3 years ago - Alex
"Alexandra, slow down, honey, please. Tell me slowly now. How many were there? Could you make out any of their faces or anything else that might bear significance to recognizing them?"
"I can't… I don't…"
"It's okay, sweetheart. Just take a deep breath and start slowly okay? It's crucial the police get on top of this as soon as possible."
Alex read many a paper in which they said the first forty-eight hours were critical in a kidnapping. The longer they waited to get on the case the more significant the chances were that her mother was—
Alex couldn't get herself to even think the word. She wiped the tears with her already-drenched hanky and took a deep breath.
"Maybe two, the men were big and… and they tied her up and…"
The tears ran freely again. Her eyes already hurt from all the crying. Breathe, Alex, do this for Mum, she spoke to herself.
"They pulled her in between the trees over there. They took her, Dad! What do they want with her?"
"Alexandra, look at me. They took her to find the treasure for them. They need her. She's no good to them if she isn't alive. They won't harm your mother, Alexandra, I assure you. Now think. Can you recall if they resembled anyone we might recognize? What were they wearing?"
Her brain fought hard not to recall the events. Alex willed it not to conjure up the images that were now etched in her mind forever. But she had to. If they ever wanted to see her mother alive, Alex would have to recall every last detail.
"They were black… and tall and they had black T-shirts and green military pants on. I think they also wore black berets. They didn't speak to each other at all. Almost as if they rehearsed every part of her kidnapping."
Kidnap. The savages her mother had warned her about had kidnapped her mother. It was exactly why she wanted to keep their discovery quiet. Alex felt as if she were in a horrific nightmare. A very, very bad dream. But when she looked at the five police constables and forensics team scouring the area for any evidence, it became very real.
"That's good, honey, what else?"
"Nothing. The men had no guns or knives or anything. Just tied her up and dragged her away."
A vivid image of her mother's eyes flashed before her. "Dad, her eyes, she looked so sad and… desperate. I didn't do anything to help her. I froze! I could have taken her gun and shot them. Instead, I did nothing! Jelani ran after them but lost their trail. He must still be somewhere out there looking for her. He hasn't made it back here yet."
"I know, darling. Don't worry about Jelani. He'll be fine. If anyone can track them, it will be him. Did they take anything with them? Her bag, journal, anything?"
"No, that is what's so strange. They didn't even try to find the scroll or the box or any of Mum's notes. I still have them with me."
"You do? You have the cipher code and the box and even the knife? They didn't take them?"
"No, look. They never even came into the tent and tried. I sleep with it under my bed."
She pulled out the bag of relics and double-checked. Just to be sure. It was all there. Nothing was missing. Charles was perplexed.
"What does this mean, Dad? If they were after the treasure, they would have forced their way into the tent and taken this too. It doesn't make any sense."
"You're right, Alexandra, it doesn't. Let's just think for a moment here. They wouldn't need the riddle anymore because we're at the river already. The cipher code is a bunch of numbers to them that your mother has memorized. Somehow they must have found their way here another way. Which means, they're looking for the key. They probably didn't even know we had the relics. I mean, how would they?"
He was right. They wouldn't know of the box and the cipher code or the knife.
"Perhaps word got out through the dive team and all the artifacts they pulled from the site over the last week. It's not unlikely that someone blabbed their mouth off during a stupor."
"Do you think they've been watching us here, Dad?"
"No way of knowing. What's that?" Charles pointed past her toward their latest find.
They walked over to the table where the massive sign shaped like the raptor bird lay covered under a sheet. In the chaos of the kidnapping, she neglected to show it to him.
"We retrieved this yesterday."
She drew the sheet back and watched her father's face as he read the engraved word.
He drew a sharp breath and yanked the rest of the sheet off.
"Well, I'll be. Tell me it is what I think it is."
"It is, Dad. Mum and I were walking among the trees yesterday, and we found an enormous egg. Before we knew it, a gigantic raptor bird chased us, and it somehow trapped us in its lair. Dead animals and skeletons lay everywhere. We managed to escape and then the divers found this yesterday."
"And you didn't think to call me and tell me? The relic crest is why they took her! You need to show me where you found the egg. Let's go."
"But, Dad, that bird is a killing machine. Mum shot it, but perhaps it survived, and now it's out there waiting for us. Heck, there should be more than one otherwise how could she lay an egg?"
"It's a chance we're going to have to take, Alexandra. Come on."
Charles had her by the hand as he pulled her toward the trees. His gun was loaded and ready to shoot, and she had her mother's rifle uncomfortably tucked under one arm. Now that she was aware of what lurked between the trees, it felt eerie. Her eyes were peeled for any sign of the bird as they walked deeper in between the trees. There wasn't a normal bird chirping or a crab pushing up between their feet. Like the very life of the area was sucked out into an invisible vacuum.
"Here. The egg was somewhere around here. It looked like a large rock in the shape of a football."
They scoured the area, but there was nothing.
"I don't understand. I know it was right here. We sat under this tree with the funny-looking trunk and then I walked here to crack a coconut. It was here, I'm sure of it."
Doubts filled Alex's mind. She was traumatized so her memory might have been skewed. But as she wrestled with her thoughts and mind, she knew, beyond doubt, that they were in the right spot and that the egg had disappeared.
"Which direction did you run in when the thing was chasing you?"
"That way. Its nest is over there. Dad, I don't think this is a good idea. How are we supposed to help Mum if we both end up dead?"
"We're not going to die, sweetheart, not today."
He seemed very sure of himself. She'd never had any reason to doubt him in the past. He was fully aware of what he was doing.
They set off toward the lair and it wasn't long before they hit its perimeter. Alex watched as her father paused to get a mental hold of the multitude of half-eaten animals and human skeletons that lay scattered throughout.
"This is it, Dad. The bird attacked us, and we ran from tree to tree back to the beach."
"Is this all you found? Nothing else?"
"Nothing else. We didn't have much time to explore any further because the bird chased us."
"You did great, my darling. I'm going to need you to put some sketches together so we can try to find out a bit more about what this creature is and how it got here. For now, let's head back and see what the police might have found. Perhaps Jelani is back too."
But two weeks later the investigations still turned up empty. The trail had run dead and Jelani returned with nothing. The police gave up their investigation and had not one single clue whatsoever; no idea who took Izzy, much less where she was.
"Alexandra, please eat something. They're all doing what they can. We have to trust that they'll find something sooner or later. Don't give up!"
Alex couldn't eat or sleep. Her mother had been kidnapped. Somewhere out there, the rebels had her or had killed her already. Their camp was at the river exactly where they took her from in the hope that somehow their daily searches between the trees would yield something.
"Sir, we have word. Please come with me."
Alex started as the police officer arrived with an envelope in hand.
"What is it, Dad? A ransom note?"
Charles ripped the envelope open and fell onto the soft sand all the while still staring blankly at the piece of paper in his hand.
"Dad? What's it saying?"
She couldn't bring herself to ask the question but she could tell from his eyes that this was not a ransom note. The tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked his daughter in the eye.
"She's gone, Alexandra. She's gone."
Alex felt her heart being clawed out from her aching chest. Like someone had rammed their fist into her chest and ripped it out with their bare hands. She took the yellowed piece of paper from her father's shaking hands. It was a letter from the authorities.
Her body was found in the nearby rebel camp were the only words her eyes extracted from the two short paragraphs. Next to her, her father shook uncontrollably. She had never seen him cry before, ever.
The weather in London was quite aptly miserable and bitterly cold. Izzy's memorial was as dreary as the weather. The university had insisted they take care of the service as a way of supporting Charles. He didn’t fight them. Didn’t have the emotional energy to do so. Students from his classes and the entire faculty were huddled together under their black umbrellas behind the casket. Their incessant crying and nose-blowing irritated Alex. They barely knew her mother. Alex, on the other hand, hadn't shed a single tear since they arrived back home. Even though she tried. She couldn't cry. Like her emotions were ripped along with her heart. She was numb inside, a body without a soul. Home didn't even feel like home anymore.
Someone blowing their nose behind her jerked her thoughts back to the priest who had broken into a poor rendition of 'Amazing Grace' and soon the funeral-goers behind her joined in. Her mother hated the song. It was the funeral go-to everyone got, the standard hymn along with the standard floral tribute. Izzy Hunt was anything but ordinary.