A sob escaped her lips and she closed her eyes.
Seventeen
Cassidy stirred and opened her eyes to pitch dark, and a chill in the air. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Bruce had gone. She sat up and was about to call out when she heard voices.
She lay still, trying to use all of her senses to pinpoint the sound. Bruce’s voice rose in pitch. He sounded angry. Then she heard another voice, lower in tone, reply.
A pricking sensation spread across Cassidy’s skin.
Someone else was on the boat.
They were below her on the stern. She peered over the edge of the wheelhouse roof, but the deck below was covered, so Bruce and whoever was with him were hidden from view. Cassidy noticed the outline of a small outboard motorboat tied up to the Trinity’s stern. She heard a man laugh, but it wasn’t friendly.
Cassidy rolled away from the edge, her heart hammering into her throat. Who was here?
It must be the middle of the night, Cassidy realized. The only lights shining came from the masts of the other boats. No people moved about that she could see. It was also deathly quiet except for Bruce’s and the intruders’ voices. Was Bruce in trouble? Should she signal for help somehow? She remembered the radio.
The argument continued, and the boat rocked slightly. The sound of feet scuffled on the deck. This time she caught the tail end of Bruce’s reply: “ . . . debo nada. Ya no!”
Her brain tried to make sense of it: not anymore. What did that mean? Could the argument be about her? Needing to know more, she descended the ladder past Bruce’s wheelhouse and snuck into the galley. She paused to listen. The men were still on the stern deck, talking in angry voices. But now that she was at the same level as their feet, she couldn’t make out their words.
A set of feet moved toward the galley. Did they know she was here? With a rush of panic, she suddenly realized how exposed she was.
In a flash, she was inside Jesus’s room. She flattened herself against the wall behind the door, willing her heaving breaths to calm. But the intruder’s feet didn’t come any closer. Instead, she heard a sickening smack, the noise a fist makes against flesh. A fight.
Bruce roared and there were more sounds of hitting, grunting. Cassidy grimaced. She risked a peek from behind the door, and through the windows lining the galley, saw Bruce tumble and crash to the floor then scramble to his feet again.
Almost as soon as the full understanding of what was happening came into focus, her gaze landed on a small black object, abandoned about halfway between the opening from the galley and where Bruce was battling two men. Cassidy recognized it instantly. It was a gun. She felt a trickle of sweat roll down her temple. Was it Bruce’s?
Bruce made a lunge for the gun, and Cassidy realized her horrible mistake. She should have stayed on the roof, where the men might not know to look for her. Hearing a horrible crash from the deck, she realized that Bruce was losing the fight. She was trapped in Jesus’s cabin. Where could she hide?
She glanced around the tiny room, but there was no closet—and no escape. The window above his bed was only a vent with slats. Using all the Zen she could conjure, she remained still, barely breathing, her eyes searching for a way out. She tried to focus on the soft cotton of the hoody against her cheek and the idea that it was like her armor, a shell of protection. Her eyes went back to the bed and the space below it. She had seen the cupboard door before, but she hadn’t felt comfortable poking around in Jesus’s drawers. Was the space big enough to hide in?
On the deck, they were talking again, their voices low. She could hear Bruce’s heavy breathing and grunts, as if he were answering them. One of the intruders raised his voice. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she heard Bruce’s reply: “Tendrás que matarme.”
You will have to kill me.
Cassidy’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. No! A powerful sense of rage rose up inside her.
In a flash, she left Jesus’s room and climbed the stairs to the deck. It took a moment for the men to realize her presence, but by then she had the gun in her hands.
Eighteen
One of the men stood over Bruce who was crumpled in a sitting position on the deck, as if he had just been thrown there.
“Cassidy, no!” Bruce croaked.
She risked a quick glance at him. His shirt was ripped at the shoulder. His lip was bleeding, and one eye looked swollen. She wondered what other wounds lay hidden.
The man nearest Bruce was frozen in place and looking at her shrewdly, like a cat eyeing a mouse he was considering eating.
“Get back!” she said, pointing the gun at him. Were her hands shaking? She forced them forward, hoping her posture conveyed strength.
The two men locked eyes.
Cassidy took a step forward. “Dónde está Reeve?” she said.
The first man’s dark face clouded with confusion. The two intruders locked eyes again.
A strange feeling settled in her chest. “Mi hermano, dónde está?”
The first man rattled off something in Spanish to the other one. “No conozco a tu hermano,” he replied to Cassidy, then moved forward, his hand open. “Now give me the gun,” he said in heavily accented English.
Cassidy’s finger gripped the trigger.
“Aiee!” the man said, putting up his hands. “Don’t shoot!”
“Where’s Reeve! What have you done with him?” Cassidy heard the sounds coming from her mouth, but
