70
The hospital would not let Nate go. Since he was shot twice, his gun wounds just inches apart, they wanted to keep him under observation.
**
Rachel sat still beside Jacob trying to quell her trembling hands. She didn’t want him to know how much he terrified her. Yet it was impossible when he sat there cold and solid as a statue. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even think she could speak if she knew what to say. Fear clogged her throat. How had she never seen this side of him?
I will always ask myself this question for as long as I live, she realized. She just could not understand how she had trusted him, how he had deceived her into thinking he was a good guy. She really thought they were alike when she first him. He had been so sweet and loving, oblivious to his past and secrets Rachel didn’t know she was his shield against the federal authorities after him.
“They are going to find you. Your man is going to speak,” Rachel said with a false air of bravery, referring to the man he had sent to kill Nathaniel.
He smiled and glanced down for a second. “He already ingested poison before tonight’s mission so unless the cops have the power to raise the dead they will have a hard time getting Jim to wake up and answer their questions.”
Rachel was sure he could hear her bones rattle. Just how evil was he? Did even Mabel suspect the level of the cold-heartedness of Jacob?
When he moved she almost jumped out of her skin but forced herself to relax when he only wanted to get something out of his jacket pocket.
“This is where we say goodbye,” he said. The simplicity of that statement heightened her fear.
I might have an attack just by looking at him, she thought.
“What are you going to do?” she asked noting how her voice was low and how shaky her hands were.
“What’s best for us both,” was the simple answer. He glanced at his man over her head and before she could think the man was holding her hands together behind her back, pushing her so that she was bent over and helpless.
Rachel gasped. “What are you doing?!”
Jacob’s response was to reveal what it was he had taken from his jacket pocket. It was a rope.
He winked at her and grinned. “It pains me to do this, you were one of the best girls I ever had but sometimes you gotta think selfishly to survive.” He took hold of her hands and began to tie them.
Rachel didn’t want to be tied up. She didn’t want to be helpless. She fought hard against him screaming and kicking but soon realized that her struggling against him wasn’t worth it. He was more powerful and so was the man assisting him. It was 2 against 1 and the strength distribution wasn’t exactly fair. All the favors were against her from the start so she could do nothing but cry helplessly as Jacob strung her hands painfully behind her.
“Please…don’t do this…”
His voice was remorseful as he tied the final knot. “I wish I didn’t have to.”
“Are you going to kill me? Are you?!”
“You are going to have an accident. And unfortunate one after you escaped Nathaniel's attempt to kill you after you found out a secret of his. That story should take care of your disappearance for the past three months, it’s perfect given the fact that your sister has been telling everyone in Ermernia that you went missing. Good thing she hasn’t revealed my name yet. You killed Nathaniel’s henchman by mistake and shot Nate when he tried to strangle you but out of guilt and fear that he was still going to come after you, you decided to end it all by taking your life.”
Her heart dropped lower in her belly as he spewed his tale. His eyes were cold as he told his tale, it was almost believable if she didn’t know the truth herself. She could see how the media, which he already had at his side would believe him.
“But they’ve seen us tonight. Everyone has seen us together. They saw us leave the party together," she said in an attempt to make him see reasons why his plan would not work.
“Because you came to me after the whole fiasco with Nate. You found out you were pregnant, you didn’t want him to know. I stepped in as the savior to take care of you in this difficult time.”
“They saw us leaving together, Jacob…think about it…they’ll connect the dots!” she was crying, scrambling her brain to think of something, anything that would change his mind.
He laughed. “You worry too much, luv. I already have an alibi. Now,” he gestured to his henchman who pushed her back against the seat and told the driver to take them to the destination.
She didn’t know what he meant. They were on the highway and it was a very dark night. She glanced around frantically to know where they were going but all she saw was the deserted road.
“I should blindfold you but that would be crueler than seeing your end. Don’t look so sad,” Jacob said to her. He reached to wipe her tears and she jerked her face away. “Everyone wants to know when they die so you should consider yourself lucky.”
They drove a few more seconds and that was when Rachel realized where they were going. The highway began to rise. She knew this was the place with the drop-off of the cliff. The road on the left side began to thin out and the edge of the drop-off started to appear. They kept to the right side of the road where the huge boulder began to rise.
It was a dangerous road and she had once covered a story of a farmer who had slept on his wheels and dropped off a bend on the road.
Her heart began to beat heavily. It beat even faster when the driver began to slow the car down. A few seconds later he stopped the car.
They sat in silence for a second, Rachel’s beating heart and the nocturnal insects breaking the silence.
Jacob touched her face. She couldn’t move. “This is it, Rach. We had a good one.”
“Please,” it was a silent plea.
Jacob kissed her hair and opened the door. The driver and henchman did the same but the henchman turned back to lift her off the back seat. She was too weak to fight him. Instead, she went willingly into his arms and sat down when he set her down in the driver’s seat. Jacob opened the car truck and brought out an open can of fuel which he placed in the passenger seat beside her.
Rachel sat there realizing all was well thought out and planned.
“Jacob…don’t do this…”
He ignored her. He went away for a moment and came back with a large rock which he placed on the accelerator. Without a glance at her put the keys in the ignition but didn’t start the car yet.
“Jacob!” Rachel screamed fighting against the seat belt that restrained her.
“I’ll be in hell one day and you’ll be in heaven looking down at me but for today, you go down first.”
He started the car and quickly jumped back as it began to move.
“Jacob!” Rachel screamed her heart in her throat. Her throat was sore as she continued to scream loudly. Her doom was a few meters away and the car was picking up speed because of the rock on the accelerator. She tried to kick it aside but her efforts were useless. Her blurry sight caught Jacob, his driver and his henchman watching the car pick up speed. They grew tinier by the second.
Beside her the fuel poured on the seat, its putrid smell choking her.
She continued to cry, choked up by the fuel, sorry and impending death.
She tried to feel herself from the seatbelt.
The car was getting close to the bend, the one the farmer had fallen off years ago.
Rachel’s life flashed before her eyes. I don’t want to die, Lord. I have made mistakes, I know that but I do not want to die. I don’t want to die. She cried.
The car lurched forward over the edge. Rachel screamed and lurched forward with it.
Suddenly the car stopped, one half of it over the edge and the other on the ground.
**
Nathaniel had been practically tied down to remove the bullets. He wanted to go because he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that Jacob was after something worse than a botched assassination attempt.
What was more?
He didn’t want to believe it but he had overheard Jacob say something about a baby. The anesthesia dulling his senses was not enough to keep the thought out of his mind. So when he woke up the first thing he remembered was the baby before he even noticed that his hospital ward was occupied and that his uninjured hand had been handcuffed to the bed.
He blinked his eyes to clear the effect of the drugs on his senses and saw Tshepo with a few GHIA officers in the room.
