Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

NORTH OF ENSENADA, MEXICO

AUGUST

SATURDAY MORNING

LANE FRANKLIN TOLD HIMSELF that he shouldnt freak out.

Most fifteen-year-olds would be high-fiving all over the place if they got to spend the summer in Ensenada. Beaches, bims, beer. Life didnt get any better.

Not that All Saints School was exactly in Ensenadas fast lane. Despite the sultry summer heat, no girls wearing butt-floss bikinis were shaking it on the schools beautiful, very private beach. But his cottage was first class and the soccer field was awesome, and with the window open he could hear the surf that broke on the western edge of the campus.

With its scattered four-bedroom cottages, apartments for teachers, dorms for less wealthy students, and a small library/recreation center, All Saints looked like a high-end resort.

It wasnt.

It was a church school where spoiled kids learned how to take orders, how to sit up straight, how to study, and how to be respectful.

Booorrrring.

I had it coming. What I did was a crime.

Even if it didnt seem like it at the time.

Just a little finger time with his nifty new computer and his Fs turned into Bs in the schools central computer. Too bad he got caught, and way too bad that his father suddenly decided hed hang around long enough to see Lane registered in a more structured international boarding school.

At least they hadnt caught him when hed hacked into a military computer, or that bank, and five or six other sacred cows. Once he got inside, he hadnt done anything except enjoy getting away with it.

Then hed had the bright idea of changing his grades so his mother wouldnt be upset at a row of Ds and Fs.

Everythings okay.

Ive done six months. I can do two more.

So what if his roommates had all moved out three weeks ago. He liked the silence and he didnt have to hide his computer.

So what if the school had enrolled some thugs to play soccer a few weeks ago. So what if the guys looked more like twenty-six than sixteen. So what if they targeted him every time he was on the field. He was quicker and a whole lot smarter than they were.

Lane looked at his watch. Soccer practice would begin in a few hours. Until then hed do homework. Afterward hed play games on the computer his mother had smuggled past the schools tight-assed headmaster a few weeks ago.

He still didnt know why they said he couldnt have access to a computer. He hadnt done anything wrong, but suddenly he didnt have phone privileges and couldnt use the library computer. All he could do was write letters.

Like snail mail isnt really lame.

At least Lane didnt have to worry about anyone discovering the forbidden computer. Each student cleaned his own quarters and his own clothes and some even did dishes for the whole school.

It would have been awesome to have an Internet connection, but short of breaking into the school offices

Dont even think about it.

Dont give Dad another chance to push Mom into keeping me here. I havent had a single black mark in four months.

After his roommates left, he didnt have friends to talk to, but that was okay. He was used to being alone. When hed first come to All Saints, the only Spanish hed known had gotten him black marks for saying it aloud. Some of the kids spoke English, some spoke Chinese or Japanese or French, but most spoke Spanish with various geographical accents he was beginning to be able to separate. Hed always been good with languages, but they bored him.

Now that he had a good reason to learn one, he was a whole lot more fluent than anyone guessed. But none of what he overheard made him feel better.

The last three weeks had really sucked. His telephone didnt work. When he asked for someone to fix it, nothing happened. When he asked one of his teachers if he could use hers to call home, she backed away like hed suggested sex on the desk.

That was the day the two badasses swaggered onto the soccer field and stared at him, silently telling him that he was number one on their hit list.

Something had happened three weeks ago.

Lane didnt know what it was, he didnt know what had caused it. All he knew was that hed gone from being a student to something else.

Something that felt like a prisoner.

So what? Ive held my own with those two pendejos for twenty-one days. Im nailing my classes. My room is always clean and neat. The teachers like me.

Or they did until three weeks ago.

When Mom comes to visit, Ill just casually ask her if Dad has changed his mind and maybe I could come home for a week. Or a few days.

Even one day.

Just a few hours.

Because once Im across that border, Im never coming back. Ill live on the streets if I have to.

Lane listened to the relentless surf and told himself that the waves werent whispering, prisonerprisonerprisoner

But even that hissing chant was better than remembering the voices of the two thugs as they tripped him, elbowed him, kicked him: Youre ours, pato. Youre dead meat. Were going to sneak into your room, cut off your balls, and make you eat them.

Lane shut out the sound of the surf and the voices in his memory.

Im not a prisoner.

Im not scared.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

LA JOLLA

SATURDAY MORNING

THE PHONE RANG FOUR times before Judge Grace Silva pulled her head out of the legal documents she was reviewing.

Maybe its Ted.

Finally.

It had been years since shed cared about her husband-newly ex-husband-in any way but as the father of her child. And if there was a persistent personal sadness that shed failed in marriage, well, shed just have to live with it. Shed worked hard to make the divorce and all the legalities entailed as civilized and adult as possible.

For Lane.

But she was real tired of getting calls at all times of the day and night asking for Theodore Franklin. Just because hed kept his legal address as the beach home theyd once shared didnt mean he actually lived with her.

Hello, Grace said.

Ah, senora, said a mans voice. This is Carlos Calderon. I would like to speak to your husband.

Grace didnt bother to point out that Franklin was her ex. If Calderon wasnt close enough to Ted to know about the divorce, she had no reason to announce it.

Ted isnt here, she said briskly. And he hasnt been here in three weeks, which you damn well should know because you or one of your employees has called every day. Have you tried his Wilshire office, his cell phone, and his Malibu condo? Or his bimbo mistress?

Si, yes, many times.

Is it something I can help you with?

Grace expected the same answer shed gotten for the past three weeks-a polite thanks but no thanks.

Instead Calderon sighed and said, Judge Silva, I am afraid you must come to Ensenada immediately.

Her hand tightened on the phone. As a judge, she was accustomed to giving rather than taking orders. Excuse me?

It is your son, Lane.

Whats wrong? she asked quickly. Is he in trouble? Hes been so good for the-

It is not something to be discussed over the telephone. I will see you in two hours.

Whats wrong? she demanded.

Good-bye, Judge Silva.

Wait, she said. Give me four hours. I dont know what traffic will be like at the border.

Three hours.

The phone went dead.

U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

SATURDAY MORNING

GRACE BARELY REACHED THE border by the deadline. Traffic had been heavier than usual, which meant six lanes of stop-and-slow on southbound interstates. The good news was that the Mexican customs officials were waving people through as fast as they could. They might hate Americans, but they loved the Yankee dollar. The only cars the officials stopped held women worth staring at twice.