Page 39 of Sawyer’s Mistake

“Don’t answer that, Miranda,” Paul ordered.

“No, the guards don’t eat with the family,” she said, looking at Paul in disdain.

Storme nodded encouragingly. “Who else who knows what’s going on here?”

Miranda’s gaze connected with Sawyer. “There’s an older woman, Amélie. This was all her idea, we just went along …” She looked convincingly distraught, but in his mind Sawyer could still see her cold eyes as she tied Saoirse’s hands to the post.

“Enough! Stand up, Paul,” he said. He pushed hard on the man’s arms from behind, tying his wrists with a zip tie. “Let’s get to the dining room and have a chat with your family, as you call them.”

They led the two back along the corridor. Sawyer kept his laser gun trained on Paul every instant. There was nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal, and Paul must be feeling the strain by now.

At the door to the dining room, they paused to listen. The only sounds were those of cutlery and chitchat. Nobody had even noticed the locked doors. That made their job easier.

Kopf used a pair of small pliers to cut the zip ties holding the door closed, looking dejected. “Waste of good zip ties,” he complained. “Come on, you two, after you,” he said, shoving Paul forward.

#

Fifteen pairs of eyes looked up in alarm as they walked in. A young woman standing by the buffet table dropped her china plate, which shattered into a hundred pieces, breaking the spell. Suddenly, people were screaming, the voices echoing in the large room. An older man pulled a tablecloth straight off the table in his haste to hide under the table.

“Freeze! Everybody sit back down,” Storme ordered. A few people scrambled to right their chairs so they could follow his order. The man who’d dived under the table came back out, looking sheepishly at his neighbors.

“There are kids here, for God’s sake,” Paul hissed.

Storme hesitated just for an instant, looking at two preteen girls and a toddler who stared at them, wild-eyed, from the floor, where they’d been playing cards.

“Kids, find your parents. Now!” One of the girls jumped up, picking up the toddler. The three of them ran back to the same table, where two women held out their arms shakily.

“Paul, what’s going on? What do these men want?” one of the mothers whimpered.

Before Paul had a chance to reply, Sawyer stepped up and raised his hands.

“You might remember me. I was here with a woman just over a week ago. We had dinner together in this very room.” He looked around, his gaze connecting with several of the men and women in the room. A few of them nodded. Several looked confused.

When his gaze met Marie, the woman who’d sat across from him at the table that evening, she spoke up.

“Of course we remember you, Jake.” She looked beside her to her husband. “You and Saoirse left early the next morning. Your room was empty before breakfast.” There was no guile in the young woman’s expression.

“Does that happen often, people leaving before breakfast?” Sawyer asked. A few people began to exchange worried glances. “We didn’t leave. We were given to the Remur in exchange for them leaving the yacht alone.”

“What are you talking about?” Louis cried out, standing up. “Nobody here would ever—” He looked down at his wife, Marie, who was tugging at his sleeve, her gaze fixed on the zip ties around Miranda and Paul’s wrists.

“That’s a crazy accusation,” a bearded man said, standing up.

“Of course it is,” Amélie agreed, standing up.

Sawyer glared at the woman. “Ah, there you are, Amélie. Come on over.” The older woman’s gown this evening was a shimmering turquoise, her light gray here piled artfully on top of her head. She seemed to float rather than walk towards him.

“Sit down,” Marie begged her husband, Louis. “Let’s listen to him.”

“Listen to the lady, man. Sit down,” Kopf threatened, raising his weapon slightly. The man sat back down, his brow furrowed.

“It’s not the first time they’ve done it,” Sawyer continued. “Another young woman in our group spent months with the Remur before we found her and got her out. Her name is Alix. You might remember her.”

The bearded man’s mouth gaped. “Alix? Alix is with you? But she left. She …” He stopped himself as he realized the magnitude of the deception.

Sawyer met each gaze straight on. He pressed his advantage.

“This is the opposite of a safe haven. Think of all the people, all the friends, who have chosen to leave over the last months. It could have been any of you.”