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Rivier hesitated, and then said, “She’s up one deck and forward. Master stateroom at the end of the hall.”
Relieved that she wasn’t dead, I said, “I’ll get her.”
“I’ll wait here and call our friend,” Louis said.
I suppose I expected to find Kim in handcuffs or tied down. But when I pushed open the door to the stateroom, it was worse than I could have expected.
Rivier had stripped her to her underwear and attached leather straps and bonds to her wrists and legs that held her loosely spread eagle on a bed with black sheets. She was blindfolded, and when she heard me enter, she started to beg in a thick, slurred voice, “Please, Phillipe. Just kill me. I can’t go on like—”
“You’re safe now, Kim,” I said, crossing to her. “It’s Jack Morgan. You’re safe and going home to your grandfather.”
I pulled off the blindfold so she could see it was true, and she dissolved into soft weeping as I pulled my knife from the diving sheath strapped to my calf. I cut free her wrists. When I did, I saw the livid tracks on the insides of her arms. There were syringes in the wastebasket.
“What has he drugged you with?” I demanded.
“Heroin,” she managed. “Trying to get me hooked again.”
I wanted to ask her how in God’s name she’d gotten involved with a guy like Phillipe Rivier, but I figured it could wait. The sooner we were off the yacht, the better. I found a blanket and covered her with it.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
She nodded groggily, and I helped her up. She was wobbly and leaned on me as we left her prison cell and made our way back to the living area. When she saw Rivier, she came out of her stupor and shrieked at him, “I hope you rot in hell for what you’ve done to me.”
“What I did to you?” Rivier said, amused. “You asked for it, Kimmy. You always asked for it.”
She pushed away from me, tried to go for a knife in the galley, but I caught her and said, “That only hurts you. It’s over now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I’ll always hurt her,” Rivier said. “She’ll never get away from that, no matter how hard she tries to escape it.”
Kim stared at him, and then broke down sobbing in my arms.
“Get her out of here, Jack,” Louis said. “Our ride’s out there already.”
“Take care of the rest of it,” I said.
“What ‘rest’?” Rivier asked.
As I led Kim toward the rear deck, Louis said, “I’m going to raise your anchor, start your motors, and set a course on your autopilot. In about an hour, an hour and a half, you’ll enter French waters. And when you do, you’ll quickly be boarded by Investigateur Christoph Le Clerc of the Marseille office of the French National Police. He’ll take evidence on an obvious incidence of piracy on the high seas, and the first thing he’s going to collect is that fancy lighter around your neck.”
“What?” Rivier shouted. “We had a deal!”
“Jack, what is this phrase from Animal House again?” Louis asked.
Over my shoulder, I said, “You fucked up. You trusted us.”
Chapter 75
Nice, France
7:22 a.m.
WE BOARDED PRIVATE’S Gulfstream at the airport.
Kim had been quiet for most of the ride in on the Zodiac, nodding off at times. But on the drive from Monaco to Nice, she’d started to shake from withdrawal. We’d anticipated her having some physical issues and had brought along a concierge doctor and nurse. They immediately took Kim to the back of the cabin and shut the divider.
We were soon in the air, heading back to Paris.
“This your normal duty at Private?” Peaks asked from across the aisle. “You know, rescues? That sort of thing.”
