-to-heart.
“Give me 48 hours to make my plans,” said Megan.
“There’s a plane leaving from McCarran International in ten hours. Be on it, or I send him back in pieces.”
The call ended.
Shortly thereafter a text message came through.
It read: No cops. No feds. Get on the plane.
Megan let her eyes linger on the screen as it faded to black.
“What will you do?” Angela’s question conveyed her fear. “You have to go.” The firm grip she maintained on Megan’s right hand demonstrated the conflict within her.
“I have a plane to catch,” said Megan. She gave her friend a tight, unconvincing smile.
She did not tell Angela what she intended to do beyond getting on the plane. As of this second, she had no idea what she was going to do, but she was not going back to Hawaii. They’d kill Anthony before the plane landed in Honolulu International Airport.
The tight timeline told her that he probably had about 24 hours to live.
Angela opened her mouth to speak, but Megan held up a finger to warn her to keep quiet. She wouldn’t put it past the bad guys to slip a bug into the phone. Six months ago, Megan would never have dreamt of being so paranoid, but her brushes with the Shadow Council had altered her perceptions. She also marveled how power could corrupt even the most ordinary people. A small part of her wondered what the manipulative shadow organization was up to these days.
No good, probably.
After extricating her hand from her friend’s grip, Megan headed to the bathroom. She locked the door to the adjacent hospital room, flushed the toilet, and turned on the sink. Next, she set the phone carefully on the sink’s edge. Since the water was running anyway, Megan splashed her face a few times with cold water. A fluffy white hand towel waited to be put to good use. After drying her face thoroughly, Megan studied her reflection in the mirror above the sink. The move didn’t give her a lot of time, but at least she could have a private word with Angela.
When she reentered the main room, Megan found her friend struggling to stand and reaching for the old-fashioned desk phone.
“We’ve got to call the police!” Angela cried. Fresh tear streaks marked her face.
Racing over to the bed, Megan gently pried the phone away. She set the phone back where it belonged and knelt before her friend.
“We can’t call the police,” Megan said, speaking swiftly and softly. She squeezed Angela’s knee to grab her attention. “Whoever these people are, they have a lot of connections and power. They will know if we turn to the police or the FBI.”
“They’re going to kill him,” Angela said in a choked whisper. “Don’t let them kill him! Please! I can’t lose him!” She started weeping quietly.
Standing, Megan pulled Angela into a hug. Because the other woman was still sitting on the hospital bed, the heights were right for Megan to briefly rest her chin on top of Angela’s head.
“I don’t know how, but I will get him back.” Megan resisted the urge to elaborate. She needed to retrieve the phone soon or arouse the bad guys’ suspicions.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
