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Curtis reached for her, pulling her from the tree trunk and setting her none too gently on the ground. “That happens during the hunt, you’ll give yourself away, girlie. There’s a lot worse than little beetles in here so you better get used to it. Now, up you go. Try it again.”
After what seemed like days but was probably only an hour or so, all three girls had learned to climb a tree at least passably well. Next, Curtis made them play a tortuous game of hide-and-seek. He forced them to hide, one at a time, giving them a few minutes head start before he and the other two girls sought them out. At the end of the dreadful game, he tied Cassie, who had been found the most quickly and the most often, to a tree, binding her arms around its trunk with rope. He then smacked her bare bottom with his open hand until it was beet red and she was crying.
At midday, he allowed each of them to eat an energy bar and drink a bottle of water. Then he had them run relays between the trees, picking their way over brambles and treacherous roots as they stumbled along, exhausted and soaked with sweat.
By the time they returned to the quarters at dusk, all three girls were streaked with dirt, grime and dried sweat, and covered in scratches and tiny cuts from the brambles and nettles that reached out to whip at their skin and grab at their feet.
The next day, naked this time, they did it all again.
~*~
Wes Armstrong stood apart from the other two men on the deck of the yacht, nursing his drink. Bubba Horton’s other guest, Jed Thomas, was laughing uproariously at something the multimillionaire had just said.
Bubba reached for the bottle of very expensive single malt scotch and waved it toward Wes. “Hey, Tom, get over here. Your glass is empty.”
Wes made his way over the dark, polished wood of the deck, a wide smile plastered on his face, glad they couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. To Bubba Horton, owner of Horton Industries, Wes was Tom Cartwright, an independently wealthy entrepreneur with a finger in lots of South American pies, many of them filled with fruits just this side of the law, quite a few more he’d hinted were downright illegal, but very profitable.
As a DEA agent, Wes had spent the better part of the last two years deep undercover. Horton was hard to get close to, but Wes had finally established himself as a bona fide bad boy, eager to get a piece of Horton’s extremely lucrative drug trade. All he needed now was some hard evidence to take the bastard down.
Swinging this trip to Pirate Island had been an unexpected coup, as Horton had made it clear the place was off the grid, all very hush-hush and invitation only. While Wes wasn’t particularly interested in the high-class, no-holds-barred prostitution outfit Bubba had informed him awaited them, he was very interested in the intelligence he’d received from another undercover agent located in Mexico about middle-of-the-night heroin and cocaine shipments that it was strongly suspected funneled their way into the US via this tiny, private island.
Horton had picked Wes up on the way from a trip down to Mexico, and from the looks of the armed thug stationed outside the hold down in the bowels of the yacht, Wes was nearly certain they were making more than a pleasure stop at Pirate Island. Illicit cargo was going to be offloaded at some point during the weekend, probably their first night there, and Wes planned to catch the event on video if at all possible.
He had already alerted his boss at DEA headquarters to be on standby for his call. The Coast Guard had been placed on alert, in the event the yacht left without disgorging its cargo, and needed to be apprehended while at sea. Wes hoped they could make the bust while still on the island, in order to incriminate not only Horton and his buddies, but also the men who were taking the shipment for distribution on the mainland to strung-out runaway kids who meant nothing more to these pieces of shit than cold, hard cash.
Just another few days masquerading as an entitled, arrogant, over-sexed asshole, and Wes would hopefully be able to bring this particular assignment to a successful conclusion. The bad guys would be caught with their pants down and, while it was only a drop in the ocean of the illegal drug trade, it was his contribution, however small, to humankind. Beyond the loftier purpose, Wes was looking forward to the look on Bubba’s face when he figured out what had gone down.
As the sun was setting, the captain eased Horton’s yacht expertly into the small harbor alongside the barrier island. Two young men in white shirts and black pants were waiting at the dock to tie off the boat and take the men’s bags. The captain, apparently, planned to remain aboard.
