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I WOKE SLOWLY. I HAD a headache of epic proportions. The area above my ear where I had been thumped not once, but twice, was throbbing like nothing I’d ever felt before. My mouth felt like they filled it with cotton.
And I had to pee... really bad.
I was sitting back up. I could hear voices. Billy Caesar and Natalie Poole... talking in the next room. They didn’t realize I was awake. I closed my eyes and allowed by head to droop again even though the act sent spasms of searing pain from my neck to my brain. I wondered how long I had been out this time. It felt like hours.
“How long do you think she’ll be out?” I heard Natalie ask.
“I’m not sure,” Billy replied. “How hard did you hit her?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not like I hit someone with a rolling pin every day. This idea you had... do you think this will work?”
“We have little choice, now do we?” Billy said.
“You act like this is my fault,” she said, irritated.
“You’re the one who told her I had been living in Mexico,” he replied. “How could you do that? We can never go back there.”
“I thought it would get her off your trail, you idiot,” she replied. “Besides, your passport and my passport would have traced us there, anyway. I didn’t tell her anything she would not have figured out.”
“Well, the good news is, it looks like she was working alone with two harmless little old ladies,” he said. “Her CIA partner didn’t believe her story. Whatever she found out, it doesn’t seem like it gained much traction. If we stick to the plan, and we might pull this off.”
“I’ll check on her,” Natalie said. I heard her walk into the kitchen. I felt her grab my hair and pull my head up. More spasms of pain burned into my brain feeling like lightning had struck my head, but I allowed my head to remain limp and kept my eyes closed. She tapped my face lightly, looking for a reaction. I gave her none. It must have worked. She let go of my hair and I allowed my head to fall. I heard her footsteps as she walked away.
“Is she still out?” Billy asked.
“Yeah, out cold,” she replied.
“Don’t pack that,” I heard him say. “We can take only the bare essentials.”
“You think we can make it across the Canadian border without being stopped?” Natalie asked. “It seems risky.”
“They will look for us to go back to Mexico,” he said. “That’s why we are going to Canada.”
Canada, I thought. The guy was smarter than I gave him credit for being. Other than he was talking about his whole plan while I was within earshot.
I heard him continue. “When you called me yesterday and said the CIA was sniffing around, I called my guy. I rushed these fake passports and ID’s but they should be good enough to get us across the Canadian border. If we get rid of her and take off tonight, we can be across the border within twenty-four hours. We’ll take shifts and drive straight through.”
Get rid of me? They still planned to kill me?
“Tell me again about this person we are meeting there,” she said.
“I worked with her on two movies in the mid-90s, after I fired you,” he said. “She’s been living in Vancouver for years. She owns a cabin in a small town called Furry Creek, one hour north of B.C. She said we can stay there as long as we like. We dated about two years before I broke up with her but I let her down easy. She still loves me. She will do anything for me.”
I’ll bet she will. What a manipulating asshole.
“You asshole!” she yelled, as if on cue. “What does she expect in return?”
“Now is not the time for one of your jealous spats,” he exclaimed. “That’s what broke us up in the first place, remember?”
I found that interesting. I had always assumed that his cheating, woman beating and murdering tendencies were the defining factors in the breakup.
“It’s just that... I...”
“I know,” he interrupted. “Forget it. Let’s move quickly. You and I have to pack, get rid of Agent Fortune and take off. We’ll be at the cabin for two days before anyone finds out she is missing. We’ll vanish. No one will ever find us. Just you and me, baby. Just like we always wanted.”
I heard the sounds of kissing. As if I wasn’t feeling sick already...
“Do we have to kill her?” she asked.
Uh... no! You do not.
“No, we will not kill her,” he said, again on cue. “I want her to think it, but I’d never do that. Killing a Federal Agent would create a lockdown and a manhunt of epic proportions.”
That was a big relief.
“What are we going to do with her?” she asked.
“We will drive her out to the middle of nowhere, give her some food and water and chain her to a tree,” I heard him continue.
Chained to a tree? So much for the fleeting relief.
“We’ll mail a letter to her partner in the CIA, telling him where to find her,” he said. “The letter will take at least two days to get to him. We’ll leave her enough food and water for her to survive. By the time they find her, we’ll be relaxing by the fireplace in our little Canadian cabin.”
It will be two days before Harrison reads the letter. Another day to find me. That’s three days chained to a tree, exposed to the elements, snakes, coyotes and whatever other creepy crawly critters they have out there. And I could only imagine what I’d smell like...
“What do you need a gun for?” she asked.
“Insurance, baby. Insurance.”
I heard Natalie giggle. I have to admit; it wasn’t a bad plan, other than they were stupid enough to outline the whole thing.
“Let’s finish packing,” she said. “Then we’ll get that little prissy agent into the car before she wakes up.”
Prissy? Me? What a bitch.
It sounded like they were getting ready to move me. I needed to continue to play possum. They would have to untie me from the chair to move me to the car. That would create a window of opportunity. Once they cut the tape, I’d make my move.
That’s when I heard the knock on the door.