She thought she might even survive.
Jenna wondered why the brothers had been looking for charter boats to make smuggling runs for them if they had a plane and knew how to fly it. Maybe they were trying to distribute the risk?
Carlos waited outside until Raul returned, then both brothers climbed inside. Carlos got into the cockpit and fiddled with various instruments. Raul took a seat across from Jenna, his eyes never leaving her.
So much for the kamikaze plan, she thought. Her chances would probably be better once they reached Homestead. It would be easier for her to create an opportunity to escape in the unfamiliar territory of the Everglades, especially since she would be leading the way.
As the engines roared to life, it occurred to her that, when they did get to Homestead, she would have only one chance to turn the tables on her captors. She had about sixty minutes to figure out just how she was going to do that.
17
The hour passed quickly. When the distant lights of Miami came into view, the small plane descended toward a dimly lit area in the foreground that could only be Homestead. The ride had been rougher than Jenna expected, but none of her expectations were based on any kind of prior experience. She had imagined that flying would feel smooth compared to other forms of travel, but the air, much like the water upon which she had spent most of her life, was full of invisible currents and pockets of turbulence that rocked the small plane. It was enough to fill her with nausea, exacerbating the roiling of her empty stomach and intensifying the headache that had taken root during her long walk to Key West. She wanted to close her eyes and seek refuge in sleep, but even if her body had been able to do so under such conditions, she knew that dozing off could be a fatal mistake.
The shaking grew worse as the plane descended through the layers of the lower atmosphere. Outside the window, Jenna saw the buildings and streets of Homestead grow larger until it seemed that they would set down right in the middle of traffic. Then a ribbon of asphalt appeared beneath them and a moment later, the fuselage shook with the impact of touchdown. Jenna squeezed the armrests, holding on for dear life. All thoughts of how she would escape the Villegas brothers were forgotten as she envisioned the plane coming apart around her, exploding in a fireball.
She sighed with relief as the aircraft settled onto its wheels and slowed, trading the rough chaos of thin air for smooth but unyielding terra firma.
Raul laughed at her. Jenna considered flipping him the bird, but decided that would be a bad idea for several reasons, the first being that she’d have to let go of the armrests.
They taxied for several minutes before pulling to a stop alongside a row of similar aircraft. Jenna looked in vain for ground crew or other personnel that she might be able to call out to if the chance presented itself, but the airport looked deserted.
Carlos extracted himself from the cockpit and threw open the door. After the unexpected cool temperature in the plane’s interior, the hot, humid, tropical air was yet another physical assault on Jenna’s frayed nerves.
Pull it together, she urged herself.
“I’m hungry,” she said, aware of how pathetic she sounded.
“Tell you what, chica,” Raul answered. “After you take us to daddy’s stash, I’ll buy you a great big steak dinner.”
The thought of eating steak — greasy, salty, dripping with bloody juices — nearly made her retch. “Actually, not that hungry after all,” she murmured.
Carlos ignored the exchange and led them down the tarmac, around a building to a nearly empty parking lot. As they approached a generic looking sedan with a rental sticker on the rear bumper, Carlos took out a phone and began tapping the screen. After a few minutes, the sedan’s locks clicked open.
“How did you do that?” Jenna asked, curious in spite of everything else.
“I’ve got the app” he said, waggling the phone in Jenna’s direction. “No more waiting in lines or filling out papers. No business hours.”
She had been wondering how they would proceed once arriving at Homestead. Hiring a taxi or renting a car might have given her yet another opportunity to seek help or slip away, but Carlos had avoided all human contact by ordering the rental car online and having it delivered to the airport, keys inside, to be unlocked remotely when he entered a confirmation code.
Carlos directed his brother to take the wheel, then opened the rear door for Jenna, sliding inside next to her. “Where to now?”
Jenna tried to remember the brief glimpse she’d caught of the map displayed on Mercy’s cell phone. “It’s south of the city.”
“What’s the address?” Carlos’s tone was impatient.
“There’s no address. It’s out in boonies. You know, it would be a lot easier to do this in daylight.”
“I’m sure it would. For your sake, I hope you can show us how to get there in the dark.”
She clamped her mouth shut. Daylight would have been preferable for a very different reason, but if the map was any indicator, the area where they were going was so remote that she doubted they would see anyone else even at high noon.
“I’ll need your phone.”
He laughed. “You think I’m stupid, little girl?”
“I need your phone’s GPS to find the exact spot.”
He considered this. “Just tell me the GPS location. I’ll put it in.”
“If you want the money, we do this my way.” The confidence in her voice wasn’t just an act, and she wondered from where she’d gotten her wellspring of fortitude. Noah, she decided. From watching his example and from listening when he spoke.
Probably his genes, too. Is grit an inheritable trait?
Jenna braced herself for the expected reprisal, but Carlos surprised her by holding out his phone. When she reached for it, he whispered, “You try to call someone or send a text, and I will hurt you.”
She nodded and took the phone. Although Noah had never let her own one, she had used Mercy’s phone many times, as well as occasionally borrowing them from her classmates. She brought up the phone’s search program and typed in the coordinates from memory.
25.321304 -80.557173
The search returned a variety of options. She spotted ‘maps,’ but as her finger hovered above the screen, she quickly scanned the other search results.
Interesting.
The list was replaced by a close-up satellite projection of the area. She saw a road leading to it, but if her suspicions about the place were correct, there would be no vehicle access. With two fingers, she zoomed out until the outskirts of Homestead were visible, a patchwork of neat green and tan rectangles sitting above the featureless brown of the Everglades. She found the airport at the edge of the city, and then she memorized the route they would need to follow to reach their final destination.
She handed the phone back to Carlos without making any effort to erase the search. It didn’t matter if he knew the coordinates now. Her brief look at the search results had revealed something very unique about their destination. There hadn’t been much really, just links to web pages, with only the title and a few words of description for each, but it was enough for her to finally make sense of the bizarre coordinates, and the last set of numbers Noah had written down.
Jenna felt as if there was now a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time since Raul had revealed his treachery, the advantage was hers.