Picture 2
Jen DeSantis’ Choice: 1
Title: Precious Cargo
“Look, Stephen, I didn’t mess up the plane’s landing gear. It needs maintenance and the flight will be delayed.”
I rolled my eyes as I looked out onto the scorching tarmac where our bird sat, grounded. My fucking luck, of course. The last leg of a twenty-three hour epic journey halfway around the world, and I get hung up at the last puddle jump from San Fran to Huston. My contact, however, didn’t seem to feel the personal pain of my delay. He had other worries on his mind.
“Where are my diamonds?”
“I checked the fuckers in my baggage, asshole. Where do you think they are?”
A low growl sounded over the line and I smiled, knowing how frustrated my delay was making him.
“The merch is safe and sound and you are just going to have to be patient,” I crooned.
I moved the phone away from my ear to hang up with Stephen’s voice called me back. “Jeremy?”
His voice was a chill whisper that sent a shudder down my spine. All of my dealings with Stephen had been sterile and over the phone. I knew about him, knew the shadowy history that other talked about. But I’d never met him face to face. I didn’t relish the thought of finally delivering his goods to him. The tone of his voice seemed to whisper of the terrible things that he could do to me, that he would do to me if I failed him.
“Y-yes?” I hated myself for the stutter in my response.
“You will bring the diamonds to me directly. You will not fuck this up. And if so much as a scratch is on my precious cargo when you arrive, you will pay the price. Am I understood?”
My heart pounded in my chest. Stephen’s voice hadn’t gotten any louder, but the cold intonation had become more clipped and pronounced. Fear slid down my back like an icy fingertip as my mind raced with the thought of what price he might exact.
“Jeremy?”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
I’d regained a measure of control in my voice, but the fear coiled around my spine making me shiver despite the baking heat that radiated through the window pane.
“Good.”
I could almost hear him smile. As his line went dead, my heart quailed in my chest. Suddenly the three and half hour flight that lay ahead of me felt too short and the number of obstacles in the way of my handing off the diamonds safely seemed to grow before me exponentially. I tucked my phone into my inside coat pocket and patted the special pouch which would hide the diamonds from x ray devices. They were safe, but was I?
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Jennifer DeSantis is a Horror and Paranormal Author and host of the #FridayPictureShow. She lives near Philly with her family. In her spare time is an aspiring ninja.
#DailyPicspiration
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