by Nancy Gideon
Born of a Peruvian mother and a transient father working the lumber factories, she'd been able to escape her country's poverty, returning to the U.S. with her father to be educated in California. Rosa and Berkley in the ‘60s had been a beautiful match. When she brought that energy for change and revolution back to the rain forest, the government hadn't known what to make of her and her unorthodox methods of garnering attention to her cause. She was a hard woman to ignore, swaddling her amazing girth in bright woven patterns and her chubby wrist with a Rolex, calling down favors from influential friends who'd shared hashish with her in her squalid apartment and then chose not to be embarrassed by those reminders now that they held prestigious conservative positions of power. She'd done more single-handedly than any of the thirty-something native organizations pledged to defend the rights of the Peruvian Indians.
And she'd been Sheba's idol.
With Sheba's own modest and sheltered upbringing, Rosa had swept her imagination away with her ribald stories and endless enthusiasms. Against her conservative family's wishes, she'd snuck away to dress up in Rosa's silky scarves and bold cosmetics while a rapt audience for Rosa's instructions on life. A life far different from the one she'd seen firsthand. And a further cry from the one her parents had taught her was proper.
But it hadn't all been scandalous talk that would make most seasoned sailors blush. She'd fired in the young girl a desire to make a difference, a need to protect the innocent from exploitation. And she'd done her best to make Rosa proud of her successes the way a parent would be. The way her parents might have been. They'd always taught her to pick a cause and follow through. But would they have approved of the mission she'd chosen? A twinge of guilt always accompanied that question because, deep down, she knew the answer.
She was treading upon all they had held sacred.
"So, Mr. Cobb, what brings you to Peru?” Rosa drew a connecting glance between him and Sheba, supplying the innuendo with a lift of her heavily drawn-on brows.
"I represent the company that funds Paulo's work. I'm here in an observational capacity only.” And he smiled disarmingly to convince the shrewd woman of his harmless intentions.
She wasn't buying it, but neither did she choose to challenge his claim. At least for the moment.
Their meals arrived and they ate with gusto, the trio reveling in their shared past and Cobb—grateful there was nothing hot contained in his food—content to listen and learn about his traveling companions.
Of the three of them, Paulo Lemos appeared the least complex. Highly educated, respected and purely motivated, he should have seemed the perfect match for the adventurous Sheba Reynard. Yet something about his interest in the ethnologist bothered him with the irritation of something wedged between tooth and gum that he couldn't leave alone. And it couldn't have been anything as basic as the sublime sexiness of Sheba's pouty lips.
No, Sheba Reynard was nothing he wanted to mess with. He'd learned his lesson in dealing with strong-willed females. They were best left to run their own course, be it one of self-destruction or self-fulfilling happiness. He had no time to participate in either path of discovery.
Her parents had been murdered when she was just a child. How had that shaped the character of quixotic woman sitting beside him? He found himself wanting to know. Paulo had hinted at tragedy and unresolved pain. Was that what woke her screaming at night? And why was such a lovely, earthy female still single and seemingly oblivious to the signals Paulo flashed with every overly brilliant smile? What put such an edge to her manner, as if she were teetering on the brink of a scream?
Was it because these modern day murders mimicked the one that evaded her memory?
He liked to have his answers all neatly relegated before he chose to act, but he got the feeling that Sheba Reynard was going to deny him that pleasure, just as he planned to deny himself many others. Like discovering if those ripe lips tasted as sweet as they looked.
To distract himself from inroads best left untraveled, he turned his attention to Rosa Kelly. On the surface, she appeared to be an eccentric old kook with a thing for the environment, but he sensed there was more to this alarming eyeful.
And was there more, as well, to the timing that brought her here to this place to share their boat ride to Peyton Samuels’ jungle retreat?
He ticked off those questions, aligning them according to priority and potential impact to his mission as he watched the three of them fondly reminisce. Their obvious closeness emphasized his estrangement from the scene. But being the odd wheel wasn't new to him. He'd spent his lifetime on the outside looking in and had long since stopped hungering for a way to fit into the picture of familial bliss. That's what made him so good at his job—his ability to alienate himself from the situation, to be a part but yet not belong. He'd almost forgotten himself on his last assignment and wore the reminder upon his cheek. No, it was far better to leave Dr. Reynard's intrigues alone and focus on what he was in Peru to accomplish, lest he come back with worse scars than those worn on the surface.
"So, Mr. Cobb,” Rosa began, jerking him abruptly into the conversation. “What's a Fed like you doing here in this humble place?"
"Who said I was a Fed?"
Rosa chided him with her robust chuckle. “Only everything, honey. The way you sit, the way you watch the crowd, the way your smile never reaches your eyes. I rubbed elbows with my share of Bureau boys when I was doing subversive stuff in the ‘70s, but my guess is your branch of the government is a little bit further out on the limb. Am I right, or would you have to kill us if you told us?"
He supplied a thin-lipped smile that only served to chill his gaze further. “If that's the case, are you sure it's worth the price of knowing?"
"Humor me, hon. I'm an old lady. What do I have to live for if not a little excitement now and then? And I just bet you've had your share of excitement."
"I lead a dull life. Really. I'm working for Harper Research, just like I told you."
"Hmmmm. And what else aren't you telling us?"
"If I told you, I wouldn't be a very good secret agent, now would I?"
"So you admit it!"
"Did I?"
She laughed loudly, drawing looks from several of the tables closest to them. “Oh, you must be good at your job. You've got that doublespeak down to a science. But I don't give up easily. I'm going to worm your secrets out of you by the time we get to Peyton's."
And though she was grinning amicably, Frank felt a sudden shiver of threat in taking her words at face value. Paulo glared at him as if to say, “Invisible, huh? Great job so far."
Great job, pal.
Time to gain a little of that objective distance.
"If you'll excuse me, I've got to find a phone."
Rosa smirked up at him as he stood. “Give J. Edgar our best."
He didn't mind Rosa's clever baiting, nor was he bothered by Paulo's obvious irritation. It was the way Sheba stared at him, expression perplexed and now suspicious, that made him want to wish the loud old woman would fall abruptly and inexplicably off the face of the earth.
Instead of searching out a telephone, he did his job quickly and efficiently, scouting the surrounding shops and cafes, noting the faces and postures of those sharing the quiet evening in proximity to the object of his attention. And he made himself invisible to those he protected, letting them talk and laugh with a careless abandon while he remained on the outside guaranteeing them their right to be oblivious to danger.
Until it came calling with a soft whisper.
"Cobb."
He spun about, still feeling the cool brush of his name breathed against the back of his neck where the hair now bristled in alarm. His hand went to the butt of his revolver.
No one was there.
His entire system tingled with the shock of surprise and helplessness. How had anyone gotten so close without his awareness? Who would know him by name?
The answer to both questions brought a rash of gooseflesh to his skin a
nd a fierce tightening of determination to his gut.
He could have been dead, just like that, but that wasn't the way this particular villain liked to do things. This demon liked to play. And play for keeps.
"You won't catch me with my guard down again,” he spoke aloud to the night, not knowing if he was heard, not caring if he let his quarry know he'd been recognized.
The game had begun.
Chapter Six
The night was balmy, and once the two women shared it alone seated in Sheba's room and sipping tepid beer, their topic turned from the general to the pointedly and poignantly specific.
"I wanted to come visit you."
Sheba took that direct admission like an arrow to the heart. She winced. “Then why didn't you?"
"At first, they thought it best that you see no one who would remind you of what had happened. And then it was like you'd fallen off the face of the earth. That place would tell me nothing, and by then Sam and I were no longer exactly friends. In the last few years, I'd catch glimpses of your work in magazines, but by the time I'd track you down, you'd already be gone to some godforsaken place like Borneo or Brooklyn."
Sheba smiled, coaxed from the sense of abandonment she'd struggled under for far too long. “I never could put down roots. Too much bad influence from those stories you told, I guess."
"I finally got a hold of Paulo and I was so—thrilled and I'll admit, surprised—to learn you were coming home. I made my reservations that same day.” Seeing the troubled puckering of Sheba's brow, she patted the younger woman's hand and asked, “What's wrong, hon? Is the past too painful now that you're back amongst all the memories?"
"That's just it, Rosa. I have no memories. None of that night at all."
"But I thought you were at a hospital."
"Hospitals can't cure every ill."
"So you don't remember?"
"Not any of it. Not going off that day to follow them into the jungle, not where we went, not what happened to them, not how I got back. Nothing."
"And you thought coming here would bring it all back?"
"I'd thought. I'd hoped."
"But?"
"Nothing so far.” She sighed heavily in her frustration. “If I just knew what happened to them, I could live with the rest, no matter what it might be."
"Maybe you'll just have to learn to live without knowing, child. I know that's harsh, but you've got to face that possibility. Sheba, do you really want to face all that pain and sorrow again? The first time, it nearly—"
"It nearly drove me mad. You don't have to be afraid to say it. But I'm stronger now. I've been getting stronger all along."
"But can you ever be ready for what you might find? Even if it's nothing at all?"
She let Rosa take her up close in a loose embrace. How right her old friend was. Which was worrying her more: finding the truth or living with the knowledge that it would never be known?
Rosa held her back to study her wan features. “How are you, Sheba? How are you really?"
"I'm fine, Rosa."
Red lips pursed to refute that. “Hon, don't con me. You could never lie when you were a little girl, and the habit never stuck to you since then."
"It's hell being back here, Rosa,” she finally admitted in a rush. And it felt good, so good, to purge that truth.
"Then why are you here, child?"
"Because I have to know."
"No matter how much it hurts? Or who it hurts?"
Who it hurts? What an odd way to put it. Who might be hurt by the solution to a two-decade-old mystery?
Unless the killer was someone she knew.
* * * *
The only way to see the Amazon was from the river. The natural highways cut through the rain forest in ever changing seasonal paths, transforming the landscape with their sinuous meanderings. At each bend, they undermined the forest, leaving a sheer mud and clay bank on one side and a broad beach of fine sand and silt on the other. When exposed to full sunlight, the banks became a colorful wall of climbing gourd vines whose large yellow, red and white flowers stood out in splashy contrast to the solid backdrop of green.
Stabilized by the fast-growing willow-like Tessera, the newly carved ground quickly spawned a crop of Cecropia trees which soared upward to form a canopy fifteen to eighteen meters over the Cana, a gap rapidly filled in by mahogany trees that would create a closed canopy at forty meters with a lush underscore of shade-loving Holocene and ginger.
Each twist of the river revealed something new and differed. Flooded forests where silk-cotton trees stood on giant buttressed roots with their straight stems poking up over thirty meters before splaying into an umbrella-like crown, gave way to seasonal oxbow lakes and floating meadows of herbaceous plants topped by passion fruit and morning glory vines. And everywhere there was life, from the sheep-sized capybara rodents drinking from the river's edge to small groups of spider monkeys performing lazy acrobatics in upper realms, leaving the lower level of epiphyte-clad trunks and branches to troops of saddle-backed and emperor tamarins foraging for blossoms, fruit and insects.
And amongst all the serene beauty, waiting patiently for opportunity to lend itself to a meal, were the predators: red-bellied piranhas with their lightning-speed attacks, the black caimans sunning themselves along the banks, and the huge coils of the anaconda ready to crush its prey into a more digestible form, reminding those who traveled the waterways not to get so caught up in the splendor that they ignored the darker elements.
And so Frank Cobb reminded himself as they puttered down the waterway in an ancient pequepeques river boat. Though he lounged in one of the deck hammocks strung beneath the stained and sagging overhead tarp, his attention rarely strayed from the woman seated on her big battered suitcase at the bow.
Her sun-bronzed features faced forward with a determined expression, belied by the way her arms wrapped about her in an almost consoling hug. Though she would try to appear the intrepid explorer, small clues betrayed her inner fears. Her eyes were shadowed by too little sleep. He'd been awake most of the night himself, listening to her restless thrashings once she'd returned to her room, just in case that invitation for a rescue came. The graceful line of her shoulders angled a bit too sharply to reflect anything but tension. Her quick breaths moved the open front of her khaki camp shirt in the faint, desperate rhythm of an animal cornered and faced with the deadly snap of an unavoidable trap. Slender fingers beat an expectant tattoo upon the curve of her thighs like the frantic flutter of a grounded bird unable to obtain flight. What was she so afraid of—what lay ahead or what she'd left behind?
Her past was unknown to him, but he had a pretty good idea what they were heading into, and it filled him with an anxious dread. If what he suspected awaited them, she had every reason for her fear. And he had every reason to question his ability to protect her.
He'd failed before, and that failure left its mark more harshly on his psyche than upon his scarred face. He hated failure, and this was one he meant to rectify fully and finally if Peyton Samuels’ monster and his own were the same. And if his duty to Lemos clashed with his own need for revenge ... he would work that out if and when the time came.
Lemos had been silent since they left the dock. Though he made every pretense of pouring over the books and papers that came with his latest shipment of goods, he too was preoccupied by the woman in the boat's bow. How much more did he know of the demons she traveled with? What part had he, her inseparable childhood friend, played in her past trauma? What was behind his insistence that her presence was the condition for allowing Cobb to protect him? A happy reunion? The chance to forge a romantic bond? Or something else, something less savory and stained by dark intentions?
Lemos was the job. Frank reminded himself of that. The man's motives, his shortcomings, his personality didn't enter into it. Frank was here to give his life if needs be to see that Paulo Lemos delivered. His own qualms and questions didn't play a part in that equation. And it didn't say much as t
o the value placed upon his own life. But that was the job.
He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun off the water, against the sight of the woman at the bow. And he tried to remember why the job superseded all else.
* * * *
Sheba tried to see the beauty of the country she'd grown up in, but within the lush green tangle of forest, she was only aware of the shadows of threat and danger.
The last time she'd been in-country she'd been a child, protected by a child's innate sense of indestructibility and by the belief that nothing could rock the safety of the world in which her parents sheltered her. She'd known no fear, no prejudice, no uncertainties that her future would not continue, as contented and fulfilling, beyond the next golden sunset. She'd been a child of the forest, playing beneath its majestic canopy with the fearlessness of one of the squirrel monkeys leaping through its boughs. And she'd truly believed that nothing could harm her.
How wrong she'd been.
She would never look at anything through those innocent child's eyes again.
She blinked away the sting of memory, denying its power over her. She was here for Paulo, for the sake of their friendship. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at the sight of him hunched over his studies. That much hadn't changed. Always the scholar. Beyond him, Rosa slumbered noisily in one of the hammocks and Cobb stretched out silently in another. She didn't know if he slept. She'd gotten used to the idea of him being like the armed forces: Always ready. Always prepared. And she felt safer for it.
Time was growing short. They would reach the Reserve by nightfall, and there was much she needed to learn if she was to be prepared herself.
Paulo looked up from his books as her shadow crossed the pages. His gaze warmed in welcome.
"Ah, there's my girl. Come for a lesson in botany?"
Her taut smile clued him in before the terse words followed. “We need to talk, Paulo. About the ruins."
Without comment, he cleared the crate beside him of its stack of periodicals and gestured for her to sit down. “You're wanting to know if they are the same ones."
