“From the police?” Nancy asked. “Kim was hiding you from the immigration police?”
Maria shook her head and spoke rapidly again, saying something about the people she’d paid to bring her to Florida. “They were evil,” she said. They didn’t let her go, as they’d promised; they were going to make her work for them, for nothing, “like a slave.” She was running from them, and Kim had helped her. Maria said something about Ricardo, but Nancy didn’t understand. She decided to let Maria finish talking; then she’d ask questions.
Kim had made Maria promise to stay in the hotel room, but after many days, Maria had had to get out. She was followed and ran back to the hotel; someone broke in later while she was in the room, but she escaped.
That’s how they found out about Kim, Nancy thought. But who were “they“? Kim definitely had been talking to Ricardo that morning on the phone, but why? He had to be one of the “evil ones,” and Kim just didn’t know it. She’d trusted him for some reason, and he’d double-crossed her.
“What about Ricardo?” Nancy asked. “What’s he got to do with all this? And who else is involved, Maria? Don’t be afraid to tell me. I promise, I’ll help you if I can.”
Maria latched on to the name Ricardo and said a lot of things, none of which Nancy understood except that he had a bad temper. Nancy didn’t need to be told that. “But what about the others?” she asked. “Ricardo can’t be the only one. You talked about evil people. Who are the rest of them? Please tell me!”
Maria nodded eagerly. “One of them is—” She stopped in midsentence, her eyes widening in terror. “Oh, no!” she cried, pointing behind Nancy. “No!”
Nancy heard a scuffling sound in back of her and started to turn, but it was too late. Something hard—a rock? a club?—came crashing down on her head. She heard Maria scream, but it sounded muffled and distant. Then she saw the wooden slats of the dock as she fell. They were fuzzy because a dark mist was rising in front of her eyes. She blinked, but the mist kept rising; she tried to listen, but her ears were filled with a low roar, like highway traffic heard from far away. Finally the mist closed over her completely, and she couldn’t see or hear anything at all.
When Nancy came to, the first thing she felt was pain. She hurt all over, but her head was the worst. She started to open her eyes, then shut them tightly, gasping at the pain. If only she could move her hand to the back of her head to rub it and ease some of the throbbing.
Something was stopping her, though; she wasn’t sure what. She must have been lying on her arms, because they were tingling as if they’d been asleep. She tried to stretch one arm, then the other, to make the needles go away, but all she could move were her fingers.
Suddenly she became aware of another sensation—water. Her feet and legs were wet, and every few seconds, water splashed against her thighs. Had she fallen asleep on the beach?
Then she remembered. She’d been talking to Rosita. No, not Rosita. Maria. Maria had screamed, and then everything had gone black. Nancy hadn’t fallen asleep, she’d been knocked out. And whoever had done it—she’d put her money on Ricardo—had dragged her onto the beach and left her there with the waves lapping at her legs. Funny, she’d always thought the sand would make a nice soft bed. So why did she feel as if she were lying on cement?
Time to get up, Nancy, she told herself. Forget the pain, just get up and go after him. She tried to stretch her arms again and suddenly realized that they were above her head. And she wasn’t lying on soft sand, either. In fact, she wasn’t lying at all. She was leaning against something very hard, something that had absolutely no give to it.
Nancy forced her eyes open and waited for her vision to clear. It was still night—pitch black—but if she craned her neck back, she could see the moon up above. She could also see where her hands were. They were up above too, tied over her head. No wonder her arms ached.