Back on Solid Ground (4 page)

“I’ll run a
bath for you,” he said, and he disappeared into the bathroom.  He returned with
a fluffy white robe and laid it on the bed.  “There are a few clothes in the
closet,” Niki said.

Stacy nodded
her head without speaking.

“When you’re
done, I want Carlos to look at that,” he said, pointing to her side. 

“Okay,” she said
quietly.

“I’ll leave
you alone,” he said, hesitating to leave.  “If you need anything, you can call
us on the intercom.  Or if you feel strong enough, you’re welcome to move
freely through the house.  You don’t have to feel like you’re banished to this
room,” he said, trying to elicit a smile. 

“Okay,” she
said without looking at him.

“Okay, then .
. . Well, I’ll leave now, and we’ll check back on you,” Niki said.

“Fine.”

He left the
room, but waited outside until he heard the bathroom door close, then rejoined
his friends in the kitchen.

Stacy slipped
into the warm bath, and submerged herself up to her neck.  The water was
soothing, and she closed her eyes, relaxing.  Mentally, she felt better
instantly.  It was amazing what a good cry and a hot bath could do for the
soul.  Physically, she was extremely tired, but no doubt the sleeping pills had
something to do with that.  She never took drugs, and on the few occasions when
she had taken something to help her sleep, she felt lethargic for days.  She
removed the bandage and assessed the damage inflicted by the bullet.  The skin
around the wound was an angry reddish purple, and it felt hot to the touch.  It
would leave a nasty scar.

Stacy lounged
in the bath for an hour, adding more hot water as it cooled. She scrubbed
herself hard with a soapy washcloth and washed her hair twice.  When she
finished, the bathroom smelled like gardenias.  She found an Oral-B toothbrush
new in the box and a tube of Crest and she brushed her teeth.  The amenities
provided definitely had a feminine touch, and Stacy wondered who she was. 

The hot bath
did wonders, and now that she was clean, Stacy was famished. She dried off and
searched through the closet and found a pair of fatigues and a faded army green
T-shirt and put them on. 
I look like a commando
. 

Stacy headed
back into the bathroom, and took the towel off her head.  She found a blow
dryer and brush, and screamed bloody murder when she looked in the mirror.
They
cut my fucking hair!
 

 The four men
were in the kitchen laughing over breakfast when the door slammed open with
such force that it knocked a picture off the wall.  In unison, they jumped to
their feet, not knowing what had hit them. 

“What?!  It
wasn’t enough for you to
shoot me
and
kidnap me
, so you had to go
and
butcher my hair
?  IS THAT IT?” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Which one of you fuckers did this?” she demanded, looking from one to the
other with fury in her eyes.  She zeroed in on Niki, “You did this, didn’t
you?” she said, pointing to her hair. 

Niki opened
his mouth to try to explain, but she wouldn’t hear him.

“You are a
sick, perverted, murdering, kidnapping, son-of-a-bitch!” she said, getting
louder with each disparaging remark.  Stacy stormed across the room and by the
end of her tirade she was standing directly in front of him, right in his
face.  She was so incredibly pissed off, she brought her hand back and slapped
him across the face as hard as she could.

Eli cleared
his throat.  “Actually, it was my idea,” he confessed, trying to deflect her
rage from his brother.

Stacy whirled
around like a hurricane changing course, venting her anger at Eli. “Well then
you
are the biggest fucker of all!” she hissed.  Eli flinched, instinctively
putting his hands up.  She shot him a vicious look and turned to leave, then
added, “And you’re probably the asshole who
shot
me!”

When she was gone,
the room was silent for a split second and then they all burst out laughing,
everyone speaking at once.

“I don’t
think I have
ever
seen a woman as angry,” Carlos laughed.  “Did I not
warn you?” he said to his friends. 

“Oh, my God!”
said Eli.  “Did you see her eyes . . .
she was pissed! 
She was gonna
beat your ass
again,
” he told Niki.

“Unbelievable! 
Barbie meets Rambo,” said Niki rubbing his cheek.

“She knocked
the damn picture off the wall,” said Jason incredulously.  “Check it out, she
dented the wall,” he laughed.   They all gathered around and looked at where
the doorknob had slammed into the wall. 

“Someone
needs to go see if she’s okay,” Carlos said, trying to quit laughing.

“Oh, let me!”
Eli said, and they roared with laughter again.

“Someone
besides
Eli
needs to go see if she’s okay,” Carlos clarified.  He waited, but no
one volunteered.  “Jason, I think it should be you,” said Carlos decisively.

“Me?  Why
should I have to do it?” he protested.  “Niki and Eli are the ones who whacked
her hair.”

“Which is
precisely why it should be
you
,” said Carlos.  “Out of all of us, I’m
sure she dislikes you the
least
.”

“Oh, right!”
said Jason.   “What am I supposed to say to her?”

“You must
explain to her that we did not cut her hair with malicious intent,” Carlos
instructed. 

“Tell her
it’s not even noticeable,” Niki suggested.

“Yes, that’s
very good!” Carlos said, enthusiastically.  “Tell her it’s not even
noticeable,” he coached.

“No way,”
said Jason, shaking his head.  “I’m not doing it.”   He sat back down at the
table and swallowed a big gulp of coffee. 

“Come on
Jayce,” encouraged Niki.  “You’re good at shit like that.  You’ve got the
knack.”

“I’m not
doing it.” Jason said firmly.  “You saw how pissed she was.  Nothing I could
say is going to change anything.”

“She thinks
we cut her hair just to spite her,” Niki explained.  “You just need to tell her
that it wasn’t like that . . . that we only did it so we could get her out of
that bag.”

“The bag that
we crammed her into after we
shot her
and
kidnapped her
,”
Jason retorted.

Niki could
tell that Jason was not going to budge on the matter. “Fine,” he said, turning
to Carlos.  “Then you’ll have to do it,” he said decisively.  “You need to
check on her bullet wound anyway.  You can kill two birds with one stone.”

Carlos threw
up his hands in exasperation, “I knew it!” he exclaimed.  “I
always
have
to clean up after your mess!” he told the brothers. “Why would today be any
different?”

Carlos
thought about the raw hand he had been dealt. “Well, I’m not going in there
empty-handed,” he decided.  “The girl hasn’t eaten a bite, she must be hungry. 
I’ll take her some breakfast and coffee as a peace offering,” he said, pleased
with himself.  He found a tray and filled a plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, toast
and hash browns.  Then he poured a mug of coffee and a cup of juice, and
arranged them on the tray with a napkin, silverware, salt and pepper, and cream
and sugar. 

“Here,” Jason
said, pulling a pink hibiscus out of the vase on the table and handing it to
Carlos.  “Might as well go all out since you’re trying to impress,” he laughed.

Carlos took
the flower and arranged it on the tray.  “Yes, that’s a very nice touch,”
Carlos said, pleased.  “You see Jason . . . Niki is right . . . you do have the
knack,” Carlos said, buttering him up. “I honestly feel like you should be the
one to deliver this beautiful tray.”

“Oh, all right! 
Give me the damn thing!” Jason said, shoving his chair back from the table and
pushing Carlos to the side.  “I swear, you’re a bunch of pussies!”  He picked
up the tray, and Carlos held the door open for him, making a sweeping motion
with his hand as Jason stomped by.  Jason could hear his friends laughing in
the kitchen the whole way up the stairs.

Stacy had
gone back to her room.  She had dried her hair and was examining the damage. There
were chunks of hair cut out randomly, some within inches of her scalp, and she
had bangs on a third of her forehead.  She looked like Raggedy Anne.

Jason knocked
on the door, “Stacy, it’s Jason,” he said.  “May I come in?”

“No, Jason. 
You may
not
come in!” she snapped at him. 

“I figured
you must be starving,” he said.  “I brought you some food,” he tempted.  

Stacy cracked
the door, and Jason smiled and motioned to the tray in his hands.  She opened
the door just wide enough to make it difficult for him to enter. 

“How about I
put this out on your balcony?” he said, heading towards the French doors.   
“You can sit outside and relax and take in the island air while you eat,” he
suggested. 

She followed
him outside and walked to the railing of the balcony to look around.  The view
was incredible, breathtakingly beautiful.  Jason set the tray on the table,
then walked over beside her. “It’s incredible isn’t it?” he said proudly.

“It is,” she agreed. 
“I’d love to have come here under different circumstances,” she added. “It’s as
beautiful a place as I’ve ever seen,” she said, gazing out over the ocean.

“There’s no
place I’d rather be,” said Jason.  Stacy didn’t answer and the silence hung in the
air while Jason got up his courage to broach the hair subject.

He cleared
his throat.  “About your hair,” Jason said, waiting for her to launch into
him. 

Stacy
stiffened and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling at the short little
pieces that were sticking out around her face.  “Yeah, you really did a number
on me, didn’t you?” she said, turning towards him so he could see the
damage.    

“I want you
to know that it’s not what you think,” he said.  “It wasn’t done out of spite
or maliciousness.  Your hair was all stuck to that bag, and it was the only way
we could get the thing off of you,” he explained.  “Besides,” he said, cocking
his head and examining her hair,   “it’s hardly noticeable . . . except for
right there,” he pointed to a patch that was sticking up. “And maybe right
here,” he pointed to another.  He was trying to stifle a smile, but she was so
damn cute that he couldn’t.  He was looking at her with a big smile on his face
and he could tell that she thought he was laughing at her. 

“I’m sorry,”
he said, “you just look really cute, that’s all.  I swear, I’m not laughing at
you.”

“Raggedy
Anne, right?” she said.

“Not at all,”
he lied.  “Now come on, eat your breakfast before it gets cold,” he told her.

Stacy sat
down at the table and placed the napkin in her lap.  If the food tasted
anything like it looked, it would be delicious.  She was ravenous.

“Yum.  Who
cooked?” she asked, taking a bite of toast. 

“Carlos,”
Jason said, watching her chew.  She made everything look so delicious that it
was making him hungry again.  “I’ll leave you to it,” he said.  “You should get
some rest.  You look tired.”

“Whatever,”
she said testily.

Jason turned
to leave but stopped as he reached the French doors, “We really are sorry about
your hair,” he said.

“I’m sure
you’ll lose sleep over it,” Stacy said to her food.   

Stacy ate
everything on her plate and felt much better after she had eaten.  She wasn’t
one to skip meals, and when she did, it made her feel shaky and weak.  Having
satiated her hunger, she was ready to tackle her predicament.   She stood
looking out over the water, and put her sharp mind to work. 

Okay, start
from the beginning, Stacy thought.  I was taken hostage during a bank robbery –
or rather, it was made to look like I was taken hostage.  But the bank robbers
knew my name, so obviously I was not taken at random.  Or maybe I was taken at
random, and after they grabbed me, they recognized me, and that’s how they knew
my name. 

Would they
have taken me if I had not drawn attention to myself by jumping up and
screaming after they shot that man?  Not if I was chosen at random.  Stacy
continued to segregate relevant information from extraneous details. 

If I was not
taken at random, then I have been kidnapped for ransom, she reasoned.   She
decided to pursue that line of thinking to see where it ended up.  If I was
kidnapped, then was the whole bank robbery a sham?  But why would they do
that?  Why wouldn’t they just take me when I was getting in my car late at
night?  Why risk it?  No, she decided, there’s more to it than that.  Her
stomach was feeling like it was tied in knots and she began pacing the balcony
while she continued thinking.

Assuming I
have been kidnapped, then what’s next?  From whom would they attempt to extort
the ransom?  My father?  It didn’t figure.  Why would they kidnap me, when I’m
the one with the money?  It would make more sense to kidnap someone in my
family and call on me for the ransom.  The more she thought about it, the less
sense it made. 

The bottom
line is that it doesn’t really matter whether I was taken randomly or
intentionally, because either way, I’m in big trouble.  There’s no way these
men can let me go.  I’ve seen their faces; I know their names.  Which was
another point that confused her, because of what she had seen of these guys,
they didn’t seem like cold-blooded killers.  They could have just as easily
killed the guy in the bank, but they didn’t; and she had to assume they’d left
him alive intentionally.  No one could be that bad a shot with the artillery
they had used in the bank.

Stacy looked
out at the ocean and let her mind wander, but all that came to her were
regrets.  She regretted that she’d never taken art lessons, or that she
couldn’t speak French; she regretted spending so much time working, and not
taking more time to travel and enjoy life.  But most of all, she regretted that
her mother had died before Stacy could give her a grandchild.  The other things
she could still accomplish when she got out of her current predicament, but that
which was most important to her was forever unattainable. 
Well, if it’s
forever unattainable, why are you standing here stewing about it!
she
finally told herself.  Stacy gave herself an attitude adjustment.
You can
either bask in your regrets, or you can get your shit together, get out of
here, and transform yourself into a French-speaking, jet-setting, life-loving
artist.  Or whatever . . .