Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith

Author:Dwayne Alexander Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

CHAPTER 53

Martin was roused from sleep by movement on the bed. Head still buried in the pillow, he peeled open his sleepy eyes and saw the blurred, naked figure of Alice easing herself out of the bed. Pretending to still be asleep, Martin watched as Alice slipped into her dress, picked up her shoes, then tiptoed toward the door. Carefully, she inched open the door, but before making her exit, she glanced back. Alice froze with alarm when she saw Martin watching her. Martin smiled to dispel any fear that he might be upset at her surreptitious departure. Alice nodded, then quickly slipped out of the room. Martin wondered if she would tell any of the other slaves what he had done . . . or hadn’t done. He had considered whispering an instruction to Alice to keep quiet about their little pantomime but he decided that that was too risky. Better to let the girl assume that he possessed an odd sexual kink rather than give her a reason to doubt his loyalty to Dr. Kasim and the other men. If she suspected that Martin intended to expose Forty Acres the moment he returned to civilization, she might tell the others. Such a rumor would spread fast among the slaves and be nearly impossible to keep from the guards. And if that happened, Martin was certain that the next time Anna laid eyes on him, he’d be dead.

Martin glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it was only a little after three in the morning. He rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom to relieve himself. When Martin returned, he heard a strange sound, a low rumbling that seemed to be coming from just outside his window. It sounded like a vehicle of some sort, but who’d be out for a drive at this hour? Martin rounded the foot of the bed, drew back the curtain, and peeked out the window. A dark green SUV, its engine left idling and its headlights blasting a row of hedges, was parked directly in front of the house. Martin noticed that the SUV was similar to the one that he and the other men had arrived in earlier. It might have been the very same truck, but his vantage point from the second-floor window and the gloom of night made it difficult to tell for sure. Besides the fact that someone saw fit to disrupt the night with that throaty vehicle, there was something else about the SUV that struck Martin as peculiar. The driver’s side door and the two rear doors were hanging wide open and the vehicle was empty. It was as if the SUV had sped to a stop and the passengers all jumped out and sprinted into the house. But who were they and what could be so critical at three o’clock in the morning? Was there some sort of emergency occurring in the house? Was someone sick? If so, where were the urgent voices and sounds of commotion? Martin turned to the door and focused his hearing.

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