One Grave Less (38 page)

“We are going to cross to Tabatinga tonight,” said Maria.

The little girl looked happy and excited. “Tonight, really?”

“Yes. Hanna and Patrik are taking us to the dock and you and I are going to take a ride on a tour boat,” she said.

“Do you trust them?” asked Rosetta, swinging her legs around and jumping down from the bed.

“To a point.”

It had crossed Maria’s mind that they had seen John’s construction company and all the big projects he had built and might harbor kidnapping ideas of their own.

“We are going to meet them out front. But first we’ll go out the back way and get our gun.”

Rosetta nodded her approval.

“When we are on the tour boat there will be other people on it, a crowd. That will be good. We have to be alert to danger during the ride in the car to the dock. Are you up for this? We could walk to the dock. It’s only a quarter of a mile.”

“What about the bad guy?” asked Rosetta.

“I don’t know where he is, or if he is watching the hotel. I thought it would be better if we ride in a car, but if you don’t feel safe, we won’t.”

“Do you feel safe?” asked Rosetta.

“At the moment I don’t even remember what safe feels like,” she said. “I have a gun and I’ll use it if anyone tries to harm us.”

Maria collected their backpack and tote bag. She put money and a pocketknife in her jeans and extra money in her bra. She turned the air conditioner on so there would be noise in the room and it would sound like it was still occupied if Michaels came around. The two of them tiptoed down the stairs and out the back door.

It wasn’t hard to find the place where Maria hid the gun. She hoped it was still there. Michaels could have been watching when she hid it. Or anyone could have been watching. She was wishing she’d just kept it with her.

She moved the broken piece of block and stuck her hand in the space. It was there, wrapped in cloth, heavy. She retrieved it and took it from the cloth. She wondered where people who carried a concealed weapon put it. Of course they probably had a holster. She put the gun in her tote bag and hung the bag on her shoulder. They walked around the building looking for the car.

Hanna waved to them. Maria felt guilt for thinking she might have to shoot them. What had she become? Gabina wasn’t with them. She had stayed at the hotel. Maria was glad about that but was also worried whether Gabina would alert Michaels.

Patrik was driving. Maria told them Rosetta was a little sick to her stomach and she didn’t want to aggravate it by riding in the back, especially since they were just about to take a boat ride. So Hanna rode in the backseat and Maria rode in front with Rosetta in her lap. She rolled down the window and Rosetta leaned her head near the breeze to add to the illusion.

The truth was, Maria was afraid to sit in the back—afraid of child locks that wouldn’t release, afraid of being taken prisoner.

Hanna sat on the edge of the backseat and rested her arms on the back of the front seat so she could talk to them. She and Patrik seemed to be having fun. Maria wished she could remember what fun felt like.

They started out toward the docks, weaving between motorcycles, other cars, and pedestrians along the way. Who knew there was a nightlife in Benjamin Constant? What looked like a well-worn city in the daytime was a glittering jewel of lights at night filled with people having fun.

It wouldn’t take long to arrive at the docks, even at the slow pace they had to travel. Hanna and Patrik talked non-stop. They were fascinated with powwows. Maria told them to come visit in the United States and they could go to a few. They liked the idea of dressing up in Indian costumes, of Hanna braiding her blond hair.

“Can one ride horses there?” said Patrik.

“Oh yes,” said Maria. “Do you ride?”

Patrik grinned. “Yes.”

“He loves it,” said Hanna. “Me, not so much. You are on a huge wild animal and are supposed to be able to control it. It always feels a little dangerous to me. Do you ride?”

This time Maria grinned and she remembered fun. “Yes. I have an Arabian stallion named Mandrake.”

“Stallion? You ride a stallion? Is that not dangerous?” said Patrik, though he sounded envious.

“Can be. He’s a well-schooled horse that I trust. My mother bred and trained him for me. She breeds Arabians. I’ve ridden all my life.”

“Really?” said Hanna. “We will have to come see you. Patrik would love that, wouldn’t you, Patrik?” Hanna dug around in her purse and came out with a card. “Here is my e-mail address. Write when you get back. We would like to know you and Rosetta are safe.”

Maria took the card, wondering what they would think about her when they discovered she was such an accomplished liar and Rosetta really wasn’t her daughter and her name wasn’t Maria.

Patrik parked the car in the first space he found at the waterfront and they walked the rest of the way to the docks.

The Amazon was alive at night. Tour boats glided up and down the river, twinkling like multicolored sparklers. Maria was glad to be out of the car. Every moment they were in it she worried that Hanna might pull a gun, though neither Patrik nor Hanna had done anything to suggest she would. The two of them gave Maria and Rosetta a hug at the dock where a smallish single-deck tour boat was taking on passengers for a long night ride down the Amazon toward Tabatinga.

Maria picked up Rosetta and carried her on her hip, not trusting simply holding her hand. Rosetta put her arms around Maria’s neck and they boarded the boat, paying at the gangplank. Maria asked if she could get off at the airport. The steward nodded and Maria found a seat near the exit. She was less interested in sightseeing than she was in a quick getaway should the need arise, as it seemed to with regularity.

It took about thirty minutes for the boat to finally get started, each moment agonizing as Maria waited for a boarding party of thugs . . . or police. But she didn’t feel relief when the boat pulled away.

The distance to the airport where she was headed was only eleven miles. But the boat was going slow. It was, after all, a tour boat. There was music and dancing on board. Maria sat with Rosetta on her lap, barely hearing the music.

She noticed several others who had not joined in the merriment. It alarmed her, thinking these might be the thugs she was waiting for, disguised as ordinary people. Until she realized they were probably workers going to some night shift somewhere in the city. It wasn’t only a tour boat, but a ferry, a waterway bus line.

It took a little over an hour to arrive at Tabatinga. The vessel overshot the airport by about a quarter of a mile because that’s where the dock was. They sounded a horn as they docked. Maria stood up and waited for the crew to make the gangplank ready.

She wasn’t the only one getting off here. She didn’t know whether that was a good thing. She would rather they be alone than among people she didn’t know. On the other hand, sometimes a crowd was safer.

Most of the people getting off went down a road toward what a sign said was a power plant. The rest were going to the airport. She walked along with the crowd. Some had motorbikes stashed away and rode off in a cloud of dust. In a straight line the airport wasn’t that far, but going the way of the road it was about a mile. Rosetta walked part of the way and Maria carried her part of the way.

She felt relief when they got to the terminal. It was a small, cream-colored building with rust red roof and trim. The building was landscaped with well cared for hedges and beds of flowers. It looked normal.

She and Rosetta had stayed to themselves on the walk, but several of her fellow travelers were there to catch a plane. Most had backpacks rather than suitcases. She and Rosetta fit in with their new clean T-shirts, jeans, ball caps, and backpack.

The inside was just as clean and neat as the outside. They went to the ladies’ room first and freshened up. Then Maria found them a couple of seats that were out of the way and not so front and center as most of them.

Rosetta still looked scared. Maria understood. The closer she got to the prize, the more afraid she was of losing it. Maria felt the same way. Rosetta hadn’t asked to call her mother. Maria wondered if it was because she was afraid the bad man would trace the call, or if she was afraid her mother might ask her not to come. Maria knew instinctively that wouldn’t happen, but Rosetta was a kid who had been told lies. And as much as she tried to believe, the lies crept into her fears and made them grow.

“You doing okay?” asked Maria.

Rosetta nodded. She looked tired and Maria realized, as she saw some of the others around them settle into chairs to sleep, they were supposed to be in bed.

Maria found an out-of-the-way corner where they could sit on the floor and Rosetta could lay her head in Maria’s lap and sleep. Maria wasn’t able to sleep. She was tired enough but she was too wary. She dug into the backpack and pulled out some paper and a pen she had bought in the marketplace. She hadn’t had a chance to draw the Inca site they had discovered. Now would be a good time. It took a few tries, but she found a way to hold the notebook so she could draw and not bother the sleeping Rosetta.

She began drawing the site from memory—the rocks, the mounds, the linear scars in the ground—changing the oblique view she had in her mind to an overhead view. She had enough experience with sites that she was good at guessing distances. She penciled estimates on the drawing. She shaded in the stones and added the jungle. Maria worked on the drawing until it was a reasonable facsimile of the site. She added her own observations, on-the-fly field notes about the settlement pattern.

Maria dug out the ceramics and drew them, front and back views. Made notes about the style, the tempering, the color. She rewrapped them and put them in an envelope she had purchased at the time with the notebook and writing materials.

All that took several hours. Periodically she would stop and survey her surroundings, looking for Michaels or anyone who seemed to take an interest in them.

Morning came and Rosetta awakened with a start.

“It’s all right,” said Maria. Her legs felt asleep from the pressure of Rosetta’s head. And her butt definitely felt the pressure from the hard floor. Maria stood up, bringing Rosetta with her, and shook each leg.

“I think I saw some vending machines. Why don’t we go find something to eat?”

Rosetta nodded.

“Are you all right?” asked Maria.

“I’m scared,” she mumbled.

Maria kneeled down to her. “What are you afraid of?”

“The man,” she said.

“I’m keeping an eye out for him,” Maria said.

“You won’t leave me if they won’t let me go with you, will you?” she said.

Maria hugged her. “No, baby, I won’t leave you. I’m taking you to your mother. I won’t leave you.”

Maria didn’t know what she would do if the authorities came and forcibly took Rosetta. How would she keep her promise? She held tightly to her. “I won’t leave you,” she whispered.

They made another trip to the bathroom, after which Maria bought them some candy and a drink from the machines. Feeling down in her tote bag, she realized she had the gun.

Shit, the damn gun—savior and trouble.

“Let’s walk outside a while and stretch our legs,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” said Rosetta, looking around.

“The gun,” she whispered.

“Oh. Where are you going to hide it this time?” whispered Rosetta.

“Outside in one of the planters, but I have to make sure no one is watching.”

They went outside and scoped the place. More people were coming in now that it was morning. The airport, which had not closed, was fully waking up. Maria and Rosetta walked around looking for all the places they could be unobserved. They played a little tag in the yard, then sat down in the garden, Rosetta with her doll, both with their candy and drinks. Maria quickly buried the gun in the loose dirt of one of the planters. The groundskeepers would eventually find it, but she hoped it wasn’t until after she and Rosetta left.

They went back inside and found some quiet seats and waited. Maria taught Rosetta a few phrases in Cherokee, which delighted the child.

“Tell me about your horse. You didn’t tell me you had a horse,” said Rosetta. Maria told her about Mandrake, her black stallion. They were laughing when Maria saw Cameron Michaels walk into the airport.

Diane sat with Liam in the museum lounge with a hot cup of coffee in her hands. Every part of her body ached. Bruises on her arms were already forming. Her black embroidered pantsuit was ruined. She felt defeated.

When she wouldn’t go to the hospital, Liam insisted on taking a look at the cut on her arm from the gunshot. The butterfly bandage had come loose and the cut was bleeding. It turned out that Liam was a pretty good field medic.

Now she sat waiting for Frank. Dreading seeing him, only because she had decided to cancel the wedding. How could she marry him, knowing what kind of havoc would rain down upon him and Star because of her? He and Star could have been killed. She couldn’t stand that.

“Thank you, Liam,” she said. “That was pretty amazing stuff you did.”

“You softened him up for me.”

“Yeah, right. I’m sure I did,” she said. “He was going to kill me and I didn’t know how to stop him. What kind of people are they that they’re willing to do what they do?”

“Some are sociopaths. You know that,” said Liam. “Others are able to set their conscience aside for a lot of money. As I said, these guys are expensive. Who did you tick off?”

“I don’t know. It’s somehow connected with my time in South America. I don’t know what it’s about, but something happened there that has come back to bite me.”

She drank more of her coffee, staring off at nothing. Liam sat drinking an orange juice and eating a Snickers bar.