All because of that one cop. Jack needed to catch a plane back to Texas, but he wanted to find the guy first. Jack had no idea how the man had breached the building, but his aim and shot had been perfect, taking out the lineman before the guy could pull his trigger.
Half a second off and Jack would be dead.
He walked through the small crowd gathered on the lawn and then around to the back of the house. But he couldn’t find the man. He asked a few Bahamian police, but none of them seemed familiar with him. “None of our officers were in the house when the shot was fired,” the captain told Jack.
That’s when it hit him who the officer looked like. Of course.
The man had looked like Beck.
* * *
JACK WAITED TILL he was in the plane before taking out his laptop. Maybe this would be the day he’d have a first email from Eliza. If she had found a secure location, and if she felt safe, she could log in and tell him everything he was dying to know.
Eliza would also use the server to talk to her superiors, let them know if anything unusual was happening or if she needed a quick rescue. The brass watched everything that came and went through the server, but Jack didn’t care.
He had talked to Oliver about his friendship with Eliza, and how it was definitely not anything more. “She needs someone who cares about her,” Jack had explained before he left.
Oliver had hesitated. After all, he was the first to notice Jack’s feeling for the Belizean girl. But in the end his boss agreed. “Everything you write to her will be read by a dozen people. Just so you know.”
Jack had nodded. “I have nothing to hide, sir.”
So it was that now Jack opened a blank email and began to write.
Dear Eliza,
I’m alive. The mission was successful, but I won’t lie. It got a little dicey at the end. I don’t want to think about what could’ve happened, but at the last moment a Bahamian police officer saved my life. He looked a lot like Beck.
Remember him? The guy I told you about.
Jack wasn’t about to talk angels here, where everyone could read about it. The brass would think he’d lost his mind. And maybe he had. Maybe the whole story with Beck had only been his imagination. God’s way of getting his attention. It didn’t matter. Eliza would know what he meant. He started typing again.
Anyway, I’m fine and the operation is behind us. The girls were rescued—all of them. Camille was with us, and she saw to that. Be safe out there.
Until next time,
Jack
There was so much more he wanted to say. But that would do for now. He sent the email and then saw another one land in his inbox. From the agent on the ground in Belize. The subject line read only “Answers.”
Jack opened it and read through the letter as quickly as he could.
Jack, I want to let you know I made a careful sweep through the Mennonite communities in Belize. The bureau agreed with you that your informant Ike Armstrong in Lower Barton Creek might’ve been onto something. We had hoped to find Eliza Lawrence’s mother and brother, because they would make great witnesses in our growing case against Betsy Norman.
Unfortunately, the woman and her son are not living in Belize. Not in one of the Mennonite communities, anyway. We’re going to wrap up this part of our investigation. Just wanted you to know.
CJ
No! Jack’s heart sank as he closed the laptop. He hadn’t told Eliza that he’d asked for a search of the small Mennonite communities. The places where Ike Armstrong believed his granddaughter and her children might be living—if they were alive. Deep in Jack’s soul, he’d had a hunch about Eliza’s mother and brother. A hunch that Ike Armstrong had somehow been right.
After years working the job, Jack’s hunches were usually spot-on. Or at least close. But not this time, not if they were closing that part of the investigation. If Eliza’s family members weren’t in one of the Mennonite villages in Belize then only one conclusion remained.
They had drowned on the Belizean beach the day before Eliza was taken captive by her father and Betsy Norman.
Hunch or not, this time Jack had been wrong.
* * *
SIX MONTHS HAD passed and still Eliza couldn’t stop thinking about Jack. All they had was email, and even that didn’t happen often. Sometimes at night she would remember the Bahamas and the River Walk and the rooftop. The things he had said to her.
So she wouldn’t forget his voice.
Eliza had gone to East San Antonio High School for three months before the traffickers made their move on her. She had stood up to them, and in the most terrifying moment of her life, they had grabbed her and dragged her toward a waiting car.