FORGOTTEN: A Novel Read online

  FORGOTTEN

  by

  Don & Stephanie Prichard

  Copyright 2016 by Don and Stephanie Prichard

  All rights reserved

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9862298-2-4

  Cover Design: Ken Raney

  Editor: Natalie Hanemann

  The Lord is in His holy temple,

  The Lord’s throne is in heaven;

  His eyes behold,

  His eyelids test the sons of men.

  The Lord tests the righteous,

  But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

  Upon the wicked He will rain coals;

  Fire and brimstone and a burning wind

  Shall be the portion of their cup.

  For the Lord is righteous,

  He loves justice;

  Upright men will see His face.

  —Psalm 11:4-7

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  June 1982

  A voice reached down and nudged her into consciousness. Sweet words—crooned, stretched out into long, soft syllables. “Beau-ti-ful laaay-dee.” Enticing words, drawing her through an ocean of darkness like a fish to a lure. Her nerves tingled, eager to respond.

  She opened her eyes. White walls, white sheets, white lights overhead. Something stinging her nostrils. Disinfectant? She wrinkled her nose. None of it made sense. She closed her eyes and spiraled back into the darkness.

  The voice prodded her again, poking light into the blackness, prying her eyes open. She frowned. What?

  Rustling nearby. She turned her head, squinted at a smooth, cinnamon-colored face. Dark almond-shaped eyes, delicate nose, gleaming white teeth smiling at her. Attached to a white uniform. The significance hit home: a nurse.

  “Beautiful lady, how are you feeling?” A slight foreign accent stretched out the nurse’s words. “Please, I need to ask you questions before your surgery.”

  The word pierced her grogginess. Surgery? Alarm pinched her cheeks with heat and lifted the fog behind her eyes.

  In a flash, fragments of memory snapped together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The central piece: she’d been airlifted from a yacht to a hospital in the Philippines—today, only hours ago. Why? Adrenaline jolted her like a hot wire and she remembered—the yacht, her captors, the gunshot to her head.

  More pieces locked in—a jungle island, the man she loved bound to a tree and beaten. “Jake!” she cried, heartbeat escalating. “You’ve got to save Jake!” Two more pieces: people with him—Crystal and Betty, hiding. She struggled to sit up and say their names, to grab the nurse and tell her to hurry, to send help.

  “Please, can you tell me your name?” Small hands against her shoulders pressed her head back onto a pillow.

  The room swirled. The puzzle pieces vanished. Her name? “Eve.” Or was it Eva? Eva Gray?

  “Can you tell me what year it is?”

  She gripped the bed rails, palms sweaty. Her answer came out thick, sluggish. “19 … 82.”

  “Good. And, please, your age and birthdate?”

  “Thirty- … four.”

  The room tipped, and the black vortex swallowed her birthdate. She spun away with it.

  ***

  Pain wrenched open her eyes. She groaned and put her hand up to touch the right side of her head. Stopped when she spied a wire clipped to her forefinger and tubing taped halfway up her arm. Dully, she followed the tubing’s path to a bag of clear fluid suspended from a metal pole. Next to the pole a monitor traced a pattern of intermittent peaks and valleys.

  She jerked fully awake and looked around. She was in a bed in a hospital room. Her heartbeat quickened, locking the air in her lungs.

  She snatched in a breath, put her hand down, raised the other to her head. Bandages. She explored farther. The entire top of her head was swathed in them.

  Her fingertips triggered a jackhammer inside her skull. She yelped and yanked her hand away. A young Filipina nurse, almond eyes full of concern, dashed into the room.

  “Are you feeling pain?”

  “My head.” She clenched eyes, teeth, fists against the crushing implosion.

  The nurse’s footsteps pattered off and returned. She opened her eyes to see the nurse poke a syringe into the I.V. line. Within seconds the pain melted away like candle wax. She took a shuddering breath and sank gratefully into the bed sheets.

  She started over again: bandages on her head. She touched them gingerly. What had happened? Before she could ask, the nurse spoke. “Your surgery went well, but you need to lie still. Please, can you tell me your name and birthdate?”

  She blinked.

  Inside the bandages, her mind raced back and forth, arms outstretched, searching, searching, until finally it halted, shattered. Nothing. No memories. Only emptiness.

  Her breath heaved from her chest, shot back in, catapulted out again. “I …” Her vision spun in erratic circles. “I don’t … ” She gasped out the last word. “Know.”

  A sticky syrup, dark, menacing, melted over her brain. Crept to her face. Absorbed her eyes. The last thing she heard, as if from a deep subterranean well, was the echo of her nurse’s voice: “Doctor!”

  ***

  The door creaked on its hinges, admitting yet one more person into the crowded hospital waiting room. Jake knew immediately it was Detective Lee. Looking for him.

  Jake stood—not that he was hard to spot, the only white male in a room of cocoa-skinned Filipinos. It was just that the contrast between the detective’s coat and tie and Jake’s tattered shorts and shirt—a tee with orange and blue flowers the size of elephant ears he’d been given to cover his bare chest—demanded defiance. Shaggy hair and beard tangled below his shoulders didn’t help. There’d been no time to clean up.

  In the chair beside his, Betty Parker stirred, her wrinkled face creasing into a frown as he rose. Crystal, her twelve-year-old grandniece, slept against Betty’s left shoulder, leaning on her from the next chair. Both were as ragged as Jake. The year of bare-bones survival on a jungle island had stripped them of civilization’s sheen. He flashed a twitch of a smile at Betty to assure her all was well.

  “Colonel Jacob Chalmers?”

  At the use of his military title, heat flushed Jake’s cheeks. There’d be no oo-rah from the Marine Corps at the state of his appearance. He gave a curt nod.

  “Detective Lee.” Though he was a good half-foot shorter than Jake’s six-two, the detective managed to peer down his nose at Jake. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “You accompanied Eva Gray from the yacht?”

  “She goes by her nickname, Eve. Yes, I flew in on the medivac with her.”

  “Could we step into the hallway? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “No.” The noise in the room hushed as ears locked onto the two men. “I’m waiting for the doctor to report on Eve’s surgery.”

  Lee’s nostrils flared. “I spoke to the doctor. Ms. Gray is in recovery.”

  The words landed a hard punch to Jake’s belly. “Recovery? Why didn’t anyone inform me?”

  “When we’re finished, you can check with the doctor.”

  “No!” Jake grabbed the detective’s arms. “I want to see her. Now.”

  The biceps under Jake’s grip tensed. Lee’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t be allowed to see her.” The muscles in his cheeks tightened. “Eva Gray—Eve—is under arrest for suspicion of murder.”

  Chapter 2

  Jake’s arms dropped to his side, and he stepped back from Detective Lee. “Are you talking about those two thugs on the yacht with her?” His voice rose. “They kidnapped her!”

  “Perhaps now you’d like to step into the hallway and answer my questions?” Detective Lee turned and st
alked through the doorway. The averted eyes of everyone in the waiting room shifted from the floor to Jake with unabashed interest.

  Betty touched his hand. “Go,” she whispered. “Crystal and I will wait for you here.”

  He followed Detective Lee into the hallway. The man stood waiting for him, eyes studying Jake. No arms folded haughtily across his chest, no chin raised in disdain. The tightness in Jake’s gut eased at the detective’s thoughtful gaze.

  “Colonel, I seek your cooperation.”

  Jake’s lips tightened. “I want to see Eve.”

  “That may be possible after we visit the island you were stranded on. Show me evidence of Eve’s innocence, and she is free for visits.”

  “Evidence? Those two goons on the yacht clearly killed each other—and almost took her life as well! What more evidence do you need?”

  Lee’s gaze bore into Jake. “That yacht was stolen, and the owners and first mate disappeared—probably murdered. Eva Gray may have been a participant.”

  Jake sputtered. “She was kidnapped! I’m a witness to that, and so are Betty Parker and Crystal Oakleigh, sitting right”—he jabbed his finger at the waiting room door—“there.”

  Detective Lee’s eyes narrowed. “There’s also the matter of three dead men on the island—reported by you when the Coast Guard rescued you and your companions.”

  Jake’s shoulders slumped. Prison was a possibility after all. For both him and Eve. Their innocence needed every bit of support he could give. “All right, I’ll go with you. But I want to see Eve first.”

  “Not an option, Colonel. A helicopter is waiting to transport us to the island. The Coast Guard is already there.”

  Jake’s voice rose. “I want to see her.” A nurse at the far end of the hallway turned her head toward them.

  “We can’t.” The detective spoke softly, as if calming a wild-eyed horse bucking his lead. “She is in the ICU in an induced coma.”

  Jake’s chest turned to lead. “Coma?”

  “To protect her brain. There’s been some swelling. The doctor said it needs to go down to help her brain heal. She will be fine until we get back.”

  Jake clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. “I’m not leaving her.”

  “All right.” Lee’s chin jutted forward. “Then I will have to arrest you and your two friends in the waiting room on suspicion of murder.”

  The two men, rooted in place, stared at each other.

  “Look,” Lee finally said, the tone of his voice begging for reason. “In three days the doctors will reverse her coma. Plenty of time to fly to the island and return. I promise.”

  Jake’s lip lifted in a snarl. “I’ll go. But if anything happens to her …”

  Lee’s eyebrows raised over steely eyes. “That sounds mighty close to a threat, Colonel.” He nodded toward the waiting room door. “Tell your friends you’ll be back in three days.”

  Three days. Jake’s stomach twisted. Not only did he have to abandon Eve, but now Betty and Crystal too. He swallowed back the helplessness slithering up his throat, squared his heart to trust nothing bad would happen in his absence.

  ***

  Bradley Henshaw punched the speaker button on his office phone. Not too often the State Department called the Department of Justice in Chicago. “District Attorney Bradley Henshaw.”

  “Mr. Henshaw, this is Linda Faris at the U.S. State Department. You issued a BOLO for an American woman under the name of Eva Gray or Evedene Eriksson.”

  Henshaw frowned. That “Be-On-the-Look-Out” was a year old. “Yes …” Tension prickled up his spine.

  “The U.S. Ambassador’s office in the Philippines called us. A red flag tripped your watch list item when four Americans were rescued from a remote island yesterday. They claim to be survivors of the cruise ship Gateway. One of them is a woman named Eva Gray.”

  The room emptied of oxygen, taking Henshaw’s breath with it, creeping back in tiny pinches down his throat. “She’s … alive?” His mind staggered at the possibility. Grabbing a pen, heart beating faster and faster, he scribbled the details Ms. Faris shared.

  When the call ended, he punched in the number for the U.S. Marshals.

  ***

  The whir of the police helicopter blades softened to a wop, wop, wop as the copter hovered over the landing deck of the Philippine Coast Guard cutter. The aircraft landed with a jolt and the blades whispered into silence, yielding to the slap of ocean waves against the ship’s hull and the cries of alarmed seagulls at a distance. Jake stepped onto the deck and gazed at the island. Two days since he’d left, and memories squeezed his heart as if it had been two years.

  A motorboat awaited him and Detective Lee, who had changed his coat and tie for jeans and a tee shirt, while Jake discarded his flowery tee for a bare chest. The captain shook hands with them, and the three of them and four guardsmen boarded the craft and shoved off for the coastline. Jake had never approached the island from a boat, and the swiftness of their advance jarred him with the reminder of their purpose: to collect three dead bodies and explain their deaths.

  They entered the cove where he, Eve, Betty, and Crystal had lived for a year. A crescent of white sand bordered the water like a businessman’s starched collar. Past the beach, a field of long, sun-bleached grass slanted uphill to a steep terrain of rocks. Towering in the distance like a giant anthill was the cone of the island’s volcano.

  “This is where the pirates kidnapped Eve?” Lee asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you while this was going on?”

  Jake’s teeth ground on the question. “There, on the other side of that stream. I was tied to one of those three trees.”

  “By your wrists?”

  Jake glanced at the raw, meat-red bracelets burnt into the skin behind his hands. “Yes. Hanging by them.”

  “They beat you?”

  Jake snorted. His cracked ribs would ache for months. “I didn’t count any hugs.”

  Lee nodded as if he were done with questions for now.

  Jake pointed to where grass and rocks merged. “Up there is our cave, dug out probably forty years ago by a platoon of stranded World War II Japanese soldiers. Nearby is their burial cave. Do you want to see them?”

  “Everything,” Lee said. The guardsmen murmured their assent. An undercurrent of excitement rippled their breaths and lit their eyes. This was something schoolboys dreamed of, and the story world was about to become theirs.

  They pulled the motorboat onto the beach, and Jake led them across the sand to a rocky path on one side of the field of grass. “Careful where you step. That’s a minefield to your left. A defensive barbed-wire fence is buried inside those long blades of grass.” The men formed a straight line behind him and cautiously placed their feet where Jake stepped.

  He beckoned them to his side when the ground leveled before a steep wall of rock. “Hear that crash of waves? Thataway,”—he pointed to the west—“the ground drops off about forty-five feet in a sharp cliff to the ocean. The other way”—he pointed to the east—“is the soldiers’ defensive trench behind the minefield and barbed-wire fence. And here”—he descended a few feet into the trench and pulled aside long blades of grass with both hands—“is the last defender of the island, fondly dubbed by us as the Lone Soldier.”

  The men crowded around the fully clothed skeleton and gawked at its uniform, boots, and the nearby rusty machine gun he had manned. “Japanese uniform, all right,” the Coast Guard captain said. “Looks like the rank of lieutenant. Where’s his head?”

  Jake winced. “A victim of my rage at the pirates, I’m afraid. A story for later? Right now, it’d be good to look at the residential cave while there’s still daylight. And since you brought flashlights, I can take you through the burial cave.”

  Stepping close to the rock wall, Jake bent, pressed his hands against it, and pushed up. Lee grunted in surprise when a portion of the rock slid knee-high to reveal an opening.

  “Works on a pulle
y.” Jake couldn’t help a grin. “Wait until you see what they did inside.” The seven of them crawled through the aperture, the guardsmen murmuring in appreciation as they found themselves able to stand with plenty of headroom in a large chamber. Like the proud owner of a manor, Jake took them on a tour, pointing out the slitted window that let in light and allowed the soldiers to spy on the sea lane to the north; the large hearth with its tripod and cauldron; the long bamboo table with ten chairs; and the sleeping corridor with ten bunks carved into the stone. “All the comforts of home,” he beamed. “And here are our hash marks on the wall to keep track of the days. Almost a full year.”

  Lee peered out the window. “All four of you were survivors of the Gateway shipwreck?”

  “Not a shipwreck,” Jake growled. “Captain Emilio herded all the passengers onto two small boats and deliberately killed them at sea with explosives.” Heat swept through his body at the memory, and his stomach shredded as if stuffed into a meat grinder. “Including Ginny, my wife.” His lungs locked, and with effort he pulled air back inside. “The Gateway sailed away unharmed.”

  “Yet four of you escaped?” Lee’s voice fell just short of incredulity.

  Jake bristled. “Everyone except me was at a staged event on deck. I was in my cabin, reading. When they found me, Emilio forced me overboard at gunpoint. Then he,”—Jake flared hot—“then he deliberately gave the signal to a crewman to set off the explosives so I’d see he was responsible.”

  His lower lip trembled. “I should have been with Ginny.” The words choked out of his throat. “I would have seen the ruse. Could have saved Ginny, all the passengers.”

  “Colonel, I’m sorry.” Lee’s tone softened. “She and Betty and Crystal were in the boats?”

  “Different boats. Betty and Crystal fell overboard and Eve swam out to rescue them. It saved them from the blasts.”

  “You rescued them?”

  “No. The boats were made of a material that prevented major damage. I found Ginny’s body and sailed the boat she’d been in to the island. Until I got there, I had no idea anyone else had survived.”