Helen took a deep breath and expelled it. “Turkey, ham, sweet potatoes… too much food, really.”
“Yeah. Wreaks havoc with a diet.”
Helen smiled a little.
Now for the tough part. “So what were you doing in the Amazon exactly?”
Helen didn’t say anything. Paul was watching Anna, a frown furrowing his brow. Anna didn’t expect the woman to know what her husband and his brother were up to, but if Helen had heard anything at all suspicious or out of place before they were taken hostage, she might have a clue.
“One of the major firms my husband owns has to do with pharmaceuticals. He had a business trip down here, and he wanted to take the family on a vacation at the same time. I would have preferred somewhere else, honestly. My idea of a pleasure trip is visiting the Swiss Alps or the Riviera. He said we’d have a fun adventure.”
The mention of a business trip surprised Anna. “So he had some business meetings before you all took the trek into the jungle?”
“Yes. A couple of meetings. The cottages had a swimming pool. I took the kids swimming. We were there a day before we went on the trip into the jungle.”
“Who all knew you were going to be here?”
“Everyone. It wasn’t a secret.” The woman closed her eyes, then opened them. Her eyes shimmered with tears.
Anna glanced at Paul. He was still watching Anna, his eyes meeting hers, waiting for her to say something that would encourage the woman to speak the truth.
Time to drop the bombshell. “I know that we weren’t supposed to rescue you.” Anna let that information sink in.
Helen’s heartbeat kicked up another notch. She was barely breathing, as if she was afraid she’d give her rattled emotions away.
“My team knows, too,” Anna added, to emphasize that they weren’t about to be bamboozled by William Wentworth.
Helen swallowed hard, then bit her lip.
“You don’t want to lose custody of your children,” Anna prodded, shifting the focus so abruptly that Helen’s eyes widened.
“What do you mean?” Helen asked, trying to sound innocent, her words choked by unshed tears.
More silence. Heavy pauses were important, unsettling to someone being interrogated. The time gave the person being questioned a few seconds to reflect, to sweat, to make mistakes.
“We came here to rescue you, but your husband and his brother had some other agenda. We were set up, Helen.”
“No,” Helen gasped.
Anna studied her, unable to ascertain whether the outburst meant Helen couldn’t believe the team had figured that out, or that she hadn’t known what was going down.
“If anyone on the team dies during this mission, it’s on your and your husband’s and his brother’s heads.”
Helen had turned into a statue, her expression horrified.
“You’d be an accessory.”
“I didn’t know anything about it,” Helen said hastily.
She hadn’t denied that her husband and his brother had set the whole situation up, Anna noted.
“Until when?” Anna asked.
Helen didn’t say.
“At the hut where we stayed several days ago?” Anna asked. Had Helen heard her husband and Jeff whispering that night? “Before that? When you were first taken hostage? When did you know this was a setup?”
Helen backtracked as if she’d finally managed to get a grip on her thoughts. “They didn’t set this up. We were with tour guides on a trek through the Amazon to see the kinds of plants my husband uses in his pharmaceuticals. They… the men… barged through the jungle and killed our guides.”
“You weren’t with a group of other tourists?”
Helen turned up her nose. “Of course not. We always have private tours when we go on vacation.”
“Okay, well, we know your husband and his brother are involved in something underhanded. Just be forewarned that if we get you and your family out alive, the team isn’t letting this go.”
The woman’s face hardened. Then she finally said, “You won’t discover anything more than what really happened.” But she didn’t sound sure of herself. She turned her back to Anna and settled down to sleep.
“Your kids could have been shot and killed. They could have died.”
Helen didn’t say anything. Anna was dying to know what she was thinking, feeling. Anna let out her breath, exasperated that she couldn’t get a confession out of the woman.
If Helen hadn’t known, or only suspected something more was going on, she might try to speak with her husband about it sometime soon. Paul, Allan, and Anna would watch William and Helen’s interactions tomorrow. One way or another, they’d eventually learn the truth.
“Maybe you don’t know what this is all about,” Anna said. “For your sake, I hope not.”
Let Helen try to sleep on that.
Chapter 5
“Finn and I are getting breakfast for everyone,” Hunter said to Bjornolf early the next morning. “Go ahead and rouse the Wentworths. We’ll be right back. Vehicles will be here momentarily.”
Neither of the brothers had said a word to each other last night. Jeff and William had taken turns snoring, but the team still didn’t trust them.
When Bjornolf woke them up, they both had sat up in bed looking a little dazed.
Jeff was still sitting on the bed, not making a move to leave it. “When do we get our cell phones back? I need to make a few calls. Let people know we’re all right.”
“When we get you to the embassy,” Bjornolf said. “Safer that way.” Safer for the team, he wanted to say.
Hunter and Finn were gone for some time as they picked up breakfast burritos for everyone. When they returned, the men were still dawdling at getting dressed. Bjornolf hustled them to dress faster and hurry up and eat, suspecting that their snail-paced response had something to do with them trying to slow the team down. He wolfed down his own burrito, like Hunter and Finn did theirs.
Hunter was watching out the window when his cell rang, and he said, “Okay, I see you.”
As two dusty black SUVs and a blue Ford Taurus pulled up in front of the cabanas, Bjornolf stayed with the Wentworths, watching Hunter’s back as he went out to speak to the drivers.
Finn’s cell rang. “Got it. Be right out.” He turned to Bjornolf. “I’m going out to help Hunter. You stay with the Wentworths.”
Bjornolf nodded.
Finn and Paul joined Hunter outside, and they began to inspect the SUVs while the men who had brought the vehicles drove off in the car. Anna and Allan remained with the woman and the kids inside the other cabana.
Bjornolf surveyed the area around them, looking for anyone suspicious, and saw a man speaking on a phone, watching the cabanas. Bjornolf got on his cell to let Hunter know. “Trouble might be coming. A man appears to be relaying our movements.”
“Got it,” Hunter said.
They couldn’t do anything until someone made a move. Even then, they had to be careful not to create an international incident. Killing what appeared to be everyday, normal Colombian citizens wasn’t an option.
“Vehicles are all clear,” Hunter said to Bjornolf over the phone. “Bring the Wentworths out.”
“Come on. Time to roll out,” Bjornolf said to the brothers.
When he and the men vacated the cabana, he glanced in Anna’s direction to see her herding the mother and kids outside. He gave her a curt good-morning nod.
Most of the team members were wearing jeans and T-shirts, vests featuring embroidered university emblems, and combat boots, and they looked like tourists. Paul was wearing that gaudy hot-pink palm-tree shirt. Bjornolf shook his head before he could catch himself, but he had to admit, Paul did look like he was on vacation. Bjornolf’s vest was camouflage, not quite touristy, but close enough.