Карен Кингсбери - A Distant Shore [calibre]

A different soldier from inside the helicopter helped Luke up and moved him toward the back. At the same time, Agent Terri and the others on Luke’s team helped the girls into two rows of seats facing each other.

Eliza sat three spots from the rear, where a man was working on Luke’s shoulder. Four of the girls were quietly crying, but most of them just looked shocked. Poor girls, Eliza thought. She’d never seen them cry. Crying wasn’t allowed at the Palace.

The sound of the helicopter filled the air. One door was still open, but the men in uniform sat at the edge, their feet dangling out, guns aimed at the ground. Like they were ready to fight anyone who tried to hurt them.

Eliza closed her eyes. Her head was spinning, trying to get her mind around so many details. Her life at the Palace was over. Her father was dead. And she was overcome by the fear that had been her constant companion since she met Luke.

Heart-stopping, unbridled fear.

In all her years at the Palace, when darkness fell and Eliza was alone, when she knew what was happening to her friends down the hall, Eliza had never felt afraid. Sick and angry, yes. But she knew how to handle that, too. She would simply close her eyes. And in a single moment she would not be alone in her princess bedroom.

She would be in Lower Barton Creek with her mother and brother, Daniel. The sun would be shining through the dense jungle palms and she and Daniel would be playing with the other children. And Mama’s voice would sing across the open fields, the way it had called to her every afternoon when she was little. “Lizzie James, dinner! Bring your brother!”

“Yes, Mama!” And Lizzie would look at her mother standing in the distance, long brown hair blowing over her shoulders, those light blue eyes like Lizzie’s. And she would grab hold of Daniel’s hand. “Let’s go! Chicken pie for dinner. Your favorite.”

Or was it rice pudding?

The memory had faded and changed over time, like someone had taken an eraser to the lines. But when she put herself there, back in one of those beautiful Lower Barton days, Eliza could forget what was happening all around her. What the other girls were going through.

Eliza wasn’t afraid, because if one of the guards killed her, she would go to be with Mama and Daniel. Even now she could hear her mother.

Of all God’s gifts, her mama was saying, you two are my favorites.

But she couldn’t find those memories now. Not with fear grabbing at her throat and making it hard to breathe. What was going to happen to her? Would they put her in jail for her part? Where would she live?

Eliza opened her eyes and looked at Luke. The man in the uniform was still tending to him, working a roll of heavy gauze under his arm and over his shoulder. “How’s the pain?” the man was asking.

“It’s fine.” Luke shot a quick look at Eliza. First time since he showed up at the window. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Guilt rose inside her. She had been venomous toward Luke, because she detested him. The way he demanded her participation in the raid… and the fact that he had used her for information, the way her father had used her to grow his business. Even so, Luke was different. He didn’t look at her and the other girls the way customers at the Palace always looked at them.

Her fear receded some. Whatever happened next, Luke had been honest with her. They were being rescued. She leaned back against the hard cushion, and as she did she became aware of her elaborate long white dress. Her father had insisted she wear white all week. She crossed her arms. What had seemed normal at the Palace was suddenly shameful, grotesque.

How come she hadn’t tried to leave sooner? Tried to rescue the girls at the house? So what if the guards had killed her? Heaven held her mother and brother, both of them waiting for her.

The sound of the chopper blades grew louder and it felt like the craft was picking up speed. Were Anders’s men following them? Would the evil guards always be there? Just around the corner… hiding in the shadows?

“Did you get them all?” The uniformed man was talking to Luke.

Eliza opened her eyes again and watched the two.

“Yes.” Luke winced. No matter what he’d said earlier, he must have been in terrible pain. The white bandaging was growing red with his blood. “Seventeen.”

Seventeen? Eliza squinted at Luke. Was that how he saw her? Just one of the girls at the Palace? She had been his partner, his confidante. The one who had helped him pull off this mission. She wasn’t like the other girls—her father had seen to that. But now… now it was like they’d never spoken at all.

She looked down the two rows of girls, all facing each other. None of them were talking, and even those crying had settled down. Their lives hadn’t been their own for so long. They had no idea where they were going or what would become of them, so they merely sat there, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder.

Their faces blank.

Rosa was in the spot across from Eliza. She slid her bare foot over and tapped Eliza’s. “Hey.”

Eliza looked at her.

“Where are we going?” She talked loud enough to be heard over the helicopter. But not loud enough for anyone else to hear. “How come you didn’t tell me about this?”

“I almost did.” A sigh slipped through Eliza’s lips, but the sound of it was lost in the noise. She stared at Luke. “He wouldn’t let me.”

Shock made its way across Rosa’s expression. “So you worked this out with him ? And now… now what?”

Eliza shook her head. “All I know is we’re out of the Palace. We’re headed to Texas.”

Tears filled Rosa’s eyes. “Texas?” She pressed the back of her hand to one eye, then the other. “I’m from Texas. I was… in foster care there. Before…”

Eliza had heard the other girls talk about foster care. Several had come from that system in the States. But if this was truly a rescue, Eliza hoped more for the girls than a return to the same lifestyle. Who would help them and where would they spend tonight and tomorrow?

Her head felt heavy. Too many questions.

Eventually the chopper began lowering to the ground. When it landed, the girls were helped out of the aircraft, across a runway and up a flight of stairs into a waiting airplane. Again Luke made sure each of them boarded safely. And again he didn’t look at her. “Hurry,” he told them. “Watch your step, but hurry.”

Sirens sounded in the distance, and Eliza shuddered. Her father had people all over Belize. Some of his men were bound to be in pursuit.

Eliza entered the plane last. Inside were leather sofas and chairs, more like a living room than what she would’ve expected. She sat next to a window and looked out. She had never flown before. Not on a helicopter, not in an airplane. But the girls had told her that the men who came to see them sometimes talked about Placencia and Seine Bight and Maya Beach, here on this peninsula. Belize’s beautiful beaches. They told her about the great Belize Barrier Reef and the sixteen miles of sugar white sand that stretched north to south here.

“We’ll both go there one day,” Rosa had told her a month ago.

“Yes. That would be lovely.” Eliza had wanted to hug the girl. She had no idea. “One day.”

And it would’ve been lovely if she could’ve come here with Rosa. Or by herself… with the money her father had promised her. Often, when she was on the small beach in front of the Palace, she wondered what Seine Bight was like. How it would feel to walk for miles and miles in the silky white sand, to look out at the ocean without a gun trained on her back.

One of the youngest girls sat beside her, and ten minutes into the flight to Texas, she started to cry again. Not out loud. Just big tears making their way down her face. Her name was Maggie Mae, and she had soft dark curls and a freckled face. The girl was one of the ones Eliza had helped lure to the Palace.