He rose and held out a hand to help her to her feet. He picked up the duffle bag and made his way to the edge of the road. Her mind still a blur, she followed him. The sunrise was bursting over the mountain tops now. It was daylight. She peered down the lane one way, then the other. They hadn’t seen another car since they’d started out.
Parker pulled out his cell and tried to dial. “No service,” he grunted after a moment.
She pointed beyond the dented car. “We could try going that way. There’s probably a souvenir shop or two like the ones we saw on the way in. Might be a landline in one of them.”
Parker scowled. He didn’t like that idea.
“Or we could corral a cow and ride it back to town. Except the nearest farm seems to be down there.” She gestured toward the drop on the other side of the road.
Parker straightened his spine and glared at the BMW. “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk.”
Oh, goodie. Another trek through the forest. Hansel and Gretel had nothing on them.
“It’s about eight miles back to Campos do Flores. Are you up to it?”
She made a face. “Of course, I am.” She wasn’t a china doll.
“Let’s get going then.” And he slung the duffle bag over his shoulder and strode up the road.
Miranda matched his pace, but as they made their way toward the curve ahead she rubbed her arms. She couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling plaguing her. She looked back at the poor beamer with its demolished front end. It would have been in a lot worse shape if it had gone over the side. And so would they.
“Parker, what if this was…Rico’s doing? What if he came back here after he withdrew that money? What if he’s the one who didn’t want us to get to his modeling agency and find out he had disappeared?”
Parker looked as if he were wondering the same thing. “He would have to know why we’re here then. He would have had to have overheard us talking last night.”
A chill went down her spine. “We talked about it on the way home.”
“Yes.”
So if she was right, that meant Rico had had to be close by…watching them. From now on they had better be on their guard.
Chapter Seventeen
Filho da Puta!
Forcing himself to be silent he stood still. They could not see him. He was hidden far up the hill. In the trees, the tall grass brushing against his pant legs. Just at the place he had calculated the vehicle brakes should fail.
But he wanted to cry out with all his being. Shriek at the top of his voice. Scream at the heavens above for cursing him. How could his plan have gone so wrong? He had been so careful. So very meticulous. And he knew automobiles. They had taught him about them in the classes he had had to attend years ago.
It was so unfair.
Fate was mocking him. But had it not always been this way? Had he not always had to claw and scratch to get everything he wanted? Everything he deserved? Yes, from boyhood it was so.
His chest ached with heaving as he glowered through the branches at the two figures disappearing over the rise. Did they think they had escaped him?
Oh, no. Think again, detectives. He may have failed once but he would not fail again. Had his own dear mother not taught him that was the secret of success? Keep trying until you succeed, she would always tell him.
Ah, mamãe. His heart clenched as his nostrils filled with the memory of her scent, as clean and fresh as morning dew. He had always been her favorite. When she was alive his existence had been a dream. But then she went away and nothing was ever the same again.
But he remembered the lessons she murmured to him in lullabies when she put him to sleep.
And so he would keep trying until he had what was his. The detectives, Tia. They would soon learn of his persistence.
He would not stop until he had destroyed them all.
Chapter Eighteen
Miranda plodded along next to Parker for several miles keeping to the side of the road opposite the drop, the cool wind blowing against them, the tall grass brushing their legs, the trees waving their branches overhead as if mocking their dilemma.
Not a single car went by. Not that they’d trust anyone to give them a ride.
Miranda was sweating through her business suit and her calves were starting to ache when they finally reached a spot where Parker could get a cell phone signal. The first thing he did was call Tia.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Miranda pressed up against him and put her ear near the phone to listen. She was relieved to hear Tia’s voice, even with the wariness she heard in it.
“Yes, Wade. I am fine. I just got into the office. Valdinho and Didi are with me. What is wrong?” Tia knew they wouldn’t be calling so soon if things were hunky-dory.
Parker didn’t beat around the bush. “The brakes failed on the rental car.”
“Meu Deus! Are you or Miranda hurt?”
“No. Just a little rattled,” he told her as if he weren’t rattled at all. “But the vehicle is totaled, I’m afraid. We’re returning to the resort on foot.”
Impassioned Portuguese came through the phone. “No, no, no. I will have someone pick you up, Wade. You and Miranda.”
Parker’s smile was patient. “No need, Tia. We have to contact Inspector Gaspar.”
“Chico? Why?”
Parker explained his theory in his surreptitious way.
“You are not going to tell him where you were going, are you? Please do not. Do not tell him about the letters, Wade.”
Miranda shook her head. She agreed they couldn’t tell Gaspar. No telling what this beamer sabotaging madman might try if they did.
“I’ll be discreet. We’ll see you in a few hours. Until then make sure you are not alone.” He disconnected.
At the sight of Parker’s drained expression, she lifted her hand and rubbed a bit of dirt off his cheek.
He took her hand and kissed it. Then he dropped the duffle bag and pulled her to him, holding her as if she’d just returned from a ten year mission to outer space.
He ran his hands through her hair as if trying to convince himself she was really here. “I’m so thankful you’re safe.” He kissed her. Hard and long and with so much feeling she thought her heart would break.
She pulled back, grinning at him. Trying to let him know she was really all right. “I’m glad we’re both safe.”
He let her go, let his hands trail down to hers and just stood there staring at her. The tenderness in his gray eyes told her he wouldn’t mind dying as long as she lived. She felt the same about him.
“What are you going to tell Gaspar?” she asked after a long moment.
“I’ll think of something.”
She watched him force himself out of the romantic spell and make the call to the police inspector.
An hour and forty minutes later, the “emergency” vehicle Gaspar sent out reached them. It picked them up and took them back to where the beamer sat, it’s formerly classy front end wrapped around the tree.
At least there was no one here to tamper with any evidence, though Miranda doubted there would be much. They gave statements to Agente Franco, the meek, skinny side kick, who wrote everything down very carefully. Almost as carefully as they recounted the details of their trip, leaving out their real destination and purpose.
“A word, Inspector?” Parker said when Franco was finished with them.
“What is it?”
“We learned yesterday a man named Geninho Duarte Fernandes was fired from Esquecer’s employ a little over a month ago. A young man, a student working at the resort, left Esquecer that morning saying he intended to hike to the village of Árvores. His name is Nelito Alves. The two were at odds with one another.”
Gaspar rotated his hefty shoulders, pretending to adjust his suit coat. “What are you trying to tell me, senhor?”
“That one or the other might be the body on the mountain we found yesterday.”
Gaspar studied his shoes and scratched
the side of his face. “Do you have any further evidence to support this theory?”
Parker’s steady gaze drifted to the beamer. “Only that,” he said nodding toward it.
Good one, Miranda thought.
Looking annoyed, Gaspar gave him a brisk nod. “I’ll look into it.”
Chapter Nineteen
The police detectives took their sweet time with the car and Miranda was beginning to wonder if they’d get back to the resort before nightfall when a compact metallic blue Hyundai pulled up to them and honked the horn.
It was Didi.
Tia must have decided to send her after them when they didn’t get back to the resort right away.
Parker marched over to the driver’s window. “Is Valdinho with your mother?”
Didi rolled her eyes. “Yes. And so are a million guests. We are very busy. I need to get back.”
“Good to see you, too,” Miranda muttered to herself.
Gaspar said he was done with them, and Parker went around to hold the passenger door open for her.
Miranda took one look at the grimace on Didi’s face and wondered if he was being chivalrous this time. Bracing herself for the lion’s den, she slid inside.
Parker tossed the duffle bag in the back and climbed in behind her.
Didi did a hair raising uey and sped off up the mountain road.
Her dark blond hair pulled back, she was wearing tight tan slacks, a silky tan blouse with a bow at the neck, and a look fierce enough to stop a stampeding elephant.
Miranda attempted to extend the olive branch. “I’m sorry to drag you out here, Didi. Parker told your mother—”
“You do not have to apologize, Miranda,” Didi snapped. “It is part of our service at the resort.”
Service with a smile, huh?
“I told your mother we didn’t need a ride,” Parker said firmly.
“I told her that as well. But she seems to think you do. She wants to do all she can to make sure my father is found guilty of sending those letters. But you two are not going to put this on my father. He left my mother because she never paid him any attention. What could you expect of him?”
Pursing her lips Miranda glanced over at Parker in the back seat. He looked thoroughly disgusted with the young woman and obviously didn’t feel the need to explain their actions to her.
Okay, Didi was mad about her mother hiring detectives, but this was more than that. She narrowed her eyes at their irate chauffeur. “You were eavesdropping last night, we’re you?”
Didi glared at her like a snarling leopard about to strike. “Of course not. My mother told me what you said about Joca. We do not keep secrets.”
Bingo. She thought this was about the boyfriend. And no doubt when Tia told them about Joca making kissy-face in the pub with Gretchen, she insisted Didi drop the bastard. But love could be blind as a bat sometimes.
“The joke is on you,” Didi said. “Gretchen is Joca’s cousin.”
Miranda couldn’t help snorting at that one. “Yeah. His kissing cousin.”
The Hyundai roared as Didi shifted gears and sped up another curvy incline. “We are very affectionate here in Brazil. Something you gringos do not understand.”
Miranda gave up the argument and stared out the window at the pine trees flying past.
Despite the young woman’s prickly disposition, Miranda felt for her. She knew what it was like to be so snowed over, you rationalized someone’s flaws. Sometimes the truth was more painful to face than the delusion.
And she knew what it was like to be abandoned by your father, though she’d been a young child when it had happened to her. She’d been able to reconnect with her own father but she was still working out their relationship. Might be even harder to do if your father left you as an adult.
The outline of buildings began to appear over the rise. They were nearing the outskirts of the resort. Miranda was thinking about telling their driver to pull over so they could walk the rest of the way when Parker’s dark voice floated over the seat.
“Did you tell Joca, Didi?”
Didi’s face burned with anger. “Tell him what you said to my mother about him?”
“Yes.”
She spat out a bitter laugh. “Of course, I did.”
Miranda’s heart almost stopped. “When?”
Her exotic eyes deep and dark, as if she was about to sputter out fiery nails, Didi spun around another curve. “I called him last night. I told him everything.”
Chapter Twenty
As soon as Didi dropped them off at the cottage and Parker had shut the door, Miranda spun around and glared at him. “It was Joca who sabotaged the beamer.”
“A few hours ago you were convinced it was Rico.”
“He knows who we are. He saw me yesterday when I took the picture in the pub.” She grunted out loud and stomped across the living room, both palms against her throbbing temples.
Parker was right. She was letting her outrage get the best of her. Sometimes she wished she could be as cool and detached as he was.
Then again, sometimes that was an act.
She kicked off her shoes, flopped down on the freshly made bed and tried to calm down. She was still shaken from their ride down the mountain. “Joca has motive.”
Parker took off his coat and tie and laid down next to her. “He does. And as far as we know, so does Rico.”
“And if Didi called him last night, he had plenty of time to stick a pin in our brake line.”
“If he knew which car was ours and where it was parked.”
She heard Parker’s shoes drop as he kick them off, felt the touch of his hand against her hair.
“She probably told him that.”
“Then she’s complicit.” He turned toward her, kissed her forehead.
“Yeah.” Didi might be temperamental and might hate their guts right now but Miranda didn’t think she’d stoop that low.
His strong arm went around her and he pulled her to him. She drank in his closeness, suddenly needing that sensation more than ever. She lifted herself on one elbow and studied the lines in his handsome face. He’d been shaken by their near accident.
Something she rarely saw in him.
Another shudder went through her. She closed her eyes and put her head against his chest.
Parker ran his hands over Miranda’s back as if trying to convince himself she wasn’t a dream. She was here. With him. They were both alive, thank God in heaven. What would he do if it had been otherwise?
He couldn’t shake the thought. The vision of going over the side of that mountain, tumbling over and over in the car, the engine hitting rock and bursting into flames. He saw himself reaching out for her, trying to save her. But she was gone.
Gone.
No, he told himself sternly. That had not happened. She was right here beside him. Part of him wanted to put her on a plane back to Atlanta where she’d be safe. The other part couldn’t bear to let her go.
He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to her mouth, needing the taste of her like an addict needed drink. She kissed him back, just as desperately. His fingers found the buttons of her blouse, began to undo them. Hers reached for his shirt.
They twisted and struggled, need burning inside them both, threatening to consume them, and at last they were naked. He ran his hands over her lovely breasts, the firm muscles of her abdomen. He heard her suck in her breath at the sensation and he felt a burst of strength.
He slipped between her thighs and she wrapped her legs around his backside, needing to be one. Just as he needed her. He plunged inside her and they cried out together in pleasure so sharp it was pain.
He worked against her, inside her. She met him stroke for stroke. Hard. Fast. Furious. They were one. They were one. Together. For always.
And when they reached the peak, the sensation knifed through him like a sharp exclamation point.
They were alive.
###
Miranda lay gasping next to Parker for wh
at seemed like half an hour. They had made love so many times since she’d met and married him. And yet she’d never felt so close. Never experience so sharp a sensation with him.
She lay her head against his chest and ran her fingers over the dark hair on his chest, traced the scar along his stomach. Life had given them both scars. Inside and out. But as long as they had each other, they could bear anything.
Parker was her life. He had given her the work that was her life.
On a weary inhale she realized they had better get back to that work. Her mind returned to Joca and Didi and their phone call last night.
“Maybe Joca pumped Didi for some information and deduced the rest.”
Parker took her face in her hands and studied her as if amazed she was thinking about the case again.
Why not? She was a professional and so was he. “What do you think?”
“It’s possible,” he said as if reluctantly rousing out of a pleasant dream.
“How are we going to find out?”
He sat up and ran his hands through his hair, coming back to the present. “A person doesn’t do something like that out of the blue. Joca would have done it before. Or committed similar vandalism.”
She let out a half groan. “I don’t suppose we can ask Gaspar if he’s got a record.”
“We can ask but I’m certain he won’t tell us.”
Or bother to look, since Joca was so popular. How could they find out about Joca’s past? Go to town and look up all his friends? How could they find one who’d tell two strangers the truth?
Her thoughts drifted back to the dinner last night and the faces under the chandelier light. Tia. Valdinho. Didi. Pipia.
She sat up. “I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Sisters. They tell each other all sorts of secrets.”
Slowly Parker turned to her, a wry smile of admiration on his face. He was back in PI mode. “Excellent thought. We’ll talk to Pipia.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The Watcher (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 4) Page 9
