Page 95 of Forged in Secrets

“Thank you, sir,” Robert interrupted before his wife could say anything more. “Actually, my daughter has been kidnapped by some unnamed thugs and we suspect they’re on board that ship.”

He pointed in the direction of the yacht, which was now little more than a white dot bobbing along the blue horizon. They were running out of time.

The man held up his hands. “I am not sure I can help, then,” the man said, eyeing the craft. “I do not have a gun. Such criminals are dangerous. We can contact the local police–”

“Oh, never mind all of this,” Isla said, reaching her hand into the front of her buttoned blouse. “Let’s handle this the old fashioned way.”

Her husband blanched, and the man on the dock crossed his arms over his eyes as though warding off evil.

Before Gabe could attempt to avert his own eyes, she had yanked out the small money belt that he’d advised her to wear and, fortunately, nothing else had been exposed.

She gathered up more than half of the veritable pile of bills, a mix of dollars and pesos, and shoved them in the direction of the stranger.

“May we borrow your boat, please?” she asked.

The man stared at the clearly ridiculous sum and nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

He reached into the pocket of his cutoff denim shorts and procured a set of keys on a neon green rubber fob.

Mrs. Hinton beamed at him, taking the keys from his fingers and tossing them to Gabe.

“You drive.”

“Isla, you can’t possibly think you’re coming,” he argued. “It’s not safe–”

She stared up at him from her impressive height of five-foot-two, her bright blue eyes snapping.

“Gabriel, you drive. Is that clear?”

He sighed. Robert was already climbing on board.

“Yes, ma’am.”

GRACE

Grace could still feel the barrel of the gun biting into her skin.

After taking a couple of deep breaths to steady her mind, she started flipping switches and pressing buttons, guided by the memories of days at sea on her father’s company yacht.

The engine began to hum below their feet, and Grace took hold of the slick metal steering wheel.

No one spoke as the craft began to slip through the water, turning smoothly until the bow of the ship faced away from the shore. They were picking up speed now, moving farther and farther from the beach and from the possibility of getting help.

Who would see them here? What could she do aside from keeping the boat moving?

Grace tried to focus on the expanse of blue, but she could barely see it through the bright sunlight that was coming from somewhere on her left. She blinked severaltimes, trying to stop her eyes from blurring as she fiddled with the controls, but it didn’t work.

Her eyes filled with tears as quickly as she could blink them away, and she wondered if all of them came from the sun in the first place.

Forcing herself to ignore the pressure of the gun against her head, she turned slightly to glance in the direction of the offending light. If she couldn’t get rid of it, she’d have to adjust their heading in order to see properly.

Sure enough, the position of the ship now ensured that the window to her left lined up perfectly with the burning midday sun.

But that wasn’t all she saw.

She closed her eyes as she turned back toward the controls, the backs of her eyelids exploding in white firecrackers as the searing light faded away from her vision.

She understood now why God had told her to wait.

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