Recap: Hope accompanies Rivkah to the store to buy some ingredients for Shabbos. When they are there, a woman stops them and asks Rivkah to come to her house to help get her daughter to take her medicine. Rivkah doesn’t want to leave Hope alone, but Hope says she isn’t afraid to walk back alone. As she heads back to the Jacobson house, a car screeches to a halt. A man jumps out and pushes her into the back seat.
I don’t know how much time had passed. When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. I heard the men whispering. “We’re almost in Georgia now. Should we call them to come get her?”
“Naw, I wanna bring this fish in myself. We caught a big one and the boss is gonna like it.”
“Yay, yay.”
I felt nauseous from the cloth on my mouth and the pain in my wrists. I tried working my hands loose. Slowly, slowly, I had to get this rope off.
“We gotta bring her alive. Got to give her some food.”
“I don’t want to deal with her. You do it.”
They pulled into a rest area.
This was my chance. If I could somehow get someone’s attention here.
One of the men – it was the bald-headed one that I recognized from before – headed into the rest area.
The other one sat there in the front seat. He didn’t know I was awake.
“Hashem, please, please, please help me get out of here alive. The thought of what they would use me for to get to my father was too terrifying. I had to get out of here.
I felt miraculously that the rope was starting to loosen. I was able to rub it against the car door handle. I almost had it loose.
“Please, please, help me get out of here.”
The bald-headed man came back with a bag of food. The other man then went into the rest area.
The bald-headed man turned towards me. I kept my eyes closed.
When he turned back and turned on the radio, I saw my chance. I carefully edged my free wrist towards the door handle.
Just then, the man with the scar returned and slammed the door. “We gotta get out of here. There’s an FBI notice out for her. They’re looking for us, Jem.”
“No problem. We’re a black car. Get the other plate outta the trunk. Hammer it on now.”
The hope I’d felt for an instant died. They were being tracked, but with a new license plate, the FBI would lose their trail.
I almost had the car door handle in my grasp when suddenly the driver bolted the car forward.
The bald man ran towards the car. “Hey, what’s you doin’? I’m trying to hammer this thing on.”
“You hammer the rope round her wrist first.” The scar-faced man snarled.
The man came inside and doubled the painful rope around my wrists.
I screamed in pain but the cloth on my mouth muffled the sound.
A man was passing by. I willed him to come over. He strolled over to the car. “Everything all right?” the man asked.
The bald man held a gun to my back and pulled the mask off. “You smile,” he ordered.
My mouth froze in a grotesque smile. “Please, help me,” my eyes begged. He’d tied my ankles, as well. The man glanced at me.
The bald man cursed at him. “Mind your own business.” He tied the mask tightly around my mouth again.
The man shrugged and walked away.
I felt like all my hope had just poured out like the air in a balloon. No one would help me now.
The bald man then finished hammering the new license plate on, and the car lurched forward into the night.
Where were they taking me? I thought of the group of men with white hoods, the messengers of death and evil. They must be taking me to their leader. I thought with a shudder of the three murdered civil rights workers. Would I be the next murdered victim? No, he’d said he needed me alive. Alive to use to get to my father.
I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed with all my strength. “Please, Hashem. Please help me.” I tried to think of how I could be rescued. Diana had seen me taken. She would have called the police. By now, Rivkah’s family would know. There were people who cared and who wanted to rescue me. Suddenly, words I’d heard at the Jacobson Shabbos table came to mind. When Yosef was in prison, his rescue came in the blink of an eye – k’heref ayin. Hashem can do anything.
The man in front tore off the cloth mask and shoved a bag of fried chicken at me. “Eat this,” he barked.
The smell was greasy and nauseating. Besides I didn’t want to eat treif meat.
“I can’t use my hands,” I said.
He turned around and pointed a gun at me. “I’ll cut off the rope so you can eat but I’ll keep my gun pointed at you. One false move and goodbye.”
“Not hungry,” I said.
“Okay, suit yourself.” He took the bag back and ate the chicken with loud smacking sounds.
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of the newly released historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishers, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishers, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams, a novel (Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, and “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022).
