Chapter 3

JANIE SANK TOthe floor and scooted into the corner. The sounds of women screaming and men moaning or laughing had gone on for hours. When would it stop?

Without a window, Janie did not know how much time had passed since she and the other hostages had arrived, but she thought it was late in the night. How she longed for noise-canceling headphones to block out the sounds that would plague her nightmares for years to come. She paused. If she lived that long.

Janie frowned. No. She wouldn’t give in to despair. She would get out of here somehow. These men couldn’t be vigilant all the time. Escape was possible, and she’d get away from the hijackers.

Escape. A beautiful word. Janie had to be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity to run.

And just like that, her happiness dimmed. She’d been locked in the back of a panel van without windows to watch the twists and turns of the road. No street signs and no sense of where she and the others had been taken.

If she escaped, where would she go? How far was it to the nearest city or town? And if she found a town within walking distance, who could she ask for help?

The hijackers must have connections because no one prevented them from leaving the airport where they’d landed. No one stopped them on the road, either, because they had used no evasive maneuvers to get away from law enforcement.

Janie frowned. Did that mean they were part of a cartel? She swallowed hard. If they were, those men had serious connections and power. Money talked, and people were afraid to stand up to a powerful cartel.

A high-pitched scream broke into Janie’s thoughts. She stared at the steel door with bars over the window.

“No,” a woman sobbed. “Please, don’t.”

“Shut your mouth,” a man snapped. “The buyer’s here. Do as you”re told, and you might survive. You’re not our problem anymore.”

“But you promised….”

A slap, then, “I didn’t promise you nothing. Now, shut your trap.”

Heavy footsteps and stumbling lighter ones echoed in the hall as the man and woman passed Janie’s cell.

Scar Face and a woman Janie didn’t recognize. Must be one woman who was already in residence when the hijackers brought her and the rest of her fellow travelers to this place.

The woman’s begging brought tears to Janie’s eyes. She couldn’t imagine what this woman was going to face or what she’d already survived. Soon, the woman’s pleas faded to silence as Scar Face propelled her from the building.

He returned several minutes later and unlocked another cell. This one was on Janie’s side of the hallway. Before long, screams and laughter from that cell filled the hall.

Janie pressed her hands over her ears, but nothing drowned out the sound of misery and fear emanating from the woman in the cell next to hers. She didn’t know how long the sounds went on, but they stopped suddenly to be replaced by vicious cursing from Scar Face followed by a shout at one of his men.

More heavy footsteps passed her door. Scar Face and one of his henchmen shared a low-voiced conversation. Following that, several muffled grunts accompanied shuffling. The henchman stumbled by Janie’s cell, carrying something wrapped in a blanket.

Her eyes widened. Not something. Someone. One woman on her flight had just left the building in a cheap equivalent of a body bag.

She swallowed the bile gathering in her mouth. Was death in store for all of them? If so, why had Scar Face and his friends bothered taking them from the plane?

What would happen to her brother if she died in this cell? Would he ever know what happened to her? Janie would miss out on holding her niece or nephew and helping Maria while she healed from childbirth. Yes, Maria had family who lived nearby, but Janie wanted to help as well. Would she have that chance? Only if she escaped these men and any nefarious plans they had in mind for her.

But what could she do to help herself? They had locked her in this small cell. She had nothing on her. No handy metal nail file or a lock pick set. Three clean tissues in her pocket wouldn’t unlock a heavy metal door.

Janie despised being helpless. She was a capable woman who owned her own business. But this? How could she have prepared herself for being kidnapped from a plane?

Worse, she didn’t know what these men wanted. Money? Something else? The people transported here with her didn’t know each other. So what was the common denominator?

She thought more about that, fighting to keep panic at bay. If the hijackers wanted money from her or demanded a ransom from her family, the only person left to pay was her brother, David, and he didn’t have an extra cent to his name.

Even if her brother forked over money, which she doubted, Janie wouldn’t allow him to sacrifice money for her. Yes, he had insurance, but what if something went wrong during the birth and the baby or Maria needed extra care? No, she couldn’t allow him to give the hijackers money.

With their parents gone, that left Janie to pay ransom for herself. She grimaced. As a new business owner, she didn’t have extra money, either. Supplies and employees were expensive. Although Natural Bliss was making a profit, the profit margin was razor thin. Definitely not as much money as the hijackers would consider a profitable ransom payment. Good thing they didn’t know about the trust fund Granny Irene had left her.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard several rounds of gunfire. A man screamed, followed by more gunfire and screaming. Inside the building, men ran down the hallway toward the front, shouting at each other. The women on either side of the hall were silent.

What was going on? Were they under attack or were the hijackers cutting their losses by killing the plane’s male passengers?

Scar Face raced down the hall and unlocked a door. A woman screamed. Her captor shouted and cursed as he forced the woman outside.

More gunfire and the screaming abruptly stopped.

In less than a minute, the gunfire resumed, this time farther away from the building.

Janie wrapped her arms around her upturned knees. What was going on? Was she minutes away from a bullet ending her life?

Her heart rate skyrocketed as Scar Face raced past her cell again, unlocked another door, and dragged a screaming and crying woman outside.

The gunfire ramped up outside for several minutes and followed by engines cranking up, more shouts, then an eerie silence.

Janie didn’t know which was worse. All the panicked activity or the sudden silence.

For long minutes, she heard absolutely nothing. No signs of life, no activity. Nothing. She frowned. Had Scar Face and his buddies abandoned the place?

Her stomach tightened into a knot. If they had left, Janie and her fellow travelers were in deep trouble unless someone found them in time to save them from starvation or dehydration. The quick glimpse she’d had around the area before the hijackers propelled her into the building didn’t give Janie hope that they’d be found soon.

Jungle. That’s all she’d seen. No neighbors, cars, or sounds of vehicles driving down a road. Nothing but trees.

What she wouldn’t give for her cell phone. Of course, out here in the middle of nowhere, what was the chance of a cell tower being close? Next to nil. Satellite phones would be the way to communicate this far away from civilization.

Janie tightened her grip around her legs and watched the barred window of her door. Was anyone still left in the building?

Listening to the screams and moans over the past several hours had driven her crazy. Silence was unnerving. She lost track of time as she waited, seated on the floor and curled up in the corner.

When she’d almost given in to resignation, the silence was broken. A brush of fabric against a solid surface told her the building was no longer empty. Did her fellow travelers sense the same thing?

With no light in her cell, Janie’s sight was limited to the barred window. She watched and waited for what came next. Was a competing group responsible for the attack on the hijackers? If so, what fate awaited her? Would this group accept she didn’t have ransom money or would they too cut their losses and end her life?

One by one, the doors in the hallway were unlocked. “Clear,” low masculine voices repeated over and over.

English, she realized. These men spoke English. Cautious hope reared its head. Military? Mercenaries, perhaps?

Finally, a face shrouded in shadows appeared at Janie’s barred window. Seconds later, the cell door opened, and a man stepped into the room.