086:

She-- in all her ignorance and random, distorted thinking. She thought she could simply pay off men that had tried to kill her, and kill Jared, and Kill Kell, and....

What. is. wrong. with. me?

Robert....

The men were engaged in talking right now, instructions given in Spanish for sure. Maybe they were describing what they were going to do, or what their plans were. Inside Melia's pocket was her phone. It wouldn't stay charged forever, but for right now.... She fingered the buttons.... The last call she'd made... Robert.... She simply pressed redial without looking and then left it on....

******

Robert woke to his phone buzzing, he ran a hand through his hair, looked at the clock and read the ungodly hour of eight a.m. Who would be calling? He checked the phone blearily, ready to stop it's incessant ringing and then saw Melia's name. He smiled.

"Hey baby..." He crooned, sounding groggy even to himself, the phone to his ear simply let in static. "I can't hear you, hon, call back!"

He was about to hang up when he heard the shouting.

A man's voice was shouting in Spanish... over the terrible staticky sounds of--- noise--- bleary loud indistinguishable noise---meet the boat to Cuba, one hour, why did they bring the brats... jewels... where was the sister.... Jewels, did she have the jewels.... The babies were the jewels.... The babies were what Villarino wanted..... they had to make it to the connection....

"Oh, God..... no!" he whispered slowly as it dawned on him what he was hearing. He pressed the phone to his ear as hard as he could, listening for anything else, but all he could hear were the whimpers of a baby, the soft shushing of a mother's voice to her child, and the shouting above the din of chopper cycles.... Chopper cycles... she was on a helicopter. Going where?

His brain was having trouble keeping up with his reality. Melia... Melia was on that chopper. Melia and the girls...

He should have known. She was slowly becoming less stable---

He'd sensed it--

Dealing--- yes, she was dealing--- but as the grief process filtered through--- she wasn't completely stable---

She'd told him a hundred times she just wanted it all to be over--- this-- this was the final straw--- one thing she felt she could control---

She had gone to the drop off. She had taken her children. She'd been taken, just like he'd predicted. She was reaching out to him and there was nothing, nothing he could do about it!

Damn, Melia, how could you be so stupid? This was the worst betrayal ever! The thought of losing her killed him, killed him.... He couldn't lose her now.....

The line went dead. He didn't dare call her back. He sat up, rubbing his head hard, and began to pace. What could he do? He ran up the stairs to the main deck and yelled for John to get him a ship to shore connection to a local coast guard.... He had to alert Richard Mann, and any local authorities. He couldn't tie up his cell in case she called again. Who else? Who could he call?

He was in the process of this when his cell buzzed again . He pressed the send button and the same frantic chopper sounds met his ears. It took a second to hear the men's shouting over that whizzing, whirring, tattoo. Again he could hear the quiet shushing of a baby, the voice was distinctly Melia's, and as she sang to her child, she started speaking some kind of language he didn't understand....it sounded a little like English, but mixed with gibberish.... Nonsense words....

And then the line went dead again, but not before he'd heard the word--- Cartagena. There was only one Cartagena, and that was in Columbia and he was only a few miles from there right now....

*****