James Patterson: Now You See Her

“Take it off, hottie! Work it!” a handsome black guy standing on the shore railing yelled between cupped hands.

“Come on, Nina. Accommodate the man,” Charlie said.

“Um, I don’t think he was talking to me, hottie,” I said, bursting into giggles.

Charlie laughed, too, as he took a handful of cards out of his jacket pocket. They were the business cards he’d received from media people during his press conference outside the prison after Justin’s stay. He finished his champagne and started thumbing numbers into his cell phone.

“Whoo-hoo! Look at me, momma. What do we have here? Producer for Larry King. A Vanity Fair guy. Heck, I’ve got Geraldo on speed dial now,” he said. “Screw HGTV. Maybe I’ll score one of those mock trial shows. How does Judge Charlie strike you? Hello, fifteen minutes. What took you so long?”

I smiled as the bow cut through the Tiffany blue waves. The wind was absolutely wrecking my hair, but I didn’t give a hoot. We were heading directly at the reddening sun now. I was almost back in the human race.

I finished my champagne and poured another. I tipped the glass to my lips.

To me, I thought.

I was lowering my flute when I suddenly felt dizzy. I blinked, rubbed my eyes. No! Don’t tell me I was getting seasick.

“Probably should take it easy until the first course, huh?” I said.

Then I felt really dizzy, extremely light-headed. I blinked as my vision blurred.

“Charlie?” I said, putting out my hand toward the ship’s rail to steady myself.

I turned as there was a loud thud.

Charlie had fallen out of his chair. He was facedown on the varnished teak deck, his cell phone by his hand, his business cards fluttering like leaves.

When I leaned forward out of my chair to see what was wrong, I lost my balance and pitched out of my seat onto the deck as well. I tried to get up on my knees, but I was suddenly weak, unsteady. I lay back down on my stomach, struggling to catch my breath.

I craned my neck around and looked up at the bridge’s tinted window. The captain was gone. Before I could figure out any of this, the door to the bridge opened a moment later. There was a jingle and a click-click-click sound, and then a cute little dog appeared on the deck. It was a Jack Russell.

I WASN’T SURE if it was ten minutes or ten hours later when my eyes snapped open in the dark.

I was on my back. I lay there, blinking and breathing rapidly, as my weak, disoriented mind struggled to remain conscious.

My face felt like someone had used it as a hammer. My stomach was one large, acidic sour knot. The taste in my dry mouth was vaguely medicinal. My entire body felt strange and puffy, as if I were wrapped in a cotton ball cocoon.

Accident? was my first coherent thought.

Then the belowdeck cabin I was in tilted and creaked, and my eyes went wide as I remembered everything. An aha moment straight from hell.

I remembered Charlie, facedown on the deck beside me. The champagne had been doctored, I realized.

“No,” I said weakly. I tried to move my right arm. I turned my wrist maybe a centimeter before it rolled back like a too heavy log. I was still drugged. Was it anesthesia?

I was trying to move my other arm when I heard something in the distance: a hollow thump followed by a tremendous splash.

I closed my eyes as panic bloomed in the pit of my stomach. It began to rise into my throat like the numbers on a thermometer in a blast oven when I heard the close sound of heavy footsteps above.

Think! I urged myself. I tried to. But there was nothing except the dark. Nothing but the accelerating beat of my heart. Finally, a wave of temptingly sweet exhaustion passed through me like a last hope.

Of course, I thought. I needed to go back to sleep. Figure it out later, much later.

I heard the opening of a door, someone coming down the stairs.

Stop it! Wake up! some other part of me thought. Stand up! I frantically began to beg myself.

The other lazy part was having none of it. I free-fell back toward the safe oblivion of sleep with a sigh, as if that would save me.

A moment later, my eyes bolted open as the reek of ammonia scoured my nostrils like a serrated knife.

“Haven’t I seen you someplace before?” the Jump Killer said as he lifted me into his arms.

THE JUMP KILLER carried me into a bright room that looked like a library. There were dark, varnished, oak-paneled walls; leather-bound books on shelves; an expensive wooden globe; a cigar humidor; a fully stocked bar. Above the bar, a signed collector’s baseball bat was lit like a painting in a gallery.

But instead of furniture, in the room’s exact center was a massive four-poster bed. The incongruity of it reminded me of the gurney they’d strapped Justin Harris to in the death chamber. That wasn’t the only similarity, I realized. From all four posts dangled dark metal circles. Handcuffs, I realized, as I was dropped onto the bed.

“Welcome to the Jungle Room,” the Jump Killer said. “This is where all the magic happens.”

I noticed what I was wearing for the first time as my wrists and then my ankles were cuffed. I stared down at myself and began to weep.

I was in some kind of see-through bra and underwear, a garter belt, stockings. My arms and legs had been moisturized with a sickeningly sweet cherry-scented lotion. I realized then that I was wearing makeup. Gobs of it were greased onto my cheeks, smeared on my lips, caking my eyes.

“Please,” I said through my slimy lips. “Please don’t… don’t kill me.”

“That’s funny. That’s exactly what Tara Foster said all those years ago. Right before I strangled her to death with her bra,” the Jump Killer said, folding his meaty arms. “Maybe if you’d been smart and let Harris take the fall for it, you wouldn’t be in this pickle.”

That’s when I noticed there was another door in the room’s corner. From behind it suddenly came Mexican pop music, loud, frenzied racing horns. There was the clop of stamping feet, excited voices, drunken laughter. The Mexican music was cut short to howls and then a rap song started up and there was more stomping and howling.

“What is this? Who are they?” I said.

“They’re drug dealers,” the Jump Killer said. “Top Mexican cartel guys. Real big shots. I get their women for them. Don’t worry. You’re going to get to know them all very soon, very intimately.”

My mind whited out for a moment. Sizzling fuzz filled my head like a lost TV signal.

“I’m not a prostitute!” I cried.

“They don’t want a prostitute, silly,” he said. “This is a special celebration. These boys just closed a huge deal for very, very big money. They risked their lives, their freedom, and came out on top. They’re ready to party till you drop. In your case, party till they get sick of raping you and drop you dead in the water.”

There it was. The most horrible thing of all. It explained why there were so many disappearances, why some of the missing women’s bodies were never found.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of money these guys spend. Not that I don’t deserve every penny, with all the cleanup. Sometimes I think some of these fellas must be half Mayan or Aztec because after they’re done, you’d think it was a human sacrifice in here with all the blood. I have to wash the goddang sangre off of the ceiling.” The Jump Killer smiled.

“I’m getting your attention now. I can see it in your face. You’re a little long in the tooth for them, but I’m offering you as a special, a half-price appetizer. Those are my orders, and I’m not going to screw them up this time. After all, they came straight from the big man himself.”