Page 5 of Hell to Pay

We would find her. We had to, because I had things I needed to say.

The radio crackled with Jude’s voice. I unclipped it from my jeans and spoke into it, still looking through the binoculars at theOsprey.

“Yeah.”

“She’s here,” Jude said. “We’re almost positive.”

“You’realmostpositive? What the fuck does that mean?”

Almost wasn’t good enough. Not when it came to getting Lilah back.

“It means Crank dropped off the camera an hour ago,” Jude said. “Heat signatures indicate there are eight men on board and two women. One of the women hasn’t moved from a room near the bow.”

“So?” I said. “Maybe she’s somebody’s wife taking a nap.”

“That’s not our read,” Jude said.

“I’m not leaving this fucking boat until I’m sure Lilah’s not on board,” I said.

There was a long pause and I could almost hear Nolan and Jude debating how to respond. Finally, Nolan’s voice sounded in my earpiece.

“Just fucking trust us and get your ass over here. Lilah needs us.”

4

LILAH

It was loose.I was sure it wasn’t my imagination. The sock was slippery with sweat from my hands — blood too — but the bolt was giving just a little as I tried to turn it.

The sun was sinking in the west, a fiery orb dropping into the sea, as I paused to slow my breathing. I’d stopped checking my pulse. It was too sluggish and I was starting to feel light-headed more quickly after each break.

It only freaked me out to confirm what I already knew: I needed my meds.

Thinking too much about what would happen if I didn’t get them — if I didn’t escape — only caused a spike of anxiety, and that only made things worse. Now I stopped when I started getting short of breath, sat back on the teak floors in my prison room, took a break to use the bathroom, anything to make it easier to pull oxygen into my lungs, keep the blood flowing through my veins.

The setting sun seemed like a portent of doom. It was terrifying to be held prisoner on a boat in the middle of the ocean but the thought of losing what little light I had from the porthole windows, of losing the small orienting view, made me want to scream.

I took a long deep breath. Then another. Took a swig of the water from what was left on my lunch tray.

I would work the bolt loose, free the screw. I wouldn’t be able to use it on both the German woman and the guard, so I would need to get the woman off-balance and use the screw on the guard, who had the gun.

I thought about the training I’d done with Locke. If I could hit the guard’s carotid artery with the screw, he’d bleed out before he could give chase, but the artery would be difficult to hit during a struggle.

The eyes, on the other hand, were always a soft target. A stab in the eye might not kill someone like a hit to an artery would, but an eye would be easier to hit, and it would throw him off-balance enough to let me run.

I cut a glance to my lunch tray: a salad with salmon and thin strips of cucumber and carrots. There was obviously a full kitchen on the boat.

And if there was a full kitchen, there were knives.

The screw wasn’t exactly a deadly weapon, but it might be enough to get me to the kitchen where I could get my hands on a knife or three.

I could almost feel the weight of my lost knife in my hand. I would take the guard’s gun if I could get it, but I was most comfortable with a knife. I just needed enough time to get my hands on one.

I took a deep breath and sat forward on my knees. Then I wrapped the remnant of my sock around my hand again and started twisting, ignoring the stinging in my hand, the warmth of fresh blood on my fingers.

5

JUDE

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