Page 3 of The Hero
Yanisa grabbed her upper arm and said something in Thai.
Marlowe held on to the fence, not wanting to go. Not wanting to leave Kendric.
“Can you do that?” he asked.
There was an undercurrent to his question that Marlowe didn’t understand.
“Marlowe!” he called again, as Yanisa pried her fingers off the fence. “When the time comes, be like Forrest Gump ...”
He said something else, but the words were lost in the noise of everyone else yelling to be able to hear their visitors in the room.
Marlowe was so confused. Kendric couldn’t have saidForrest Gump, could he?
But he had. She knew it.
Looking back before Yanisa pulled her out of the visitors’ area, Marlowe saw Kendric standing right where he’d been before. He hadn’t moved. He was holding on to the fence much as she’d been, staring at her as Yanisa manhandled her out of the room. The last glimpse she had of him, the man mouthed something.
The door slammed behind her, and Marlowe was once more being yanked along the grounds toward the sewing room. Yanisa was mumbling under her breath, and Marlowe was actually relieved she couldn’t understand what she was saying. When they arrived back at the sweatshop, which was how Marlowe saw it, Yanisa shoved her toward the door.
Not expecting the violent movement, Marlowe flew forward and hit the door hard, barely avoiding smacking her face against the metal.
“Get work!” Yanisa growled.
Moving as fast as she could, Marlowe scrabbled for the knob and managed to get the door open. The air inside the room was stifling, and the familiar smell of body odor assaulted her senses.
It wasn’t until she was once again seated at her sewing machine, fumbling with the material and trying to get the stitches straight, that Marlowe realized what Kendric had mouthed at her when she was being hauled away.
Run.
Was that the reference to Forrest Gump that he was trying to make? It made sense ... but then again, it didn’t. Run? To where? There wasn’t anywhere to runto. And while there weren’t a lot of guards at the prison, the walls were high and covered in barbed wire, and the bullets in the rifles of the men guarding the walls were as real as they could get.
She must’ve read what Kendric was trying to tell her wrong. She supposed it didn’t really matter. Her brother was doing what he could to help her, and she had to have faith that eventually she’d be released. Someone would figure out that the yaba pills in her belongings at the dig site weren’t hers.
She frowned. Shoot, she didn’t get a chance to tell Kendric to look into Ian West. He was the reason she was in prison. She was sure of it. But if the man was smart at all, he’d be long gone from Thailand by now.
A sharp pain in her side made Marlowe grunt. Turning, she saw another of the trustees standing next to her, yelling and pointing at the sewing machine. The woman had kicked her because she was staring into space instead of working.
Lowering her head, Marlowe did her best to concentrate. She remembered what Kendric said. Not to bring any attention to herself. She had no idea what he was doing to free her, but she wasn’t going to do anything to mess that up. Not when her freedom was at stake.
She could survive for a little while longer. She just hoped it wouldn’t be months before Kendric and Tony could work through the red tape and get her the hell out of here.
Chapter Two
Kendric “Bob” Evans sat in his room two blocks from the women’s prison and stared out the window with a frown on his face. He could just see the barbed wire on top of the walls, and he’d long since memorized the routes taken by the guards who walked the perimeter.
He’d seen some horrific things in his life, both as a Delta Force operative in the US Army and in the years he’d been working for Gregory Willis to rescue Americans overseas.
But today had taken the cake.
Willis, the FBI agent who was his contact when it came to rescue missions, had sent him a file on Marlowe Kennedy. It contained pictures and a fairly detailed account of her life history, including intel on her brother, Tony, the man she’d asked about during Bob’s visit.
The truth was, Anthony Kennedy was moving heaven and earth to free his sister, with no luck. The issue was that the Thai government wanted to make examples of foreigners who dared try to sell drugs in their country. The problem had reached epidemic proportions, and so far, the government’s crackdown and decision to imprison anyone caught with even one pill hadn’t done much to stem the tide.
Desperate, Tony had finally reached out to Willis in an attempt to free his sister.
When finally given permission to talk to Marlowe, Bob, as he was known to his friends—a nod to the popular American diner Bob Evans—was shocked by her physical appearance. She’d only beenincarcerated for a little over a month, but she looked as if it had been years.
In her pictures, she looked healthy, vibrant. He knew her height, so Bob suspected she was petite, but now she looked as if a strong wind would blow her over. Her cheekbones were sharper, her collarbones visible thanks to the gaping neckline of her shirt. Bob guessed she’d lost at least twenty pounds. Her hair was dull and lank, she had no color in her cheeks, the clothes she wore swam on her body. She looked ... fragile.
