Thirty-Two
Monday, December 20
Parrot Tree Lagoon
Thomas couldn’t believe it was Eva, lying bound and gagged in the sand by the lagoon. He ran to her and checked that she was breathing—she was. But her pulse was too fast, weak and thready, she’d lost a lot of blood, and she seemed dehydrated. She had a huge bruise on one cheek, the swelling nearly shutting one eye. She’d likely suffered from a concussion. He worried about a brain bleed too. Or even a skull fracture.
He took his shirt off and held it to her bleeding head to stanch the flow. Only then did he unbind her arms and legs. He used the knife he’d found strapped to her thigh. She thrashed about violently and didn’t seem cognizant.
From the moment Thomas deboarded the plane in Roatan this morning, things had been crazy. He was m
