SAVING SARA Read online

  SAVING SARA

  A JAMIE AUSTEN Thriller

  TERRY TOLER

  Saving Sara

  Published by: BeHoldings Publishing

  Copyright ©2021, BeHoldings, LLC Terry Toler

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission.

  Cover and interior designs: BeHoldings Publishing

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  First U.S. Edition: February, 2021

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS BY TERRY TOLER

  Fiction

  The Longest Day

  The Reformation of Mars

  The Great Wall of Ven-Us

  Saturn: The Eden Experiment

  The Late, Great Planet Jupiter

  Save The Girls

  The Ingenue

  The Blue Rose

  Saving Sara

  Non-Fiction

  How to Make More Than a Million Dollars

  The Heart Attacked

  Seven Years of Promise

  Mission Possible

  Marriage Made in Heaven

  21 Days to Physical Healing

  21 Days to Spiritual Fitness

  21 Days to Divine Health

  21 Days to a Great Marriage

  21 Days to Financial Freedom

  21 Days to Sharing Your Faith

  21 Days to Mission Possible

  7 Days to Emotional Freedom

  Uncommon Finances

  Suddenly Free

  Feeling Free

  For more information on these books and other resources visit TerryToler.com.

  PRAISE FOR SAVING SARA

  “I think people will really like this book. Lots of globe hopping, danger, surprise, intrigue, and gunfights.”

  “Terry Toler comes up with storylines and plot lines that I don’t think have ever been done before.”

  “Every chapter left me wanting more. I couldn’t wait for the next one.”

  “Wow! What a book. As usual, the twists and turns kept my interest at a high level. Then the ending… A usual Terry Toler cliffhanger.”

  “I couldn’t believe she jumped.”

  “This book is like a Mission Impossible movie.”

  “The readers are in for a roller-coaster ride.”

  “I sure love Jamie Austen! She’s one of the most real make-believe people I’ve ever met.”

  “Saving Sara is destined to be another best seller for Terry Toler.”

  .

  5.5 million girls under the age of eighteen are victims of human sex trafficking in the world.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

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  29

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  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  1

  Grand Cayman Island

  Caribbean Sea

  Sara was missing.

  No one knew it yet. Except her abductors, of course.

  How she got in that predicament was mostly a blur. Two hours ago… Was it? Maybe it was three. She had lost all sense of time. Sometime… earlier that night, she was hanging out with her friends at the Reef Bar on Seven Mile Beach. Just a normal seventeen-year-old girl, about to turn eighteen in two weeks, having fun.

  They were in Cayman on a senior class trip. Over eighty seniors from the Calvary Christian Academy, in Plano, Texas made the outing. Tonight would be the last night. They’d fly home tomorrow. Sara almost didn’t go to the bar, but her friends Michelle and Jessica talked her into it. They’d gone to Stingray City that afternoon, and the hours in the sun had zapped her energy.

  Why can’t I stand up straight?

  Sara wanted to lie down on the beach and fall asleep.

  Why am I on the beach? Where am I?

  It seemed to her like she was at Rum Point. Why do I think that?

  Her head throbbed. She told her hands to touch her head, but they didn’t respond. Her knees suddenly felt weak again, and she fell to the ground facing the ocean. Three people struggled with a boat against the waves. The night had fallen, and the moon cast an eerie shadow over the scene. Sara tried to call out to the men to help her, but she couldn’t speak. She tried to stand but didn’t have the strength.

  What happened to me?

  The bar was packed, she remembered. They danced. Boys offered to buy her drinks. Sara was too young to drink, so she ordered non-alcoholic rum runners. Loud music and lots of lights created a psychedelic array of sight and sound. She danced with two or three guys. Mostly with her girlfriends. Then her friends left her. They went and sat down at a table with two other boys they met.

  She wanted to leave and go back to the hotel, so she made the decision to search for her friends to tell them. A strange sensation came over her as soon as she sat her drink down on the table. The room started to spin around in circles. So, she wouldn’t fall, she put her hands out to grab onto something and was relieved when she made contact with the table and steadied herself. All sense of balance left. An athlete, she played basketball, volleyball, and ran track at school. Lettered three straight years. Yet, all her strength was gone. She tried to walk but staggered like a drunk.

  I’m not drunk.

  She would’ve fallen… But… An arm steadied her.

  A strong arm. A man’s arm. Someone who was older than she. He had a vice grip on her forearm.

  “Thank you,” Sara said to him. “I don’t feel well.”

  The man started to walk her out of the bar. She tried to resist. The grip on her forearm hurt her.

  “No. I have to find my friends.” She said the words but that wasn’t how they sounded in her ears. Her speech was slurred. Her lips were numb.

  When they came out of the bar, the bright lights of the parking lot temporarily blinded her. All she could see were the spots from the different lampposts.

  She remembered a car. The back door was open, and she was shoved into the backseat.

  “I can’t,” she resisted. “I have to go to my hotel. We leave tomorrow.”

  She went in and out of consciousness and didn’t know how long they drove around. When the car stopped, she saw a sign for Rum Point.

  That’s why I thought I was at Rum Point.

  Now, she laid on the beach. Sara heard music in the distance. She strained to lift her head off the sand and in th
e direction the sound was coming from. Off at a distance people milled around the restaurant at Rum Point. She tried to call out for help but could only manage a weak and faint whisper. They were too far away.

  I’m so thirsty.

  Sara willed her body to stand back up, but her muscles didn’t respond. Waves of nausea came over her. With no strength left in her body, she laid her head back down on the sand. The cool breeze off the ocean provided some comfort.

  One of the men from the boat walked toward her.

  Good. He’ll help me.

  He lifted Sara to her feet. They were face to face. She recognized him from the bar. He had a black bag in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him. Or at least she thought she did. When he didn’t respond, she wasn’t sure.

  Everything suddenly went dark as he put the bag over her head.

  Why was she not afraid? All emotion and fear left her like she was a zombie. She had a sense something bad was happening. Everything inside told her to scream. She tried, but it sounded more like a muted shriek like a mouse stuck in a trap.

  The man led her toward the boat. She tried to put up a fight and hit him several times on his shoulder. The blows were only glancing and didn’t faze him at all.

  The waves beat against the side of the boat. The man lifted her over his shoulder and waded into the water. He wobbled like he was having trouble steadying himself against the waves to not drop her. She felt him lay her down in the boat. Roughly. Her elbow scraped against one of the seats. She let out a yelp.

  For the first time, she started to cry.

  What are you doing to me?

  Then she felt a needle in her arm. A pin prick. The liquid burned as it entered her body. Seconds later, she felt herself convulse.

  The engine motor revved. The mixture of gasoline, oil, and smoke from the loud engine made her cough. She felt the waves bounce the boat as it sped away from the shore.

  The last thing she thought of were her parents, teachers, and friends.

  They don’t know where I am.

  Then everything went black.

  2

  Grand Cayman Sandy Beach Resort

  The Next Morning

  The lobby of the Sandy Beach Resort was abuzz with a flurry of activity as the senior class of Calvary Christian Academy congregated by the massive, two-story, towering photo of the stingrays that took up one entire wall. Two buses waited in front of the hotel to take them to the airport and their bags were being loaded at that moment.

  Hal Jolly, the Dean of Students and Activities Director, wouldn’t allow himself a moment to relax until the kids were on the plane, back on US soil, and with their parents and no longer his responsibility. Other than one boy who was stung by a jellyfish and a few who didn’t use enough sunblock, the trip had gone surprisingly well. Not as good as some, but better than most.

  This was his fifteenth year to take the students on a senior trip. The first outside the United States. Considering how well it went, he might authorize another one.

  A number of them broke curfew, which was to be expected. One couple was alone in the boy’s room, which was against the rules, but a chaperone caught them before it went too far. In fact, they only seemed to be hanging out. Mr. Jolly suspected that a few of the kids went to the local bars at night when they said they were going to the beach or to shop. Most of them were over eighteen, so it wasn’t illegal to drink alcohol in Cayman, although against the code of conduct for the school.

  As long as no one was arrested, dead, or dying, Mr. Jolly counted his blessings. Kids would be kids. He tried to give them some leeway. They had earned it. This was their senior trip. They worked hard, earned their diplomas, and were entitled to let their hair down a little without him following them around with a judgmental thumb monitoring every little thing they did. For a student to go on the trip, he or she had to maintain an average above 3.0. Most in the senior class did, just for the privilege of going on the trip which had become a school tradition. This was their reward for a job well done, and Mr. Jolly wasn’t going to ruin it for them.

  Some parents wouldn’t understand that sentiment and expected more from him. In his opinion, most of those kids were going off to college in a few short months, anyway. At college, they would have a lot more freedom to do whatever they wanted away from the watchful eyes of their parents. If the parents hadn’t taught them the necessary values by that point, then they shouldn’t expect him to, on a one-week, senior trip.

  He was genuinely pleased with how well this trip had gone, and it was time to send them off with a short speech. “Listen up,” Mr. Jolly said, trying to be heard above the din.

  He shouted the same thing a little louder and waved his clipboard in the air to get their attention. The clipboard had a list of every student and their contact information back home along with the schedule, and a sheet for each head count. They’d do a final count on the bus and then on the plane, and that would be all. After that, the kids would be home and on their own.

  A few people heard him and shushed the others in the group. Finally, one of the chaperones whistled loudly, and the area suddenly grew quiet.

  “Did everyone have a good time?” Mr. Jolly shouted, as he realized that was the wrong thing to say when the group erupted in a cheer, and the loud conversations started up again.

  Another loud bird whistle finally got the students’ attention again and also the glares of a few people in the lobby including the manager of the hotel who stood off to the side. This time the dean would be careful not to say something that would lose their undivided attention.

  “We are ready to load the buses, so be sure to go to the bathroom before we load. You won’t get another chance until we get through security at the airport,” he said.

  He paused for a moment to let that sink in.

  Then he added. “Girls are in the first bus. Boys are in the second.”

  A groan went through the crowd. Anything he said was going to get a response. Exasperated, Mr. Jolly raised his hands and waved them up and down to quiet the crowd.

  “I think you’ll survive the short bus ride to the airport in separate buses,” Mr. Jolly said jokingly.

  The kids laughed more than should be expected, considering the joke was from the Dean of Students. He got them quieted again. “You’ve had a whole week to be together, and you’ll have all summer to see each other. Soon, you’ll be free of me forever.”

  When there was no response, he moved on.

  “Seriously. I want to commend each of you for the way you represented the Eagle family this week.” The Eagles was the name of the team mascot.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jolly,” one of the student’s yelled out.

  “You’re the best,” another one shouted.

  The students gave him a round of applause, which warmed his heart. As far as he could tell, he really was popular among the student body.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Let’s go home. Everybody, make your way to the buses now.”

  The room erupted into an almost deafening sound as the students shuffled toward the front entrance.

  “Remember,” Mr. Jolly added, “Girls on the first bus… boys on the second.”

  No one listened to him, so he just looked at one of his chaperones and shrugged. Most of the monitors had already moved into position to manage the loading of the buses.

  He wished the students would exit more quietly, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Several people in the lobby and some in the registration line probably were breathing a sigh of relief that the kids were leaving.

  A few complaints were raised from other people staying at the hotel. Not surprisingly to Mr. Jolly, more of them came from the girl’s floor than the boys. His experience had been that girls got into more trouble when it came to minor offenses. The boys tended to commit the more serious violations. This group did better than most, and the violations—both minor and major—were few and far between.

  The kids loaded the bu
ses fairly quickly. Mr. Jolly got on the boy’s bus and oversaw the count.

  “There are thirty-seven boys on board,” one of the chaperones said.

  The number was correct. His clipboard had each of the regimented head counts on the sheet. As a former drill sergeant in the army, he liked to run things with military precision, even if the kids didn’t always cooperate. He’d also mellowed some during the years, but he didn’t slack on procedures when it came to the kids’ safety.

  He got off the boy’s bus and walked over to the girls’ bus and boarded it. One of the chaperones was already counting.

  Jessica was sitting on the fourth row and had her hand raised.

  “Yes, Jessica. Do you need something?” Mr. Jolly asked.

  “Sara isn’t on the bus,” she said meekly. “She’s missing. No one’s seen her since last night.”

  A bolt of panic shot through Mr. Jolly like an electrical current.

  3

  “What do you mean Sara is missing?” Mr. Jolly asked as he looked around the bus. One of the students, Jessica Raleigh had just given him information that shook him to his core.

  “She didn’t come home last night,” Michelle, a girl who sat next to Jessica said.

  Mr. Jolly flipped through the papers on his clipboard. Last night’s bed check showed Sara was in her room at eleven. The curfew was ten, but they extended it to eleven on the last night because the kids had been so good.

  What he saw on the clipboard confused him. Mrs. Simpson conducted the bed check and signed off on the sheet, saying it was accurate. Mr. Jolly also knew Michelle was Sara’s roommate. She would obviously know if Sara slept in their room last night.

  A scan of the bus confirmed Sara was not on it. Further confirmation came when the chaperone said, “I only count fifty girls. There should be fifty-one. One is missing.”

  Michelle began to cry.

  “This bed check says Sara was in her room last night at eleven,” Mr. Jolly said to Michelle with urgency in his voice. “So were you. Why would Mrs. Simpson say she was there if she wasn’t?”

  Michelle had trouble getting the words out between the tears. Mr. Jolly couldn’t understand what she said.