One Grave Less (33 page)

“Yes, I understand,” said Diane.

Diane knew he intended to kill her—unless she could think of a plan. She had absolutely no idea what she was going to do to avoid her fate. She did know she was going to get these men away from Frank’s house and away from Star.

When they discovered she had no idea what package they wanted, and had just made a wild guess that they were looking for something Simone had mailed to her, then they would be furious, and her death would not be pleasant.

She desperately needed a plan.

“What?” asked Rosetta when Maria backed her deeper into the stairwell.

“There’s a man looking for us, I think,” said Maria.

Rosetta put her hands to her mouth and inhaled sharply. “Oh no. How did he find us?”

“He has one of those flyers. I imagine he’s going from hotel to hotel. I don’t think he knows we’re here. I think he’s asking questions. Let’s find a back door.” And ditch the gun, she thought.

They went back up to the second floor and walked down the hall to another stairway. Maria hoped it led to a different door. She walked down to the first landing again. This door didn’t have a window. She eased it open and was startled when someone rushed in.

“Oh,
Olá
.” A young girl rushed up the stairs, ignoring Maria and Rosetta, after saying a surprised hello.

The two of them walked out onto the street. Maria scanned the building facade looking for a broken cement block or any nook to hide a gun. She didn’t linger, but examined the places as she went. She stopped abruptly at a small building beside the hotel. It was older looking and not in as good repair. One of the blocks was cracked.

“I want to check this out. Stand here so it will look like I’m tying your shoe,” said Maria.

Rosetta hurried around and stood blocking the view of Maria’s examination of the brick. Maria pulled on the small piece of the broken block. As she hoped, it came loose. She had to tug at it, but she managed to pull it out. There was a small space behind it, between the block and the wood wall, perhaps big enough for the gun. She pulled the gun out of her tote bag, wiped it off, and wrapped it in one of the pieces of fabric that they’d used for just about everything. The gun just fit in the space. She shoved the broken piece back and stood up. She felt a good deal of relief. If she were questioned by the authorities, she didn’t want to have a gun on her. She and Rosetta walked across the street into a grassy park area and stood under some trees so they could watch the entrance to the hotel. It didn’t take long for the man with the flyer to come out. They watched him hurry down the street.

Rosetta grabbed Maria around the leg and clung to her. “That’s the bad man,” said Rosetta, “the one with the English accent. The one who was at the mission that day.”

Maria didn’t ask if she was sure. She believed Rosetta. Maria watched the man as he walked down the street toward another hotel. He didn’t glance in their direction, but Maria saw his profile. He wore a straw fedoralike hat, which Maria thought made him look quaint. It definitely made him stand out. He had a clean-cut profile and looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. He had light brown hair. She committed his features, what she could see of them, to memory. They didn’t move from their spot, but watched him come out of the hotel and continue on across the street and get into a VW Beetle parked in front of a church. Clearly he was visiting all the hotels.

“Are we in trouble?” asked Rosetta.

“I don’t think so. The clerk on duty was not the same one that checked us in. That’s in our favor. I didn’t put you down when I signed the book.”

Maria thought for a moment where she had said she was from. She had given the name of a small town on the map she had. It wasn’t far from where she had been held. That may have been a mistake.

“You said he was from an embassy?” said Maria.

“Yeah, I think,” said Rosetta.

So what is he doing here?
wondered Maria. Why was he looking for them, and why here? She never mentioned Benjamin Constant to Kyle or anyone. But it is a sizable port city on the Amazon. It would be logical they would flee here. After all, they did.

Maria watched the car drive away toward the docks.

They stayed in the grassy area, walking around, looking at the plants, pretending to play. Maria had taken the doll from the backpack and given it to Rosetta to hold.

“We need to wait to make the call,” said Maria. “I know you are anxious, but let’s not go back to the hotel just yet.”

A battered car drove up and she recognized Patrik and Hanna. He had found some wheels. Maria and Rosetta walked over and waved.

Hanna opened the passenger door and stood up, looking over the roof of what looked like a 1990s Eagle Premier with the paint worn down to the primer. “Look what Patrik found. Great, huh? We ride in style.” Hanna laughed and it sounded like music. “Get in. We go eat.”

The restaurant was on the banks of a pond of perhaps three acres. On one side of the pond near the main restaurant were small cabanas with grass umbrellas. Leafy plants were planted neatly between the cabanas. The main restaurant looked almost like a luxurious version of the native long huts she and Rosetta had recently escaped from. The roof was grass and the structure was of thick timbers with no walls. The kitchen area was in the center. Tables with blue and yellow tablecloths, not unlike the tables in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying, lined the room. It was crowded. Maria liked it. They wouldn’t stand out in a crowd.

Patrik and Hanna led them to a table with several others from their tour group. Some of them Maria had met, some she hadn’t. They sat down and looked at the menu.

Maria and Rosetta ordered
caruru
, a shrimp dish with onions, okra, and nuts seasoned with palm oil, along with
acarajé
—deep-fried black-eyed peas—and rice. Patrik ordered them drinks of something called Inca Kola.

The two of them felt like they were feasting. Maria tried to not eat too fast, but she really wanted to put down her fork and dive in with her hands.

“Your daughter doesn’t look like you.”

This was one of the women across from Maria. She was a botanist, as Maria recalled, from Spain—Gabina, if she remembered correctly.

Maria smiled and stroked Rosetta’s ponytail sticking out the back of her cap. “No, she takes after her father,” she said.

“He is from here, then?” she said.

“No, he is an American Indian,” said Maria.

“Really? What tribe? They are called tribes, aren’t they?” she said.

Maria suspected the woman was trying to trap her, as if she had seen the flyer and was trying to determine if Maria had kidnapped Rosetta. She was going to ask questions until she tripped Maria up.

“He’s Cherokee,” said Maria.

“Oh, from that place like the musical,” said Hanna, “
Oklahoma
.”

“No, Daddy’s from the Eastern Band in North Carolina,” Rosetta piped up.

She did it so fluidly Maria had to smile.

“Eastern Band?” said Gabina.

“The Cherokee were moved to Oklahoma in 1838 after gold was discovered on their land in the southeast. Many of them, including my husband John’s ancestors, hid in the mountains and stayed. Their reservation is in the mountains of North Carolina. I would like to call him. Do you know where there is a phone available? I’m sure he is worried sick about us,” she said.

“The hotel has a phone,” said Patrik. “I used it just today.”

“So tell us your story,” said Gabina.

“We had fun most of the time,” said Rosetta. “Didn’t we, Mama?”

“Most of the time. Not in the beginning, but the rest of the time was an adventure.” She smiled. “Rose is a little adventurer, more so than me, I’m afraid.”

“Rose? I thought her name was Rosetta,” said Gabina, smiling.

So that was it. It was the flyer, the name of the little girl—Rosetta—and the fact that Rosetta didn’t look like Maria. She and Rosetta had discussed the name and come up with another story. Maria was warming up to the lies they were telling. She wondered what that said about her.

“Her name is actually Rose of Sharon. Her father is a fan of Steinbeck. Her grandfather started calling her Rosetta and it caught on in the family. You know how nicknames are.”

“It doesn’t sound American Indian,” said Gabina.

Maria grinned. “You think we should have named her Running Deer or Little White Dove? American Indians are pretty much like all of us. Some follow their cultural heritage to the letter and others don’t, and others bring it into the modern world. John is of the latter.”

“What does he do?” asked Patrik.

“He has a construction company,” said Maria. “He specializes in underwater construction.”

“Underwater construction?” asked one of the others. “What does he build? Underwater cities? I never heard of that.”

“He built this great aquarium,” said Rosetta, holding her arms wide. “It has this glass tube that you walk in and look at the fish. It’s like you are the one really in a tank and the fish are visiting you. Really cool.”

“It sounds like it.” Gabina’s smile reached her eyes for the first time. Maria hoped that meant she was won over.

“Tell me about your expedition,” said Maria.

Maria’s new acquaintances spent the remainder of the meal discussing their upcoming trek through the Amazon and what they hoped to accomplish. For Gabina it was collecting flora. Patrik was taking pictures. Hanna was interested in cultural anthropology, she thought—she hadn’t committed to any one career yet. Midway in the tale when Rosetta finished eating, she put her head in Maria’s lap. It looked so normal that Maria thought it further cemented their relationship to each other in Gabina and any other doubter’s mind.

It was dark when they arrived back at the hotel. No one was at the desk, so Maria and Rosetta hurried up to the room. She stopped at their room door and listened before she opened it. Perhaps she had watched too many movies, but she had a vision of opening the door and seeing the man in the straw fedora sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands and chin resting on a silver snakehead cane.

She heard nothing, no movement, no breathing, no cane impatiently tapping on the floor. She unlocked the door and entered. No Sidney Greenstreet. No changes in the room that she could see. She searched the bathroom and under the bed. No lurking monsters. Still, she felt uneasy going to sleep. She put a chair under the doorknob, hoping that actually worked to secure the door.

“You did good,” said Maria.

“You did too,” said Rosetta.

“No one was at the desk. I don’t know if that means they are closed for the evening and we can’t use the phone, or they are just away.”

“Let’s go down and see,” said Rosetta.

“All right. I need to call John first, because that is how we are going to get home. Is that all right?” said Maria.

Rosetta nodded, but Maria could see her lower lip tremble. Maria hugged her.

“I’m going to get you home to your mother. I promised you that, and I will. Don’t worry, okay?” She rubbed Rosetta’s back with her hand. “You’re doing fine.”

Maria wished she felt safe leaving Rosetta in the room, but she wouldn’t have felt safe doing that in the United States. The man looking for them would probably recognize Rosetta. He wouldn’t recognize Maria. She took Rosetta’s baseball cap and pulled her hair on top of her head and put the cap over it, pulling the bill down to shade her face.

“If we see him, I’ll give you the keys and you can run up to the room, okay?”

Rosetta nodded.

Maria moved the chair and opened the door.

The hallway was clear. Maria expected trouble behind every door and around every corner. An uncomfortable feeling, but she supposed it did give her a survival advantage. Maria told Rosetta to walk and act normal and try not to look scared. And Maria would try to take her own advice. Of course, in a dire emergency run like hell. Rosetta giggled. They walked down the hall.

The stairway was clear until they got down to the second floor. There they encountered several people also on their way to the lobby. They were dressed like they were looking for entertainment. Maria couldn’t imagine any nightlife in Benjamin Constant. But what did she know. She and Rosetta held back, letting the cluster of people proceed ahead of them.

On the ground floor, she looked through the window at the lobby. People were sitting at the tables talking, some milling around near the desk. No straw fedora. She opened the door and the two of them ventured out into the lobby.

Maria walked to the desk and asked in her broken Spanish about a phone to call out of the country. She did say
telephone
in Portuguese. Patrik and Hanna knew that Rosetta could speak Portuguese, but Maria didn’t want anyone else to know, so she didn’t have the little girl translate.

The clerk, a young male, pointed to a door with a window. Telephone booth. Good, a private place to call. However, it would cost them. Maria gave him money she pulled from her tote bag and went to use the phone. She felt almost sick with excitement. The two of them entered the booth. As Maria settled in front of the phone, Rosetta slid down behind her legs.

“Bad guy coming this way,” said Rosetta.

Maria looked through the window. He was heading in their direction. Damn. He stood near the booth as if waiting to use it. She was wishing she had the gun. She would shoot him where he stood.
Damn it, we’re just trying to get home.

Maria ignored him and proceeded with the call. Her hands shook, not from fear, but from anticipation. The word
help
never sounded so good. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the man edge toward them. He was going to listen in. Could he hear much with the door closed? She didn’t know. The conversation would have to have a lot of code. At least John was used to weird with her.