Angel Falls

by Connie Mann

  Brooks took them right to the center of town. He parked in front of one of the dozens of small restaurants and, once inside, found them a table in the corner. He waited until the waitress had taken their order for café com leite and hard rolls before he crossed his arms on the table and leaned in close.

  “Start talking, lady. Now. From the beginning.”

  Her hackles rose at his tone. Somewhere during the long night she’d realized he couldn’t possibly be working with the shooter, but she still thought Brooks was hiding something. She just couldn’t figure out what. “Take your sunglasses off,” she retorted.

  He regarded her silently for several long moments before he slipped the lenses off and tucked one earpiece into the collar of Jorge’s well-worn T-shirt. Regina looked into his flat gray eyes and realized his emotions and feelings were just as hidden now as they had been behind the shades.

  “After I tell you what happened, I expect answers, too.”

  She took his grudging nod for assent.

  So, where to begin? She cleared her throat and fussed with the buttons on Eduardo’s sleeper. “My friend Irene, a . . .” she began.

  He reached across the table and tilted her chin up with one long finger so she had no choice but to meet his eyes. A tremor passed through her, but she did her best to ignore it.

  “Fair is fair,” he said, matter of fact.

  Regina fiddled with her glasses. “My friend Irene,” she began again.

  “Eduardo’s mother.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Would you mind not interrupting?”

  “Sorry. Just want to make sure I know all the players,” he said, but didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

  She took a fortifying breath. “Irene and I have been friends since we were children living on the streets. Your father, er, found us as teens and arranged for us to go to the States to school. We finished school and both even went to college. Scholarships. I studied nursing; Irene business. We came back to Brazil four years ago and became the orphanage’s codirectors.”

  When he opened his mouth to speak, she held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Just let me finish, okay?” She hated asking for even that much, but she wasn’t sure she could maintain her composure if she didn’t get it all said quickly.

  He inclined his head and she rushed on ahead of the tears clogging her throat.

  “About a year ago, I guess, Irene met a man in a café and told me she’d found the man of her dreams. He was a bit older, but he was kind, warm, established, and would take good care of her. When she found out she was pregnant, she just glowed. She felt guilty about having sex before marriage,” she added hastily, not wanting to give the wrong impression, “but after the childhood we’d had, she didn’t think she could ever have children.” She swallowed hard, fighting back the images of that horrible night when the shooter’s bullet had destroyed her own chance to ever bear a child. But this wasn’t about her; it was about Irene.

  Regina paused when the waitress brought their food, shoving emotion aside and focusing on the bare facts. She broke off a piece of her roll for Eduardo to suck on. “When Irene told the man she was pregnant, he panicked and finally admitted that he had a wife and three daughters—one of whom was almost the same age as Irene!”

  She lowered her voice as several patrons turned their way. “Irene was devastated. And furious. She felt so betrayed.”

  “Who was the father?” Brooks broke in.

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. And yes, I did my best to get the information out of her.” Regina took a sip of her coffee. “Anyway, I guess she told Noah, because he arranged for her to go to the States to have the baby there. He said he would help with immigration and everything.

  “But Eduardo had his own timetable,” she said, stroking a gentle hand over his round cheeks, “and arrived two months early. That changed everything. Irene told me she’d broken it off with the father, because she wouldn’t live a lie and wouldn’t destroy another woman’s family, either. She made me promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would make sure Eduardo was raised in a good home.”

  Her voice trailed off as she reached the hardest part of her tale. “Irene still planned to go to the States. On the way to the airport on Tuesday, Eduardo wouldn’t stop fussing, so we stopped at a small mercado to buy some juice. There were no parking spaces, so I told Irene I would take Eduardo and run inside while she waited in the car.”

  She tightened her grip on the boy and lowered her gaze. “I was paying for the juice when a terrible explosion knocked us to the ground. As soon as I got up, I raced outside.” She swallowed hard. “Irene’s car had blown up.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut against visions of the searing heat. The impenetrable flames. The terrible helplessness.

  “I tried to get to her, but I couldn’t save her. So I took Eduardo and ran,” she finished in a whisper.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Brooks said harshly.

  She met his eyes then, and this time the shutters were open and she could see the storm raging in them. Rage churned like a living thing, writhing in the icy depths.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” he commanded.

  Regina gave a harsh laugh and wiped at tears she hadn’t realized were there. “Easy for you to say.”

  “No. Not easy.” His voice turned hard and flat, and Regina sensed that was the most honest thing he’d yet said to her.

  In the blink of an eye, the shutters dropped over his eyes again masking all emotion. “So you think the shooter is the one who killed Irene? What did the police say?”

  Regina raised her hands in a gesture of confusion. “They first called it murder, but according to the papers, they ruled it an accident. Explosion in the gas tank.”

  “Had you smelled gas before you left the car?”

  She watched him over the rim of her coffee cup. “No. Nothing.”

  “You think it’s the baby’s father.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway, searching for a reaction, some clue whether Brooks was involved in this or not. She still wasn’t convinced his father, Noah, didn’t have something to do with this. “Not the father, but maybe someone who works for him. I got the impression he was somebody important and that he’d been using an assumed name around her.”

  His look sharpened. “Important, how? Government?”

  She studied his hard features, but they gave nothing away. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. If she had . . .” She let the thought trail off.

  “Think back. Had she seen him on TV, maybe? Shown some unusual reaction to a face on the news?”

  She snorted. “Senhor, we don’t own a television set, much less have time to watch one.”

  Brooks finished his coffee and set the cup back in the saucer. “Okay, do you know someone around here? Some place you can lay low for a while? I’ll make a few calls and get the police investigation headed in the right direction. Once they catch the shooter, you and the kid can go back home.”

  He was dismissing her. And Eduardo. Just like that. Relief that he wasn’t involved turned to indignation at his cavalier attitude. “Oh, I see. And what are you going to do while we’re in hiding? Get a tan? And how long might that be, anyway? I have an orphanage to run. I can’t hide those children for an entire police investigation.” Her voice rose. “This isn’t the good old US of A where the police are your friends. Truth and justice don’t hold a candle to bribery, and I don’t have that kind of money. Besides, I thought Eduardo needed tests right away.”

  He saw the interested glances aimed their way and ground out, “Keep your voice down.”

  Her expression turned mutinous. “How dare you . . .”

  “Look, lady, the way I see it, you have two choices. You can go into hiding with the kid while the police sort this out, or I can take him to the States, and you can go back to your precious orphanage. Either way, I’ll make a few calls to the right people to help things along.”

  “Oh, thanks a
lot. And you’re going to waltz out of here. Just like that.”

  His stare unnerved her, unblinking as a cat’s. “You got it.”

  “I don’t think so, Senhor Brooks. We—the three of us—are in this together, whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m just an errand boy, Senhorita da Silva. I came to pick up the kid. If you won’t give him to me, fine. I’ll just head out and the responsibility for his health and well-being will be on your shoulders.”

  In her twenty-eight years, Regina had met a slew of selfish, unfeeling men, but this one topped them all. Never had she met someone so cold and heartless. That this could be the same son so adored by Carol Anderson amazed her. Regina wouldn’t walk across the road with a cup of water if the insufferable beast were on fire.

  But there were two points that had to be made perfectly clear before he walked away. She met his unblinking stare head on and said words she wouldn’t have believed a week ago. “Your mother lied to you. There is nothing wrong with Eduardo.”

  The tiny twitch of his rock-hard jaw offered the only indication that she’d scored a direct hit. The thought brought her no satisfaction. Her next revelation would be even worse.

  Regina dug in the voluminous pocket of her sweater and drew out the photograph. She smoothed a few wrinkles out of it before she raised her head so she could gauge his reaction. “Whether you like it or not, Senhor, you are involved.”

  She set the photograph in front of him and waited.

  9

  BROOKS STEELED HIMSELF. WHATEVER AND WHOEVER HAD BEEN CAPTURED in that photo, he wasn’t going to like it. He could tell that much from the look on Regina’s face. Expression blank, he leaned over and picked it up.

  His features froze and his jaw clamped tight against a tide of anger he hadn’t felt since he’d been a naïve kid. He set the picture down before his hands started to shake. This wasn’t real. He’d wake up and find himself safely in his dumpy garage apartment in the Florida Keys.

  But it was real. The photo was just like the one he’d received on his eighteenth birthday. He blinked and looked again. There stood his father—whiter hair now than in the other picture—with his arms around a pregnant woman. The only difference between the photos was the woman wrapped in his arms.

  Brooks looked up. “Irene?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I found it among Irene’s things. After she died, I went through her drawers looking for clues.” Disappointment and sadness showed in her eyes. “I never expected that.”

  He kept his voice neutral. “You think he’s the father?”

  “I don’t want to. But it all points that way, doesn’t it?”

  Brooks nodded once, then scooped up the photo and the check. “Let’s get out of here and find a place to lay low for the day.”

  He loaded them into the car and found a tidy chalet up the hill and off the main road. He ignored Regina’s raised eyebrow when he paid cash and signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. Smythe.

  The sloped roof of their attic room forced him to duck just to get inside, but it provided an excellent view of the road and the surrounding area. “Why don’t you and the kid get some shut-eye? I have a few calls to make.”

  She grabbed his sleeve before he could make his escape and heat streaked down his arm at her touch. Her hands were rough, the strong hands of a woman who mothered thirty-odd children and could be tough when she had to be. Why that appealed to him, he couldn’t have said.

  Her grip tightened. “You’d better not run out on us.”

  Since he’d considered it, his voice turned gruff. “Lady, if I decide to leave, you’ll be the first to know. I’m no coward.”

  Her chin came up. “No? Then how come all I’ve heard from you is how this isn’t your problem?”

  He swallowed the words screaming to be said and took back every nice thing he’d thought about her. The woman had no mercy and went straight for the jugular. “Don’t let anyone in and don’t go out. I’ll be back.”

  “You’d better be. Because you’re not going anywhere without this.” She waved his passport at him and then tucked it smugly into that ratty sweater.

  If he went after her now, he might break her scrawny little neck. Or kiss her senseless. No matter how tempting, neither was a viable option. It took every ounce of his self-control not to slam the door as he marched out.

  Regina plopped down on the bed and let the shakes come. She couldn’t believe she’d stood up to him that way. Even more amazing was the fact that he hadn’t smacked her for her audacity. He’d been tempted. That much she knew. But he hadn’t.

  Something inside her eased a fraction. That Senhor Brooks could be lethal, she had absolutely no doubt. She’d seen how he behaved in the car when they were being chased, and how he’d responded when the shooting started. The man was a trained killer. But he wasn’t cruel. Selfish, yes. A coward? Possibly. But in a life-and-death situation, he hadn’t hesitated.

  Her cheeks flamed as she remembered the way he’d tackled her in her office and protected her with his body. He hadn’t even tried an “accidental” grope. On some level, the man had a code of honor.

  Every once in a while, when he thought she wasn’t looking, she saw shadows in his eyes. Pain, deep and dark, lingered there. She couldn’t be sure how she knew; only that she did.

  And when he’d seen the photograph? The sharp sting of betrayal. She’d felt it herself when she found the picture. Noah had always been her hero, her idol, the one man all others should aspire to be like. He’d introduced her to Christ through his words and actions. To discover Noah’s feet of clay and have him tumble from the pedestal she’d kept him on tore at her soul. Her heart filled with sudden empathy. How much more difficult would this be for his own son?

  Beside her on the bed, Eduardo yawned and settled more comfortably into sleep. If the photo meant what they thought it did, then Eduardo and Brooks were half-brothers. It was a lot to deal with.

  And then she thought of Carol. She’d lied to her son about Eduardo. Why? Did she know the child was Noah’s and want Eduardo in the States to keep the secret from coming out? But that wouldn’t make sense. It would be easier if he stayed in Brazil.

  Regina yawned, exhaustion pulling at her. Something else nagged at her, some stray thought she should remember, but it hovered just out of reach. With Eduardo dozing, she should get some sleep, too. They were safe—at least for the moment—so she slipped off her shoes and glasses, loosened her hair, and climbed under the covers next to Eduardo.

  They had vanished. The man sat on his expensive silk sheets and threw his cell phone across the room. It bounced off the flocked wallpaper in his apartment and landed behind the marble-topped dresser. No one had seen them. He’d driven around all night. Nothing.

  Finally, this morning, he’d had an idea. He began calling the Rodoviaria, explaining to the highway patrol that he’d somehow gotten separated from his friends from America and desperately needed to find them. They tried to be helpful, but unfortunately, no one had seen them.

  He hopped up and winced at the pain in his shoulder. He would think past it. Just like he had in prison. He dropped down and began one-handed push-ups, not stopping until sometime after 200, when his shoulder opened up and blood dripped onto the white tile floor.

  He bandaged his shoulder again and picked up the photo of his sister, kissing it gently. “They will pay, minha irma. Don’t worry, sister, they will pay.”

  He closed his eyes and blocked all thought. A bit of quiet meditation would help him find the answers he sought. After a time, his eyes popped open, glazed with pain but burning with a fervent light.

  There were only so many routes out of the city. He would take each one and personally ask at the Rodoviaria. They couldn’t have disappeared. Somewhere, someone had seen them.

  And he would find them.

  The boy had to die.

  Regina slept soundly when Brooks let himself into the room. Afternoon
shadows lengthened across the bed where she and the boy slept. Brooks lowered himself into an upholstered armchair and watched them, emotions churning in his gut.

  The boy was his brother. He was having a hard time accepting that fact. The child slept on his stomach, with his little rump pointing straight up. Looked cute like that. Vulnerable. Brooks’s heart pounded as he studied the tiny profile. Eduardo didn’t have the gray eyes common to males in the Anderson family. But the nose . . .

  He rubbed a weary hand over his face. He’d picked up the phone to call his mother three different times while he was out, but he hadn’t. According to her, Noah could die. Dollars to donuts Noah had asked her to get the kid to the States, but hadn’t told her about his latest fling. Noah wouldn’t have mentioned Brooks’s own heritage years ago if he hadn’t been forced into it. His mother had suffered enough. Brooks wouldn’t add to her pain now. What good would it do? The woman, Irene, was dead, and it looked like Noah might soon be, too.

  The thought brought a heaviness he hadn’t expected. He’d thought his old man’s death would be cause for celebration. Freedom, at the very least. But lately, his thoughts turned more and more to the man who’d sired him.

  Like pictures in a digital photo frame, snapshots of his childhood flashed through his mind. Himself as a toddler, hands in his pockets in perfect imitation of Noah’s stance. Another shot, of father and teenage son on a camping trip. He’d tried to hide from these long-ago images, to harden his heart, but they snuck in while he slept, mingling in his nightmares with the screams of his men.

  Brooks shook the memories away, frustration clawing at his gut. He needed answers about the ambush, knew he’d never sleep through another night until he did, but if he left now, he’d be signing the woman and child’s death warrants.