Page 10 of A Distant Shore
Aunt Betsy gasped. “I have no idea what you could possibly mean.” Her hand flew to her chest. Resentment flashed in her eyes. “All you’ve ever been is ungrateful.”
Ungrateful? If Eliza had it her way, her aunt would be arrested and thrown into prison for helping her fathertraffic girls at the Palace. But there had been no point explaining that to the old drunk woman.
Eliza tipped her head back into the water, and lifted her gaze to the cliff where the guards waited. They were talking, distracted by something down the beach. What if she swam a mile down the shore and climbed out over the rocks? Maybe she could simply walk away? She looked through the sea at her designer swimsuit. She wouldn’t get far without her cover-up and some cash. The guards always told her if she stepped out of line… if she got swept away in a current or created any cause for attention, her father would turn on her. Eliza didn’t want to know what that meant.
Because of her father, Eliza had always believed she had no choice. The other girls thought that, too. Her father controlled Belize City. People parted the crowd ahead of Anders and locals groveled for his attention. “Prince Anders!” they would call out. Like they actually believed he was a prince. Anders McMillan, royalty.
Even though they knew he dealt drugs and kept girls at the Palace.
The saddest thing was that not one person in the village ever tried to rescue Eliza or the other girls. Because the people didn’t only seem impressed by her father. They feared him. Because Anders McMillan always found a way to escape the law. To avoid being busted, when he first started out her father had changed the name on the front of the big white house every year or so. It had been abridal shop, and then a hotel. A school and later a salon. A massage parlor. And now it was simply the Palace. No one called the police about Anders. As if dealing drugs and selling girls to tourists was perfectly normal.
Maybe, after she was married, she could find a way to escape the younger Henry Thomas. She could run away in the dark of night and catch a plane to Colombia. Alexa might still be alive, and if she was, Eliza would find her and they would be roommates like they had dreamed of being. It could still happen.
And if she couldn’t find Alexa, then Eliza would move to the South of France or somewhere in Sweden. An unassuming place, cold and clean. But one thing was certain. If Eliza could escape her forced marriage, if she couldn’t reunite with her friend, then she would live alone all the days of her life. She would never fall in love, never give herself willingly to a man as long as she drew breath. Her life would be hers and hers alone. And she would certainly never have a baby.
Not in a world that cared so little for children.
If she could escape her groom, she would get a job waiting tables, so she could make enough money to survive. And she would spend the rest of her life reveling in the one thing she desperately wanted. The thing she hadn’t had since her mama brought her and Daniel to Belize City.
Freedom.
Her swimming time was over. Eliza lifted her eyes to the blue sky. Whatever happened to the teenage boy?The one who had rescued her? Couldn’t he tell she didn’t want to be dragged from the ocean that day? The water was her sanctuary.Beneaththe water would’ve been even better.
Eliza wiped the water from her eyes. She could see the guards on the hillside, getting restless, watching her, adjusting their heavy black rifles. “I’m coming,” she whispered. She made her way onto the shore and pulled her wet blond hair into a knot at the back of her head.
The future of her father’s dynasty depended on her obedience.
Eliza slipped into her cover-up, and climbed the path built into the edge of the mountain. Halfway up on a narrow plateau she met the guards, and without saying a word, they fell in behind her and followed her to the biggest of the Palace bedrooms.
Top dollar deserved top accommodations. That’s what her father always told her. And even though she’d never been with a man, her time was coming. Nine days from now.
Once Eliza was inside her room, when the door was shut, she thought of Alexa again. What if her father did have her killed and what if he’d gotten his money back? What if Henry Thomas was even meaner than her father? If that was the case, Eliza was ready.
She opened the top drawer of her armoire and sifted through her silk underclothes. Wrapped in a camisole at the bottom was a butcher knife. One she’d stolen from the kitchen late at night a week ago.
When she got married and left this place, the knife would be tucked into her suitcase, next to the cash her father was going to give her. If Henry Thomas tried to harm her or sell her… if his guards did anything to her, she would kill them.
Then she’d be on the next flight out of Belize.
CHAPTER FOUR
At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
—Job 14:7
Jack Ryder didn’t care if he died.
That was why he was the best special agent in the San Antonio FBI. Jack took chances where other agents were careful. He was bold where the rest shrank back. He lived for the mission. At twenty-six, his superiors all told him the same thing.
They’d never had an agent like him.
Jack was a chameleon. He could grow out his beard and get intel on a Middle Eastern weapons cache. Cut his hair and shave and work undercover drug busts at a high school. Wear tennis shoes and ripped-up jeans and fit in on any college campus.
Since his twenty-third birthday, Jack had been working for the FBI, and in the past few years he’d moved to undercover missions, one after another. Oliver had told him that agents who joined the bureau younger than agetwenty-five rarely lasted, and that typically an agent had to be at least thirty to succeed at undercover work.
At every point, Jack was the exception.
Lately his missions were focused on international drug and sex-trafficking rings that also did business in the United States. The missions were getting more dangerous. That was okay with Jack. If there was a God, He had intended Jack for this job alone.
