Abigail had only caught a glimpse of the two men who had got out of the van before they’d moved out of sight, but they’d looked a bit shady to her—jeans, T-shirts, tattoos, and scruffy-faced, one bald and one with hair that needed cutting. They’d looked more like they belonged to a biker gang than like businessmen. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen her when they arrived, because as it turned out, she definitely wasn’t supposed to be there.
After going to talk to them, Jet had returned to the cockpit in a bit of a panic. It wasn’t just going to be cargo. The “Clients” were flying with it and when he’d mentioned the possibility of a friend joining them, they’d nixed the idea at once. No one but them and the cargo would be passengers on this flight. Period.
Abigail had been alarmed at this news, thinking it meant she needed to get out and find her way to his apartment. But that had not been Jet’s plan.
It was his plane, he’d have her along if he wished, he’d assured her firmly. It had all sounded very brave and manly until he’d added that she would just ride in cargo so they didn’t know.
As Abigail had gaped at him over this plan, he’d explained that the door at the back of the cockpit opened into the cargo area. He’d watch the men load the cargo and once they’d closed the hold and started toward the cockpit, he’d bang on the side of the plane twice. She was to immediately slip into the cargo hold, find the jump seat and strap herself in. Once they landed, he’d wait until the men were heading around to the back of the plane to retrieve their cargo, then he’d tap on the door to let her know she was to get out of the cargo area and hide herself in the cockpit until the clients left with their shipment. Jet would come get her when the coast was clear and they could go through customs and start their “adventure.”
Abigail took another step, banged her knee hard against something, cursed, then quickly covered her mouth and froze, expecting the door to the cockpit to burst open and angry, biker-looking dudes to come rushing out, shouting and brandishing firearms of some description. When that didn’t happen, she let her breath out slowly, then felt around to see what she’d bumped into.
The cargo, Abigail decided, as she felt tarp under her fingers. They’d set it down closer to the front than expected. It was also pretty close to the side of the plane, she noted. If the jump seat Jet wanted her to use was behind it, there was no way she was going to be able to fold it down and sit on it.
Grimacing, Abigail placed her hands against the tarp to give it a tentative shove and see if she could actually move it. But instead of pressing flat against a solid surface, the fingers of her right hand curved around what felt like a bar under the tarp, while her left hand slid forward easily, pushing the tarp between two fixtures before hitting something that grunted in response.
Quickly retrieving her hands, Abigail squinted, trying to see what she had touched. It had felt to her like rather than a shipment of boxes, or even a crate, the tarp covered some kind of cage. A large cage too, she thought, recalling where her hands had been. The top of it was at chest level on her.
“You’ll need a flashlight.”
Abigail glanced toward the front of the plane at Jet’s overloud announcement, then dropped to her knees as she heard the cockpit door being opened. She had no idea if she was hidden where she was, but there was no time to find a better hiding spot, so Abigail curled into as small a ball as she could manage and prayed her butt wasn’t sticking out the end and her backpack wasn’t showing at the top as the darkness in the hold lightened.
“Can’t you turn the damned lights on here?” someone asked. It was a very unpleasant snarl, definitely not Jet’s voice this time.
“It’s a cargo hold. There are no lights,” was Jet’s response and Abigail knew him well enough to recognize from his tone that he was lying. “I’ll get you a flashlight. Wait here so you don’t bump into anything.”
Abigail heard the shuffle of his feet as he moved around and then a flashlight beam suddenly switched on just inches from her face. The sudden shock of the bright light almost startled a gasp from her, but she managed to cut it off before it was born and merely blinked her eyes closed.
“There are two more flashlights here on the wall if you need them.”
Abigail eased her eyes open to see that the flashlight beam had been turned away from her. She could just make out Jet’s shape in the darkness behind the light he was now flashing toward his “clients” and Abigail was pretty sure he was looking at her. She was also pretty sure that the information about the extra flashlights had been for her as well. She wasn’t surprised though when the clients assumed it was for them, and one of them said, “One’ll do. Just give me the damned thing and get out of here so I can check my cargo.”
Jet hesitated briefly, but then moved out of sight. As the light moved away with him, Abigail quickly analyzed her situation. She was crouching between the wall and the tarp-covered crate that the client wanted to check and there was nowhere to go that she knew of. Jet was obviously hoping she wouldn’t be discovered, but she was pretty sure she would be.
“Go do your preflight check or something.”
Abigail stilled at that order from the snarky client.
“Already done,” Jet answered easily. “That’s what I was doing when you got here.”
“Well, then go sit on your thumbs or find something else to do, I don’t care what. I want privacy while I check my cargo,” the man said.
“I’d rather—”
“I’ll keep you company,” another voice said, and Abigail supposed it was the other client.
“Hey, watch it, buddy. I—” Whatever Jet was saying was cut off when the cabin door closed with a sharp click. Abigail could only guess from what she did hear of his comment that the second man had either pushed or dragged Jet out of the cargo hold. It was hard to imagine anyone being able to do either. Jet wasn’t a gangly kid anymore. Still, she was quite sure that’s what had happened and was straining her ears, trying to hear what was happening in the cockpit when something landed on her head.
Abigail reached up instinctively to feel what it was. She was both surprised and relieved when it turned out to be the edge of the tarp. The client had apparently flipped it up from the opposite side to where she knelt. She might go undiscovered after all, Abigail thought. Maybe.
A groan from the crate she knelt beside made her glance toward it, but she didn’t have Superman’s eyes and couldn’t see through the tarp still covering the cage on her side.
“Just checking your IV, buddy,” the client muttered. “Wouldn’t want you waking in the middle of the flight and causing trouble, or tearing up the plane like you did the doc’s. Especially don’t want it to happen once we’re in the air. We were lucky you got loose before we took off last time,” he added.
Abigail frowned at these words, wondering just what the heck the cargo was. A monkey? She’d heard they could be pretty destructive. No, the cage was too big for that. Maybe it was a gorilla?
Abigail was distracted from her thoughts by a loud sound she instantly recognized as the noise duct tape made when it was being pulled off a roll.
“Just gonna wrap this around your IV. Make sure you aren’t knocking this one out with your tossing and turning. This ain’t our usual pilot. Can’t have you squawking about being kidnapped or something. We’d have to kill the poor bastard . . . or maybe just deliver him onto the island with you. I’m sure Doc has some experiment or other he could use the guy for. Poor bastard. Frankly, I’d rather be dead,” he added gravely. A brief silence followed, broken only by the rustling sounds, and then the man grunted. “That oughta do it.”
There were sounds that must have been the man backing out of the cage and straightening then, because what followed was the clang of what she guessed was the cage door closing.
“Enjoy the flight,” the client said mockingly. “It’s the last one you’ll ever take. Once we get you to the island, you’ll never leave.”
Abigail felt the tarp slide off the back of her head and went completely still. She waited for an exclamation of surprise as she was spotted, but there was nothing but the rustle of the tarp being dropped back into place and then the soft sound of the client walking away in the direction of the cockpit door. She heard it open and close and then darkness and silence returned once more.