No Sin in Paradise (10 page)

“Randall Knott is trying to take land that I own. He's trying to steal from me, and your buddy was sent here to do his bidding.”

“That doesn't make sense. Why would Pastor Cole do anything on Knott's behalf?” I ask.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Demetrius questions.

I didn't respond to him, but I did notice the spot Demetrius had circled. “You think this is the land that Knott wants to purchase?”

“That is the land he's trying to steal.”

I walk away from Demetrius back to the edge. This time, instead of looking out at the ocean, I look down at the bottom of the cliff and see a shack. A shack that I'm very familiar with. It is a shack owned by Janae the witch doctor.

“My father built her that house so that she could have a slice of heaven,” Demetrius says.

I think he knows that I now have connected the dots and that this land Demetrius is fighting for, and possibly killing for, is the land where his mother lives. I turn back around and walk toward him.

“So why not fight it out in court?” I ask.

“If we involve the courts, then they start prying into all of my affairs. I can't allow that to happen.”

Demetrius is in quite a conundrum. Someone is committing a crime against him, but Demetrius has committed crimes himself. He can't afford for his misdeeds to come to light.

“So what do you need me to do?”

“I don't need you to do anything. I want you to find out what Knott is planning to build on that land. Now Adele and that pretty gal of yours, they need you.”

“I don't care who you are. You can't threaten me, and you won't harm either one of them.”

Demetrius laughs while I ball my fists up ready to strike. I'm sick and tired of his threats, and I refuse to tolerate them any longer.

“Then we have an understanding. You find out what I need to know, and I stay away from your loved ones.”

Demetrius gives me a pat on the back and walks back to the car. I get in because in my heart of hearts, I know that the only way I can protect Adele, Sammy, and Victory is if I find out what Knott is up to and try to stop him.

On the way back there wasn't much of a conversation between the two of us. We just rode along a bumpy road until something pierces the window. I figure it was a shot, and from a distance there was an image of a person I couldn't make out standing on the road.

“What the . . .” I say.

Demetrius bends down and pulls a gun from under his seat. Another shot pierces the window and hits Demetrius in the arm. He loses control of the truck and starts to swerve. The truck flies off the road, and all I see is a lagoon that the SUV is headed toward.

This warm water I've come to love may be what takes me down. The water is rising, and we are sinking. I'm barely conscious, and Demetrius is unconscious. The water is above my shoulders, and I have to move and the passenger window is open, but I can't leave Demetrius. Right now, he's 300 pounds of dead weight.

“Lord Jesus, please help me, Lord.”

I start to kick the windshield. Once it's out, the water will come rushing in, but that's the only chance I have to get Demetrius out of the car, and at this point, it could be for nothing. For all I know, he could be dead.

When the windshield is kicked out and the water is rushing in, I grab ahold of Demetrius and struggle to pull him out of the car. I've got to calm down and slow my heart rate. I can't panic—don't panic! I need to get air soon, but I have to get Demetrius out. I pull him out. I'm pulling and pulling, and I'm not making much progress. This can't be how this ends. Lord, please help me!

I reach around and secure Demetrius by his belt. Don't panic, Nic, you're going to make it. I push as hard as I can with my legs and finally we start to ascend. We break through the water, and I get one gulp of air until I sink back down.

I don't think I have anymore to give, but if God gives me the strength to get above water once, He'll do it twice. I push as hard as I can, and we get above water again. I get another gulp of air and start swimming to shore. With every stroke of my free hand, I feel like I'm either going to sink or lose Demetrius.

I close my eyes because I don't want to lose hope. I don't want to think about how far I have to swim with Demetrius or how tired I am or how I might not survive this whole ordeal. I finally touch land and with the last bit of all my strength, I pull myself and Demetrius onto shore.

I roll over on my back, still trying to catch air and steady my breathing. My arms are on fire and my legs are burning from exhaustion, but I am elated. It takes so much for me to turn over and observed Demetrius, who is lifeless.

I start trying to do CPR, and when that doesn't work, and though I hesitate for a moment, I even start to do mouth-to-mouth. It took a long moment, but Demetrius suddenly spits up water and starts to cough. Thank you, Jesus! Demetrius is alive. I am alive. Thank you, Jesus. Now, the question is . . . Who shot at us?

 

 

God has a way of humbling some and mystifying others. Here I am in an unknown part of the island with a man who has threatened me on more than one occasion and has threatened those who I care about. Yet, I save
his
life, while my life is
still
in danger. And now there's an assassin on the loose. I sit with the mosquitos biting my skin and the sun blazing down. Demetrius sits beside me, lost and confused. Lord have mercy.

“We need to keep moving,” I say right after I finish tying a piece of my shirt around Demetrius's arm to stop the bleeding. We need to leave, but I barely have the strength to go on, let alone carry an enormous man like Demetrius around.

“Yeah, we should,” Demetrius says before he gets up and starts to walk.

“You know where you're going?” I ask.

“I know every inch of this island. My uncle used to take me fishing in that very same lagoon. I didn't think I would almost die in it.”

Neither did I. We walk through the jungle, and it hasn't escaped my attention that the truck ending up in the lagoon is not the result of careless driving but rather someone trying to kill us.

“Who do you think did this?” I ask.

“I don't know,” Demetrius says.

“Guess,” I say.

“There can be only one man stupid enough to do this. Stupid enough to think he's protected.”

I know who Demetrius thinks it is, but just because all roads point to Randall Knott doesn't mean that Randall Knott is the shooter. The world operates in a gray area more often than black and white.

“I saw someone on the road. I couldn't make them out, but they had to be following us,” I say.

“There was no one following us,” Demetrius says.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because no one is stupid enough to follow me. It's suicide.”

Apparently we have one stupid assassin running about, and Demetrius doesn't have a clue as to the assassin's true identity.

“You know, pride goes before a fall,” I say.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Don't let your ego be your downfall. I still think the assassin is out there.”

“No, there was no assassin out there looking for us.” Demetrius checks his arm.

“No? You sound so sure.”

“Had he been a professional, he would've fired a few more shots into the car and made sure that we didn't surface to the lagoon.”

“Maybe he was in a rush.”

“There's no one around for miles and miles. He had time. No, he thought that a few shots and the truck going into the water was enough. He was sadly mistaken.”

“By the grace of God we survived this crash,” I say.

“God doesn't have nothing to do with it. We got lucky.”

The man survives being shot and his truck going over a cliff and yet he doesn't believe he has been spared for a reason. I know who spared me, and I know who gave me the strength to drag a man twice my size to the shore.

“We need to get going. It'll be dark soon,” Demetrius says.

“Lead the way.”

We walk for hours, but the jungle is so thick and massive that we hardly put a dent into it. The sun fades into distant memory and soon the night approaches. I continued to follow Demetrius as he leads through the jungle, stepping through plants, fighting off bugs and God knows what.

“It's getting dark. We'll need to stop for the night,” Demetrius says.

“We got to keep going.” I can barely talk.

“We will not make it back tonight. We have to rest and start again at first light. We'll make it back by tomorrow.”

Tomorrow seems so far away and such a long shot. Demetrius needs medical attention, and I'm about to pass out from exhaustion.

“We'll be okay for tonight,” Demetrius says.

That's
if
we can survive this night. Right now, it doesn't look good.

Darkness is not kept at bay on the island. It's allowed to reign through the night unchallenged by anything except for the moon. I sat next to a tree, unable to see what's in front of me. I'm starving and borderline dehydrated. I feel like there are bugs crawling all over me and my ears are playing tricks on me because I'm hearing all kinds of disturbing things go bump in the night.

A song starts to resonate within. I'm not much of a singer, but at this moment I feel compelled to sing. I also feel that part of me that would sound silly. Demetrius is close by, at least I think he's close by. I can't hear him snore, so I wonder what Demetrius is thinking. He almost died today, and now with an assassin running about, thoughts of mortality have to be weighing heavily. For me, I am grateful to be alive, and I sing a song of praise.

“There is none like you. No one else touches my heart like you do, and I can search for eternity, Lord, and find, there is no one like you.”

I must admit that of all the hymns and Christian songs, this does not rank as one of my personal favorites, but in the dark in a jungle, with a drug dealer beside me and a murderer on the loose, I feel compelled to express that there is no one like God who has kept me this whole time, and I consider myself grateful if I make it to see another day.

“Why do you to pray to a God that doesn't exist?” Demetrius broke my cadence.

He must've not been impressed with my musical talents.

“How do you know that He doesn't exist?”

“Do you know how many men have begged and prayed to God right before I killed them, and God did not answer?”

Demetrius now is completely comfortable to show me his dark passenger. He mustn't think that we are going to survive this catastrophe; otherwise, he would remain silent.

“So, because God didn't answer, that means He doesn't exist?”

“I thought the whole point was to answer prayer.”

“The point is redemption, faith, hope, and trust. God does not answer every prayer, but the purpose of faith is trust that Jesus is your salvation and trust in God's plan even when you come to the end of your life.”

Demetrius laughs, and given our current set of circumstances, his laugh is between cynical and demonic.

“You laugh, but it's my faith that caused me to pull you out of a sinking truck when most people would have let you drown.”

“You saved me because you're afraid of what my men would do if they thought you were responsible for killing me.”

“I think your men would give me a fist bump if I did. Fear and love can't coexist. You rule through fear, but the Bible shows that people will do more out of love than fear.”

“I take care of their families.”

“How many families do you destroy in the process?” My question went unanswered.

“Thank you,” Demetrius says.

I don't need to ask what he is thanking me for because I already know. He's thanking me for saving his life. God is a great teacher, because in most people's book, Demetrius deserves to die, but God believes that all men and women deserve a chance at redemption.

“Don't mention it,” I say.

“If you want to go to sleep, I can take first watch. You can sleep,” Demetrius says.

“No, I'm good. I'll stay up first,” I say.

“Have you way then.”

I hear movements, and though I can't make anything out. I figure it's Demetrius positioning himself to try to get some sleep. I close my eyes with the tune still stuck in my head.

“I can search for all eternity, Lord, and find there is no one like you. No one else can do my heart like you do.”

This time the song didn't come from me, but from Demetrius. I get the sense that his parents did take him to church at one point, and while his beliefs may remain unchanged, at least for the moment he finds comfort in this song. All I can do is join in.

 

 

God gave Demetrius and me a beautiful gift. He allowed us to see another sunrise, and I know that the fact that this sunrise was not promised is what makes me welcome the warmth of the sun.

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Demetrius didn't say anything. He just stands up with his eyes closed and embraced a sun that we have experienced a million times, but on this day, the sun felt new.

“I don't know how I would've made it without you,” Demetrius says.

“I don't know how I would've made it without Him.” I point upward.

Demetrius didn't make a sly remark. He just glanced at the sun one more time, and then he looked forward. “This is the way home.”

It took several more hours of no food and water. The sun that embraced us earlier now beat on us. I keep wondering when the moment will arrive when I can't walk anymore and I will finally collapsed, but that moment did not come.

“You go ahead,” Demetrius says, leaning against a tree. “Go and get help. The main road is just over that hill.”

“Are you kidding me? I didn't drag you out of a lagoon to leave you.”

Again, the easier thing to do would be to leave Demetrius and head on home. But the scriptures say in Matthew that whatever permits you to go one mile with a man, go with them two. With that bit of instruction, I walk over to Demetrius and place his arm around my shoulder. We start to walk, and my legs buckle from his weight.

“Come on, Demetrius, I need you to walk with me. We're almost there.”

We walk; we stumble and fall; but we eventually arrive at the top of hill where I can see the back of Adele's house at the bottom of the hill. I fall to my knees. “Thank you, Jesus.”

“Don't thank Him just yet. We still have a hill to climb.”

I find the strength to climb down the hill and Demetrius follows me. He too finds renewed strength at almost being home. We walk down the hill, and my legs feel like they'll give out on me at any minute.

When we get to the bottom of the hill, Demetrius and I just stand there on the main road trying to catch our breath. I also believe that he and I were in disbelief that we survived.

“I'm sorry for threatening you and your family,” Demetrius says in between long breaths.

What could I say to that? At this point I have to question Demetrius's sincerity and pay close attention to his actions.

“I'm going to meet with Randall Knott and find out what he's up to with the other preachers.”

“Better hurry. The conference is over in two days,” he says.

Then that means I have two days to wrap this up. I gather my last ounce of strength and walk toward Adele's house. My home in Carson is thousands of miles away, but Adele's place feels like home as I knock on the door.

“Where have you been?” Adele asks.

“It's a long story that I don't have time to tell.”

It takes her a moment, but she starts to smell me and backs away as she covers her nose.

“I'll tell you once I have a shower. Where's Victory?” I look around, but I don't see her in sight.

Adele has a sad look in her eyes as if there is something she does not want to tell me. She doesn't have to tell me because I already know. Victory is gone. She left because I broke the only real rule she had: Don't promise too much. Promise only what you can deliver.