Just Another Day in Paradise Read online

  She barely saw his hand move. In the next instant pain slammed through her head as he backhanded her on the side of the head. She heard Kyle yell “No!” heard someone else swear, realized it was Noah only when he leaped to his feet. She fell back on the sofa, her ears ringing, tears welling up, tears she would not let Ares see. And despite the pain she felt a sense of triumph that enabled her to fight back the tears before they spilled over. She’d gotten to him. She’d stuck him right in his ego.

  “Sit down!” Ares ordered Noah.

  Do it, Paige pled silently.

  “Go to hell,” Noah spat out. “And if you touch her again I’ll send you there myself.”

  Paige, startled by his fervent defense, looked up just in time to see Ares make the slightest of motions with one finger toward the trigger-happy guard. The man gleefully raised his rifle, aimed it toward Noah and fired.

  Chapter 9

  Paige knew she’d let out a little scream at the shot, but it was nothing compared to the wailing that now arose from several of the children. If she hadn’t been looking right at Noah, if she couldn’t see that he was still standing, unhurt, she’d have done worse than scream.

  Slowly Noah turned his head. She saw where he was looking, saw the hole that had appeared in the wall of the room, directly behind where he was standing. Grimacing, Noah sank slowly back down onto the sofa. The sound of the children’s sobbing ebbed slightly, as again the older students hushed them.

  “The next time,” Ares warned, “I will not tell him to miss.”

  Noah stared at his knees and swallowed visibly.

  “And you,” Ares said, glaring down at Paige, “you will stay here, along with these children, until you change your mind. And you will change your mind. Or you will pay dearly, I promise you that.”

  He looked up and called orders to the first two men, the ones who had taken over the school. “Tarak, Filipo, you will guard both doors of the building. Be watchful and careful. I want no one hurt. Yet. I’m trusting you.”

  Paige barely heard; his words were echoing in her head.

  Pay dearly.

  Paige surreptitiously peeked at Noah from the corner of her eye, grateful that he had had the foresight to see that keeping Kyle’s relationship to her a secret would be wise. He didn’t seem to notice her glance. Now he was staring at his hands, which were knotted in his lap.

  As Ares snapped at his two escorts to follow him and strode angrily out of the school, something else occurred to her. Instead of striking her across the face, as she might have expected, the man had instead hit the side of her head. She’d thought he was just striking out wildly, but what if it had been intentional? What if he’d hit her where he could be sure it wouldn’t show when he was trying to convince the world his captives were being treated well?

  Somehow, the idea that he could think so clearly, never losing sight of his plan even in anger, chilled her more than a bout of uncontrolled rage would have.

  When they were again alone with the original two men, Paige risked looking at Noah. He hadn’t moved. In fact, he seemed utterly, totally chastened by his near-fatal encounter with the man.

  She couldn’t blame him for being rattled, not after coming that close to death. And he’d done it for her, after all, leaping to her defense after Ares had struck her, so she should give him a lot of credit for that. Still, she was surprised he’d so completely collapsed. It was such a change from the dynamic, take-charge man she’d always seen.

  But then, he’d probably never been shot at before, either, she admitted. It probably wasn’t a common risk in his job. In fact, ironically and sadly, it was probably less of a risk for him than it was for most teachers these days. And he had stood up in the face of five armed men when Ares had hit her.

  She’d be doing the same thing, in his place. In fact, she felt like doing it right now, just sitting down and giving in to the tremors that were so hard to quell. But she couldn’t. She had a roomful of kids counting on her.

  She glanced at Noah once more and then turned back to the children.

  Rider watched the two guards as best he could without betraying himself, his mind racing. In the wake of their leader’s visit, they acted as if they’d been honored by what was clearly simple guard duty. If this was a sign of Ares’s power over his troops, they were dealing with the worst kind of charisma-blinded zealots.

  They both seemed quite enamored of their roles. And now he had to choose what his role was going to be. The closest he’d ever come to actual combat was reading Sun-Tzu. And while the millennia-old treatise on the art of war was concise and educational, he’d been reading it as a businessman, not a warrior. Had the situation not been so grim, he would have laughed aloud at the idea of himself as a warrior of any kind. He’d never even been in the service. What could he possibly do?

  But somebody had to do something—that was clear. And he was, theoretically, the person in charge while he was here. There was no way around it, it was up to him.

  Still, the circumstances limited him greatly. Surprise and his wits were the only weapons he had, and he could only think of one possibility of how to best use them. It was a twisted path, but hadn’t Sun-Tzu said that he who perceives the circuitous route as direct would be victorious? Something like that, anyway.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. Paige was already looking at him in an odd way, with a touch of near disappointment. Even the guards were looking at him with scorn. And it would only get worse if this worked. He’d just have to live with that. He sat silently, thinking, turning over options, until he had a loose sort of a plan. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t think of anything better. And he couldn’t just sit here and wait.

  Still, because he knew what her reaction would be, it took him a moment to work up to looking at Paige as she comforted the children and saying, loudly enough for the hothead at the closest door to hear, “Maybe you should reconsider.”

  She turned and stared at him, dumfounded, and it was worse than he’d expected. “What?”

  “Maybe you should work with them. It might make it easier on all of us.”

  “You want me to become a mouthpiece for this…this scum?” she exclaimed.

  That did it, he thought, seeing both the guards suddenly start paying attention.

  “It’s better than getting beaten up and shot at,” he said, coming as close as he thought he could to a whine without going over the top.

  The look in her eyes went from shocked to bewildered to, he was very much afraid, disgust. “You’d really have me cooperate with them? They’re a disease on the planet, and you want me to help them?”

  Damn, he was proud of her! He wanted to kiss her, but he schooled his voice to a wheedling tone now. “What can it hurt? They can’t want anything very important. Probably only money, that’s all their kind care about, really.”

  “Shut up!” shouted the hotheaded Filipo. “You know nothing!”

  Bingo, thought Rider. He was about to open his mouth when Paige spoke, following his lead as perfectly as if she had a script before her.

  “I suppose,” she said to Filipo, in a voice that chilled even Rider, “you’re going to tell me you have some kind of noble cause, that you’re above such things as hostage taking for mere money.”

  She’d played into his plans perfectly, but Noah still wished she would take it a little easier. Although, perhaps she’d realized that when Ares had said he wanted no one hurt—yet—he’d particularly meant her. Still, she wasn’t doing herself any favors by provoking these two.

  “We fight injustice!” Filipo cried. “We fight for the release of our brothers, rotting in an Arethusan prison. Money means nothing to us.”

  “Especially,” Rider said almost conversationally to Paige, “since they probably have no shortage of it. Most terrorist groups in this region are also drug smugglers.”

  Filipo swore and took a step toward them. Only a shout from Tarak across the room stopped him. “Do not let them play you like a flute,” he w
arned.

  “Take it easy,” Noah put in, holding up his hands in meek surrender. “I’m sorry, I was just mouthing off.”

  Filipo fell back, grumbling. But he resumed his post at the door.

  He probably should have kept his mouth shut, Rider thought. But the outraged loftiness of the man had grated. He knew from the in-depth studies Redstone had done before starting the resort that what he’d said was accurate. And coupled with his quick, sniveling backpedaling, it might just make what he had to do more believable. He had only to look at Paige’s face to see that he’d been convincing.

  The sickened feeling he had when he saw her looking at him with such hurt bewilderment was trying to tell him something, but he didn’t have time to sort it out now. Now he had to concentrate on the job at hand. Whether he liked it or not.

  To Paige the afternoon seemed endless. The only thing that seemed to happen was that about every half hour, one of their two guards—they seemed to trade off—would close his door and walk away, apparently to check the area surrounding the school. After these regular patrols they would return and take up their posts again.

  Despite their initial fear, the younger children soon became restless. And the more restless they became, the edgier Tarak, the older guard, became. He had apparently been telling the truth when he’d said he didn’t like noisy children. And when she had reluctantly been allowed to escort a couple of the younger ones to the bathroom in the back, off the vestibule, things had only gotten worse while she was out of sight.

  Finally Tarak left his post and strode down the center aisle, treading heedlessly down the barefoot paths, until he stopped in front of Paige.

  “Make them be quiet,” he ordered her.

  “They’re children,” she retorted sharply. “They’re children and you’ve frightened them. They should have gone home long ago, and you’re making them stay here, away from their parents. What do you expect?”

  “I expect them to be quiet! And if you do not make them, I will tie them all up and tape their mouths shut!”

  That threat got through to several of the children, and the noise level grew instantly, wails joining with children scrambling to cling to Paige.

  “Well, that helped a lot,” Paige told the man sourly.

  Tarak glared at her. “You are far too disrespectful, for a woman. When this is over and we have gotten what we wanted, I will let Filipo teach you not to be.”

  “When this is over, you’ll have no one to teach but your cell mate,” Paige returned.

  Rider winced inwardly, yet at the same time he wanted to cheer her. Tarak opened his mouth, then shut it again. Was he seeing the futility of carrying on a battle of wits when he was unarmed and his opponent had a howitzer? Rider thought with a grin he had to stifle.

  “Just keep them quiet,” Tarak ordered, and stalked back to his post.

  “And just how,” Paige muttered, “am I supposed to do that?”

  How was she supposed to keep restless kids quiet? Rider had no answer. She was the teacher, not him. The only thing he knew about it was old memories of his own school days, longer ago than he cared to remember. Back then, the only thing—

  He looked at Paige. “Read to them.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Read to them. Isn’t that what teachers do for quiet times?”

  She waved a hand toward the gathered kids. “I’ve got twenty-six kids here, of all ages. What on earth am I going to read that will keep them all quiet? There’s not a book around that…”

  Her voice trailed off. He could almost see her thinking. She turned to look at the kids, specifically at the girl Rider had seen Kyle mooning after.

  “Lani? Do you still have the book I gave you? The wizard book?”

  The girl looked up, startled. “Yes, I do.”

  “May I borrow it back for a while?”

  The girl nodded. “Of course. But it’s in my bag. In the back.”

  Paige stood up. Without a glance at the guard behind them she started walking toward the main doors. Tarak shifted his weapon. Paige kept going.

  The woman wasn’t afraid of anything, Rider thought. And he wondered how much of that quiet courage she’d found since Phil’s desertion and death.

  “What are you doing?” Tarak asked sharply as she came up to him.

  “If you want them to be quiet, then you’d better let me do this.”

  After a moment he let her pass, but he kept his eyes and his rifle trained on her as she disappeared into the vestibule. Rider held his breath. Less than two minutes later she was back in the doorway, a thick hardcover book in her hands. Tarak looked at it as if to inspect it. Rider saw Paige say something, saw the guard glare at her yet again, then waved her on with an annoyed gesture.

  She’d probably made some crack about smuggling a weapon in the book, Rider thought, wondering if she would ever be able to pass up a chance to needle their captors. Then again, as long as they were under a mandate not to hurt her, she could do the rest of them nothing but good by keeping the men focused on her, while he sat back meekly cowering.

  When she returned to the front of the room, she pulled up a seat he hadn’t noticed before, a director’s-style folding chair the height of a bar stool. She settled into it, the book on her lap. By then most of the kids were watching her.

  “If we’re going to be stuck here awhile,” Paige told them, “we might as well escape in a different way.” She opened the book to the first page and began the story of a young boy about to learn he was a wizard.

  It took a while, but after a few pages the kids had settled down and were listening. Even the older ones, Rider noted. He couldn’t blame them, not only was the story engrossing, but Paige read it well, like a storyteller herself. Once he even thought he caught Filipo tuning in, although he turned away quickly when he realized Rider had seen him.

  Paige read and read, until her voice started to sound scratchy. Rider found himself getting as wrapped up in the story of the mistreated young boy who discovered he was a wizard as the kids were. But he also noticed the time passing, and wondered what Tarak and Filipo were going to do when they had a bunch of hungry, tired kids on their hands.

  As if she’d had the same thought at the same moment, when she reached the end of the next chapter, Paige looked up from the pages. “You’re going to have to feed these children,” she told Tarak in an almost belligerent tone that told Rider she’d fight if she had to.

  “Food will come,” Tarak said shortly.

  She went back to her reading until the light began to fade. Then she slid off the chair and started toward the wall. Filipo moved immediately to stop her.

  “I need light to continue,” she explained.

  “No lights,” Tarak said from the back.

  She turned to him. “No lights? You want tired, hungry children to stay quiet in the dark?”

  “They will not be hungry. The food is on the way. And they will be quiet, because they will be sleeping.”

  Rider thought the man was being a bit optimistic. He himself might not know much about kids, but he didn’t think any of them over the age of ten were real keen on going to sleep the instant it was dark. But he understood the no-lights order: it was like going hunting and, when it got dark, staring into the fire. You destroyed your night vision, and by the time you got it back, you could be dead. Besides, the moon was nearly full and cast more light than most people realized, at least for eyes adjusted to the night.

  The man had told the truth about the food. The sound of footsteps came shortly after his words, accompanied by the clatter of dishes. Two more armed men came in, loaded down with food on banquet-style, covered plates stacked on huge trays. Different men than before, a lower rung than the bodyguards, Rider guessed. Elected for this detail because Ares wouldn’t allow any of the hotel personnel outside, especially not to see their children.

  The men set the trays down on Paige’s desk while making a couple of jokes about baby-sitting that made Filipo bristle an
d Tarak retort unkindly about their respective mothers. Laughing, the food carriers left.

  “You will each get a fork, nothing else,” Tarak instructed. “And they will all be accounted for when you are done, or no one will eat the next time. You have one half hour.”

  The two guards retreated to eat their own meal, although they took turns so one was always watching. Paige ignored her own food and set about coaxing the younger ones, upset all over again at the sight of yet more armed men, to eat. The guards seemed to regard this as unthreatening and didn’t challenge her. Rider gulped down what he could of the meal he barely tasted, knowing he was going to need the fuel. Then he went to Paige.

  “Go eat. I’ll do this now.”

  “I don’t know,” she began.

  Unsure what else to do, Rider appealed to the little ones. “You don’t mind, do you? If I sit with you, so Mrs. Cooper can eat? She’s hungry, too.”

  The kids looked doubtfully at him, but their regard for Paige won out, as he’d hoped. She still hesitated, but when he insisted, she did as he asked and sat down at her desk to hastily eat, all the while watching the children. Redstone Resorts had a reputation for fine cuisine, but Rider somehow doubted whether he or Paige could tell anybody what they’d just eaten.

  By the time the half hour was up and their guards began to collect and count the forks, it was past twilight and growing dark. “Get them ready to sleep,” Tarak instructed.

  Paige laughed in his face. Tarak tensed. Rider winced yet again. “You don’t have kids, do you?” she asked the man.

  “I do,” Tarak retorted. “But my children are properly obedient!”

  “And terrified of their father?”

  “Respectful,” Tarak said. “Now do it!”

  Rider feared he was losing patience with his troublesome hostage.

  “Why does he always yell at her?” little Hannah asked him as he knelt beside her chair.

  “She’s angry about what he’s doing, keeping you all here,” Rider explained, “so he gets angry back.”