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"If she and Megan were away from the family at that point, why didn't they stay away?"
"Because Kate loved Reynoldo, and she didn't want to take Megan away from her father. Reynoldo wasn't ready to admit defeat yet."
"Over the next few months Kate would use random phones to call me to let me know about the plans she was making. She was a few weeks away from her escape when she and Reynoldo were in a car accident. They were driving down the steep hills by their house when the brakes failed. They were killed instantly. Megan was put under the guardianship of Enrique."
Drew let out a breath. "And that's where you came in."
"It took me a while to find Megan. Enrique moved her to the island. I guess he was afraid that she would talk to the wrong people and he wanted to keep her under his thumb."
"So you went to the island to get her."
"Yes, but I couldn't do anything right away. I had to build an identity that wasn't suspicious, and then I had to find a way to contact Megan. She was rarely out of the house, and when she was, she had bodyguards with her. After a few months, Enrique rarely came to the island, and the guard grew more complacent. Megan began to be seen in town more often. One day I followed her in to a ladies' room in the back of a restaurant. That's when we saw each other again."
"How did she react?"
"She started crying. She said she'd been waiting for me to come for her. That her mother had told her I would save her. She cried harder when I told her we were going to have to take our time, come up with a plan. She was scared of Enrique and tired of being a prisoner. We set up a way to meet once a week for a few minutes. Eventually, we put the plan in motion. Megan would convince her handlers to let her take a sailing lesson." She let out a weary breath and waved her hand in the air. "You know the rest."
"Not exactly. How did you get explosives to blow up the boat?"
"I saved fireworks from the Fourth of July. I went on the Internet and learned how to make a timer. It was rough, and I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did. I had a life raft on board, and I used that to get us to another boat that I'd stashed on a nearby island. For days I thought someone would catch us. I knew Valdez would have an army out looking for Megan, but we managed to get away."
"Where did you go?"
"We moved around a lot the first few months. Megan was pretty shaken up. It took a while for her to start breathing more freely. We took some self-defense classes, so she'd feel like she wasn't so vulnerable. I even learned how to shoot a gun, but I was afraid to keep one in the house, so that didn't do much good. I knew I wasn't going to win in a gun battle against Megan's uncle, so I concentrated on staying hidden." She paused, trying to get a read on what Drew was thinking, but he wasn't giving much away. "I couldn't go to the cops, because Enrique is Megan's guardian, and to answer your original question, in the eyes of the law, I kidnapped her."
Drew sat back in his seat, his gaze reflective, thoughtful. "Did Enrique hurt Megan?"
"Not physically. She told me that he scared her, that he threatened her. He said if she didn't want to end up like her mother, she needed to be loyal to him." She paused. "I forgot to mention that Megan saw her parents' car go off the road. She was looking out her bedroom window, watching them leave. I guess Kate had decided at the last minute to go with Reynoldo to meet his brother. But, of course, they didn't make it. Megan said she started screaming and went running down the hill, but no one would let her get to her parents. I thank God for that. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see them like that."
He shook his head, his jaw tight. "That's too much for a kid to see."
"Yes. And for a long time she had nightmares, but she's better now."
"She speaks perfect English without a trace of an accent. Surprising for a kid who grew up in Spain, in what I assume was a Spanish-speaking household."
She nodded. "Kate wanted Megan to speak perfect English and perfect Spanish. She worked a lot with her. She felt certain that at some point they would be back in the States, and she wanted to be sure that Megan could fit in. Megan hasn't spoken Spanish since the day we left the island. Sometimes, I forget that's her first language. And since she's been spending so much time with kids her own age, I only occasionally notice a trace of an accent."
