Peter's Return. Cynthia Cooke
glad you find me so amusing,” she said and leaned forward to speak to the driver. “How much longer to the clinic? I thought it was just outside Caracas.” She glanced out the window. “We’ve been outside of Caracas for a while now.”
The man didn’t respond, just continued driving as if she weren’t even there. She couldn’t say she liked his looks much, all dark and swarthy with a large coiling red-and-black snake tattooed on his arm.
“Relax,” Robert said, nudging her. “We have nothing to worry about. It’s a good thing you don’t ‘do’ danger. I have a feeling you wouldn’t do it very well.” His smile grew wide and generous.
Emily gave him a serious pout. “And what about you? It’s not like I’m leaving a family behind. What’s your story? Why would you leave Pamela and those two precious sons of yours to come down here?”
“No story, just doing what I do best.”
“Ha!” Emily blurted. “Just a small dose of arrogance to go with that cup of ego, Doctor?”
He laughed a hearty sound that reached deep inside his chest. “All right, I confess. This stint on my résumé will do wonders for my career. I’ll only be gone three months, not long enough for my family to even miss me.”
“Don’t count on that.”
He nodded, suddenly serious. “I know. I miss them already.”
She gave his shoulder a pat, then looked past him out the window and saw a sign for Santa Maria de Flores. “I think we’re here.”
They continued through the small primitive town, passing run-down houses and barefoot, half-clad children playing in the street. Emily frowned as the driver turned onto a small dirt road on the outskirts of town that led up into the hills. “Is this right? Shouldn’t the clinic be back in the town?” Robert looked as nonplussed as she felt. She turned back to the driver. “Excuse me?” she said loudly.
“He probably doesn’t understand English,” Robert said.
“Con permiso?” she amended. Something was wrong with this driver. Joking aside, something really had been nagging her ever since she saw him in the airport holding up a Doctors Without Borders sign. Without question, they’d followed him like little lambs to the slaughter. “Con permiso,” she said a little more forcefully, and this time tapped the driver’s shoulder.
Ignoring her, the driver leaned forward and pushed a button. Before she could take another breath, a clear partition rose between them. Emily looked into Robert’s widened eyes. The shocked disbelief on his face would have been comical if it weren’t for the sick feeling of dread growing in her stomach. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
Robert tried to open his door, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he tried the window. It, too, was immovable.
“Oh, Lord, protect us,” Emily said between breaths that were suddenly coming too fast and too short.
“It’s okay, don’t panic. I’ve heard about these guys. If we pay them, they’ll let us go. In fact, some are even desperate enough to take a check. Did you bring your checkbook?”
“Checkbook?” she blurted. “That’s absurd. Who would I make it out to, Mr. Kidnapper?”
“It’s true. I saw it on 20/20.”
“You’re not serious?” Her eyes searched his. He was. “Let’s pray it will be as simple as that,” she muttered.
They didn’t say another word as the driver took them deeper into the Venezuelan countryside.
Emily closed her eyes. She wanted to pray, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It had been so long since she’d been able to connect with the Lord. She’d made a promise, not any ordinary promise, but a deathbed promise to God and she’d broken it. She’d lived with the shame for so long it was almost automatic, almost comfortable. She couldn’t go asking for more favors now.
Robert took her hand in his and she held it, thankful for his warmth and friendship. She didn’t know what she’d do if she were alone.
“We’re going to be okay,” he whispered. “You have to believe that.”
She nodded. “I know. We have to. We’re doctors, we’re the good guys. Not only that, we’re Americans.”
Robert smiled and squeezed her hand before turning back toward the window as the driver veered off onto a gravel road. They were deep in the jungle now, not a sign of civilization in sight. Emily couldn’t help wondering where they were being taken and under what kind of conditions they would be forced to live until their ransom was paid. If their ransom would be paid.
Don’t think like that, she told herself, but the sad fact was she was alone in the world—no husband, no siblings, no family to come to her rescue. She swallowed her despair; she’d dealt with her parents’ car accident years ago, but Peter was another matter.
She’d lost touch with him and hadn’t seen him—no one had—in a very long time. But if by some miracle of God he’d discovered she was gone, would he come looking for her? Would he care? The realization that she couldn’t be sure brought little comfort, only the familiar squeeze of regret. His job, his mission, whatever it was he was working on always came before she did.
“Look!” Robert whispered, interrupting the well-worn path her thoughts were taking.
Emily sat up straighter as glimpses of a large stucco wall came into view. They turned at a bend in the road then stopped before a tall iron gate. The driver nodded to the guard sitting in a booth and the gate swung open. Emily couldn’t help but be riveted by the grounds inside the gates.
The parklike setting of benches and statues placed strategically beneath cascading trees surrounding a large duck-laden pond caught her breath. Tucked among the trees were several shrubs trimmed in various animal shapes. Flowers in every shape and size greeted them in a riot of color.
Here and there, she spotted the clay tile roofs of several small out-buildings. She tried to focus through the thick foliage, to get her bearings on the bungalows and see what their use was, but she could only catch scattered glimpses before they disappeared into the jungle. A golf cart passed, but instead of laughing tourists enjoying the eighteenth hole, two guards in tan uniforms with rifles slung over their shoulders watched the Suburban, giving their driver a slight nod as they passed.
They turned right onto a cobblestone road and slowly approached a breathtaking Spanish colonial mansion. Emily leaned into Robert and whispered, “I don’t think my checkbook is going to get us out of this one.”
“Neither do I,” he agreed, and a grim look of futility filled his face. She squeezed his hand as they followed the drive around back and parked in front of a garage larger than the elementary school on the corner of Emily’s block back in Colorado Springs. In front of the garage, a series of golf carts were parked next to a bright red Porsche.
“Pinch me, Robert. I think we’ve just been transported into a Fantasy Island rerun,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Shh, be serious and be quiet. Let me do all the talking.”
“Gladly,” she whispered. “And as soon as you get us out of this, I’ll try not to remind you how sexist you are being.”
“Deal,” he grumbled. They watched the driver get out and open their door. “Just where are we?” Robert demanded with more bravado than Emily knew he felt.
“You are the guests of Mr. Escalante,” the driver said, then stepped back and waited for them to get out of the car.
Robert stood, but didn’t move out of the doorway, effectively blocking her exit. She pushed up on her knees and peeked around him. “I demand you take us to the Doctors Without Borders clinic,” he insisted.
The driver tilted his chin down and gave Robert a bone-chilling stare. He gestured toward the mansion. “I suggest