The Guardians: The explosive new thriller from international bestseller John Grisham - John Grisham Page 0,55

I tried to look away but the guard grabbed my hair again and hissed, ‘Look! You look!’

“They shoved the second boy off the tower. He screamed even louder, and when they dangled him above the crocodiles he kicked and bawled something about ‘Maria! Maria!’ When they began to lower him I closed my eyes. The sounds of his flesh ripping and bones cracking were sickening. I finally fainted but it didn’t help my cause. They slapped me viciously, pulled me to my feet, hitched me to the zip line, and shoved me off the tower. I heard the laughter again. When I stopped above the middle of the pond, I glanced down. I told myself not to but I couldn’t help it. Nothing but blood, bone fragments, body parts, and all those frenzied crocodiles wanting more. When I realized I was descending, I thought about my mother and sister and how they would never know what happened to me. And it was good that they would never know. I didn’t scream or yell or cry, but I couldn’t stop kicking. When the first fat croc lunged for my foot, I heard a loud voice call out in Spanish. I began my ascent.

“They lowered me from the tower and put on the blindfold. I was too weak to walk so they found a golf cart. I was thrown back into the same cell where I curled into a ball on the concrete floor and cried and sweated for at least an hour before the guards returned. One knocked me down and pinned my arm against my back while the other injected me with a drug. When I woke up I was back in Belize, in the bed of a pickup truck driven by two cops. We stopped at the jail and I followed them inside. One gave me a cup of coffee while the other explained that my two friends were very worried about me. They had been told that I was in jail for public drunkenness, and that would be the best story to stick with.

“Once my head cleared and I was back at the fishing lodge, I talked to my buddies and tried to put together a time line. I told them I’d been in jail, no big deal, just another adventure. The abduction lasted for about forty hours and I’m sure it involved a boat, a helicopter, and an airplane, but my memory was shot. The drugs. I couldn’t wait to get out of Belize and back home. I’ll never again subject myself to the jurisdiction of a third world country. I quit bonefishing too.”

He stops and gulps some more beer. I’m too stunned to say anything but manage to mumble, “That’s insane.”

“It still causes nightmares. I have to fib to my wife when I wake up yelling. It’s always just under the surface.”

All I can do is shake my head.

“Back in Seabrook, I was a mess. I couldn’t eat or sleep, couldn’t stay at the office. I locked myself in my bedroom and tried to nap, always with a loaded gun. I was exhausted to the point of collapse because I couldn’t sleep. I saw those two boys over and over. I heard their screams, their anguished cries, the horrifying frenzy of the hungry crocs, bones breaking, and laughter off in the distance. I thought about suicide, Post, I really did.”

He drains his bottle and goes to the fridge for more. He sits down and continues, “Somehow, I convinced myself that it was all a dream caused by too much booze and a spiked drink. A month passed and I slowly began to pull things together. Then this arrived in the mail.”

He reaches for a file I had not noticed. As he opens it he says, “Post, I’ve never shown this to anyone.” He hands me an 8x10 color photo. It’s Tyler, in his boxers, dangling from the zip line with his feet just inches above the raging open mouth and jagged teeth of a large crocodile. The terror in his face is indescribable. It’s a close shot, with nothing in the background to indicate place or time.

I gawk at it, then look at Tyler. He’s wiping a tear from a cheek and says in a weak voice, “Look, I need to make a call, okay? It’s business. Grab another beer and I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. There’s more to the story.”

Chapter 23

I put the photo back in the file and leave it on the table,