When he could no longer see them at all, Papa turned away. He envied the shooters. Their ordeal was nearly over. His was just beginning.
FIGHT
24
Jenna stared at the journal, not moving, barely breathing. None of what she had endured — not the explosion, the repeated attempts on her life, the crash or the brutal fight that had ended with her killing a man — had hit her as hard as the revelation contained in Noah’s journal.
That baby was me. He took me from the arms of that dead woman.
“I was three months old,” she whispered. Yet, even that was something of which she could no longer be certain. Her birthday was just another fiction, invented by the man that had called himself her father.
He killed my parents, abducted me and raised me as his own daughter. It’s all a lie.
“Jenna?”
She felt Mercy’s hand on her arm, a concerned but tentative touch. Mercy had read every word.
“He’s not my father,” Jenna whispered, the revelation weakening her knees and pulling tears into her eyes. “He never was.” She remained standing only because of Mercy’s steadying grip. “Jenna’s probably not even my real name…” She looked Mercy in the eyes. “Did you know?”
“No. I had no idea. But, honey…” Mercy faltered. “This doesn’t change how he felt about you.”
Jenna felt rage building in her chest. “How can you say that? He kidnapped me.”
“Jenna, you know that’s not what happened. He saved your life.”
“Saved? He destroyed my life.” Yet, even as she said it, part of her knew it wasn’t true. Nathan Flood, wasn’t Noah’s real name any more than ‘Papa’ had been or Noah was now. Mercy had been right. Noah was some kind of special government operative. Probably CIA. He’d been sent to destroy a secret research base. Had been ordered to kill everyone, not realizing that ‘everyone’ included an infant girl. Unable, perhaps unwilling, to carry out such a cold-blooded execution, he had instead concocted a way to save the baby’s life, spiriting her away from the island, and then dropping out of sight. He had led a fictitious life as a widowed charter-boat skipper raising his daughter all alone.
In her heart, she saw it for what it was: an act of mercy. But an unforgivable act of mercy, if there was such a thing. His sudden attack of conscience hadn’t prevented him from murdering everyone else in that compound. The nurse that had been holding her. Her real parents. Had they been sleeping upstairs when Noah had taken their daughter away and hid her in the forest?
She now understood why Noah never permitted her to ask about her mother, why he had actually preferred that she call him Noah instead of Daddy, Father or, God forbid, Papa.
She was so angry that she almost missed the absence of the one thing she had been looking for — an explanation for why someone was trying to kill her.
She wiped a forearm across her eyes and cleared her throat. “We need to talk to this Cort guy.”
Mercy nodded slowly.
Jenna looked back at the silo. She could almost feel the residue of Noah’s presence there, but now every memory she had of him was different. She banished the thoughts as she had banished her tears. People were probably still trying to kill her, and that was something with which she had to deal. The mystery of her own past would have to take a backseat, though her intuition told her that Bill Cort might know a thing or two about that, as well.
She ventured out onto the metal plates and knelt beside the lifeless sack of meat that had once been Carlos Villegas. She wondered if she should say something—good riddance or enjoy your stay in Hell—but what was the point? Instead, she contented herself with a single acquisition: his pistol.
It was different than Mercy’s gun, the one she had lost in the wreck. It was a semi-automatic, but bigger and noticeably heavier, made completely of metal, and lacking the unusual split-trigger mechanism. As she inspected it, Mercy walked over and put her hands on it without attempting to take it away.
“This is the safety,” she said, touching a swivel catch at the back end. She indicated a little red dot. “When you see red, it means it’s ready to fire.”
Jenna nodded, and then carefully worked the safety until the red dot was covered up. She had a lot more questions but this was neither the time nor the place. She stood and made a silent promise to do some more Internet research at her next opportunity. “Let’s get out of here.”
Without another look back, they headed for the exit. As they passed the Villegas brothers’ car, high beams still blazing, Mercy opened the door and leaned inside. Jenna saw another car parked behind it — Mercy’s car. A moment later, the headlights went out and the only remaining source of light was the car’s dim overhead dome light. Mercy closed the door and the light faded away, plunging them into darkness.
But not total darkness. Although the sky was overcast, blotting out the stars, a silvery blob marked the location of a waxing gibbous moon. To the northwest, there was a faint yellow glow, like distant city lights.
Jenna’s eyebrows came together in a frown. Homestead lay to the northeast, and was surely too far away to appear so bright.
The glow grew brighter. Jenna felt her guts knot with dread. “Mercy. Someone’s coming.”
25
Mercy peered out across the dark landscape. “Did they—” She jerked her head back toward the building and the Villegas brothers still inside, “—call some friends?”
Jenna shook her head. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t seem like their style. But it doesn’t matter. We can’t let anyone find us here.”
“There’s only the one road leading out.”
Jenna focused on the problem. They were in the middle of the Everglades — alligator country — and the paved, dry road was the only safe route to freedom. If even a fraction of the things she’d heard about the vast marsh were true, attempting a cross-country journey, on foot and in the dark, was suicidal. Okay, she thought. What are the other options?
None. They had to drive out. It was the only way. But to do so, they would have to get past the approaching car without being seen.
“Mercy, start your car but keep the lights off. Pull around behind the shed, where they won’t see you, and wait for me there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No time to explain.” Jenna wheeled around and ran for the other car.
She opened the door and slid behind the wheel, feeling the press of the journal and Carlos’s cell phone in her pocket. She laid the gun on her lap and turned the key. The engine came to life, the dashboard lights dimming as the partially drained battery tried to supply the power needed to turn the motor over, but then it caught and a low murmur filled Jenna’s ears. She located the switch for the headlights and turned them on, flipping on the high beams. Light filled the interior of the building once more, revealing the debris-strewn floor and the carcasses of her tormentors. She put her foot on the brake, exactly as she had learned in the Driver’s Ed class Noah had made her take, and shifted into ‘drive’. She let up on the brake, allowed the car to roll forward through the opening and then stopped.
That was as far as she needed to go. She shifted back into ‘park’ and got out, leaving the lights on and the door open. As she moved back out of the building, she checked to make sure she still had the journal and the gun, and then she ran through the darkness toward the edge of the building, where Mercy was still moving her car out of sight.