“Are you absolutely sure?” Leonardo asked.
“Yes. I was dating this nurse back then, and she confessed it to me and made me promise I wouldn’t tell. But when I saw you today, it was a sign. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say anything.”
Leonardo thrust his fingers in his brown hair. “Who could have—”
“Harry.” She verbalized it before she kept up with her racing mind. “He took her from me.” Bile floated up her throat, and she had to cover her mouth and swallow hard not to get sick. When she fled the youth house and the system with Harry, he tried to mold her into the perfect daughter of a crook.
Unfortunately for him, after a single attempt, she had turned him down, even threatened to cut ties if he shared any illicit side business information with her. He had conceded, and for years they both lived like a surrogate family. That is, until he used her to attract Leonardo, and to steal from him. To then scold her when she decided to keep her pregnancy. Disowned her when she confided she would look for Leonardo once the baby was born. After all, Harry knew he would go to jail if she testified against him. Did he steal her baby in retaliation?
Leonardo growled. “That director lied to us. I’m going to go back there and make him spill the beans,” he said, rolling the sleeves of his shirt.
“Wait.” She grasped his elbow. “We need to think this through. If you go in there and accuse him, he can just call Harry and warn him and then we’ll never find her.”
Never. Find. Her. The words got trapped in her dry throat, and she had to swallow twice. There was no way she’d lose her daughter again.
“The miss is right.” The man nodded.
The contours of Leonardo’s face hardened. She didn’t miss the flash of raw emotion, and wondered if they shared at least that in common. Love for their daughter. “Do you know where that nurse lives?”
“I think so. I have been there once. She quit and—”
“Okay. We’re going there right now. She may be the key for finding out the truth.”
The man gestured with his hands. “But, sir, my job—”
“I will make sure you are well compensated for your time if you still wish to work in that hellhole. If not, I will pull some strings and help you get a job somewhere else. But now I need to find out what happened to my daughter. And nothing, and no one, will stop me,” Leonardo said, in a commanding voice that reverberated through her.
Chapter Five
“Do we trust this guy?” Satyanna asked as the three of them slid out of the Town Car. The driver had suggested parking a couple streets away from the favela, so they’d walk their way on the dirt road.
He lifted his index finger and gestured for her to be quiet. The last thing he needed was for the folks around them to hear someone speaking English. Satyanna’s fiery red hair was a dead giveaway she could be a gringa, or maybe they’d assume she was the Brazilian daughter of European immigrants. Either way, he couldn’t risk it, not when the future of his daughter was at stake.
Satyanna made a face and rolled her eyes to tell him silently he still hadn’t answered her. Did they trust Luiz, who was taking them to the nurse’s house in the slums?
The cleaning guy had a lot to lose—his work, which wasn’t high paying or anything, but with the recent dip in the Brazilian economy, there was no way someone would make up a story like that. If Luiz tried to do any kind of scheme, he’d be sorry.
Besides, since when was there a “we?” Leonardo leaned forward to whisper, “For now, he’s the only clue we have. I told you, you could have waited with my driver in my car,” he said, adding inwardly he would have locked the doors and ensured his driver didn’t let her out. He still didn’t trust her. Just because she actually gave birth like she said she did, that didn’t make her a saint overnight.
Hell. There was a baby girl somewhere in the world with his DNA, with maybe his eye color or skin tone. And he would never forgive himself if he didn’t find her.
“I know, I’m just—”
“It’s safer if you don’t speak English here, remember?” He covered her lips with his finger and shushed her. Luiz talked to the couple of thugs who stood by an old Volkswagen Beetle at the entrance of the community. Satyanna glanced down like he had suggested, and finally she was following his advice.
He hadn’t had time to hire a security team or even tell his brother what he was doing. Hell, he was his own person. He had helped raise his younger siblings, and he had taken care of his sick mother, and later on in life, his father. Problem solving wasn’t simply a way of life, it had been his survival technique for most of his existence.
Without his suit and with sleeves rolled up and top buttons opened, he hoped he’d come across a lot less stuffy than before. He glanced around and saw a woman balancing a huge ball of fabric—the poor man’s load of laundry—on her head, while she carried a baby on her lap and two barefoot children followed, his heart shrank. He quirked up his lip and offered her a sympathetic half smile and she strolled by them. She nodded and kept walking with the kids.
During his childhood he’d seen that scene far too many times. Underprivileged women balancing their clothes as they took them to wash in a river, and sometimes they worked as laundresses and washed other people’s outfits for money. Change money.
“Senhor?” Luiz called him.
He blinked and stretched to his full weight. The two men sized him up, and Leonardo narrowed his eyes. If it came to that, he could take them. They were average height and build, although their cargo shorts and T-shirts probably concealed handguns or knives.
Luiz took off his ratty baseball hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I was telling them how we’re visiting my friend Jacinta Carla.”
One of them snickered. “Well, you need to turn around, because Jacinta Carla moved.”
“She moved?” Luiz asked.
Leonardo gave Satyanna a light squeeze of her hand, and hoped she wouldn’t speak. The last thing they needed was a tourist caught up in the middle of the operation to find the nurse. A missing nurse. His heart skipped a beat. “How long ago?”
“About three months,” said the other, smoking a cigarette.
“Where did she go?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” the non-smoker said.
Luiz flashed him an apologetic look, then said, “She lived with her mother. Is her mother still here?”
The guy leaned against the bug and smoked some more. “Yes. Lucky bitch left her annoying mom behind.”
“Then we’d like to talk to her,” Leonardo said, impatience washing over him. He knew what this was all about.
“Hold up. You’re not a cop, are you?”
Reaching to his wallet in his back pocket, he sighed. “No. We need to find her, and there are two thousand reais in my wallet that say you will let us through.”
“Well, who am I to argue with cold hard cash?” one of them said, and stuck out his hand while the other laughed. “Just be quick.”
“I remember the way,” Luiz said to the men.
“Good, because we weren’t about to take you all on a grand tour, princess,” one of them said, and the other laughed.
They walked through several small houses. He could see the brick and cement on some of them, while others had fading paint. Stray, skinny dogs wandered the streets, a couple of them sleeping lazily on porches.
“What the hell is going on?” Satyanna whispered. “Things seemed tense there for a moment.”
“Jacinta has moved, but her mother lives here. We’ll ask her what happened.”
“Crap. That doesn’t sound like good news. What if Jacinta disappeared from the face of the Earth? Worse, what if she’s dead?” Satyanna asked, despair flickering in her eyes.
“We’ll find her,” he said between his teeth.
Luiz stopped in front of a house with a door that had been stained from the sun. There wasn’t a porch like the others, but a couple small flowerpots by the entrance. He knocked, and after
several seconds, a lady with glasses and a limp in her gait opened her door.
“O que vocês querem?” she asked, scrutinizing them one by one.
“We need to talk to Jacinta. Your daughter,” Leonardo said. Why waste time with small talk?
She shook her head and opened the door for them to come in. “What has she done this time?” she asked calmly, like it was no big deal.
Leonardo gestured for Satyanna to enter, and Luiz preferred to stay by the door. Maybe he didn’t want to get more involved, or maybe he was watching for their safety. Some slums required authorization from their leader for an outsider to roam freely. Leonardo doubted those two clowns at the entrance were it.
“My boss just bought the clinic she worked for downtown,” Leonardo said, and flashed her a smile. “I’ve noticed they didn’t pay all her vacation days, and I would love to mail her a check.” He had opted for not leaving any trace of information about his daughter. The less other people knew, the better.
She gave him a skeptical glance and rubbed her shoulder as if to alleviate an old ache. “Well, why don’t you give me the money? I’m her mother.”
“He can’t. It has to be made out to her,” Satyanna said before he could squeeze another word in.
The woman drew back, as if trying to understand Satyanna’s heavily accented Portuguese. A wave of admiration swept through him. When he met her, she spoke only the most basic words. A year in hiding had certainly given her time to improve her language skills, a bitter part of him thought.
“And you all came here to say that?”
“I’m only following orders, senhora. I tried to call you on the phone, but it’s been disconnected. My boss doesn’t want any loose ends. He may be trying to get into politics next year. You know how it is.”
She waved him off. “Políticos. Of course I do. Okay, fine. Let me go find the address.”
“Thank you.”
A cat purred in the loveseat, and she went through an address book, licking her finger to separate the pages until she said, “Here it is. I’ll write it for you.” She leaned over what passed for a table and jotted the information on a piece of envelope. “There.”
Leonardo glanced at it. “Maranhão.”
Not only had Jacinta left the community, she left the state of Rio. “Interesting. Why did she leave? What is she doing there?”
“Be damned if I know. Said she got a better-paying job; she calls twice a month and occasionally sends money. That’s my daughter for you.”
“Thanks for the information. And, please, if she calls within the next couple days, don’t tell her about our visit. It’ll be great if the check is a surprise.”
The woman shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
…
“Why did you never tell me about this woman? That you were looking for her?” Bruno demanded on the other side of the line.
Leonardo stared at his half-empty tumbler. Why would he have buried that ghost from the past? His brother was happily married, and didn’t deserve to hear him nag about a greedy woman who stole from him. “I may have mentioned her once.”
“I knew you had unfinished business with someone, but I didn’t know she was the one who stole your sculpture. Or that you were actively searching for her,” Bruno said.
Shaking his head, Leonardo rocked from his swivel chair and walked to the console table. Holding the cordless phone with one hand, he poured more whiskey into the square glass with the other. When he bought the coveted twenty-year-old bottle, he imagined he’d open it to celebrate a victory in court, or maybe on a date with a beautiful woman. “That’s not the point now.” Last thing he needed was for his brother to get him to talk about stuff that was better left alone.
“What are you going to do?”
“We’ll fly to Maranhão first thing in the morning. I would have gone today, but the jet was on maintenance. I’ll find that nurse. We believe she’s the key to finding what happened to Lyanna. When I have my daughter back, I will make sure whoever was involved will be prosecuted.”
“Man. I’m sorry about all this. You know, though, that there’s a possibility—”
Leonardo gulped down a generous shot, the liquid burning down his throat. The heady sensation spread through him, and limbs loosened for a moment until reality struck him again. Even though having a baby with Satyanna hadn’t been in his grand life plans, he would be the best parent he could. That’s what his father would have wanted him to do—that was the right thing to do.
He wouldn’t marry her, of course. That idea was foolish and impossible. Marriage was a lifelong commitment, one he’d gladly make when he found the right woman for him. Like his father had found his mother. He wouldn’t simply sign his happiness away in the name of conventions or practicality. Detouring wasn’t his thing.
“I will find her,” he said between his teeth. “I refuse to think about any other possibilities.”
“Good. I will help you with whatever you need. You’re not in this alone,” Bruno said.
“I don’t want to bother you, especially with Addie pregnant.”
“No bother. She’s great and so is the baby.”
Silence.
Leonardo rubbed his temples.
“Shit, that was stupid to say. Sorry—”
“It’s okay. It’s all new, and it hasn’t sunk in yet. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow.” He hung up the phone and took a long, deep breath. Alcohol wouldn’t give him the solace he needed. Talk about a twist. A day ago, his life was where it needed to be—besides plotting for revenge. And now somehow his priorities had shifted. Rather, his motivations.
He still wanted Harry to pay, and he didn’t believe her one hundred percent. Hell, he had locked his duplex and kept the key, hadn’t he? There was no way out for her.
A knock on his library door had him lift his gaze.
“Hey. Any news?” Her voice was soft.
A long, white nightgown snugged her body. Why did he not explain to Laura he needed more modest clothes for her? Even though it wasn’t see-through, he had to blink twice to keep from staring at the elegant curve of her neck, and the valley of exposed skin of the V-neck cut. Thankfully her long, lean legs were hidden.
“What do you want?”
She crossed her arms. “I’d like my daughter back, but for now I will settle for some company.”
“I’m not in a cheerful mood.”
She smiled a little. “Good, I’d hate for you to change your ways for little old me.”
For a moment, it was like they signed an invisible, unspoken truce. Even though he didn’t say a word, he watched her, how the dim light hit her kinky scarlet curls. A soft sigh escaped her lips. His fingers tingled because he was a fool, and caught himself staring at the freckles peppering her nose and cheeks. He had never noticed them before. Did she wear makeup to conceal them? Why would anyone commit such crime?
Not my business. He stepped away from her, and she frowned. “You said you had an argument with Harry before your blood pressure spiked and you were sent to the clinic. What was it about?”
She clamped her lips, arms crossed as if to shield her from the truth. “He said we could use the baby to our advantage. To get money from you.”
“What?” he yelled. “You were friends with someone like that?” And who knows what else. Although Harry was far too old to be her lover, Leonardo wasn’t sure about anything anymore. A strange chilly sensation surged through him.
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I wasn’t. Trust me, I was desperate to stay away from him. We always had a difficult relationship. For the longest time, even though he wasn’t perfect, he was the only family I had. You wouldn’t know what that’s like,” she said, her voice losing energy at the end.
He sighed. Finally, they agreed on something. However, bragging about his close-knit relationship with his siblings wouldn’t take him anywhere. Besides, it wasn’t like his relationship with his older brother Bruno, for instance, had always been tight. For many years, it
’d been strained and distant.
“Why didn’t he take you back to the States a year ago?”
She leaned against one of his many floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Her citrusy scent swirled around him, adding a notch of lightness to the ambience of polished dark mahogany furniture, and many first edition, leather-bound books. “After he stole from you, the next day he wanted to. When he showed me the sculpture, I didn’t want to go with him. He disowned me and went by himself, maybe to teach me a lesson. I stayed, because I had some money set aside and wanted to lay low for a while. Away from him.”
“Then?”
“Then three weeks later I learned I was pregnant. He had taken my passport with him, and I knew you were looking for me. Once the detective you hired almost found me. My then next-door neighbor tipped me off, and I was able to flee.”
He scratched his chin. “Why didn’t you look for me? If you were telling me the truth?”
“The theft of the sculpture made it to the news. Things escalated in such a way I knew you wouldn’t forgive me. Would you? If I had showed up at your doorstep, not pregnant for instance?” she said, looking at him straight in the eye.
“No.”
“What would you have done?”
He took one last swig of the whisky and sat it on a shelf. This time, the alcohol didn’t burn his throat as much. “I believe in doing the right thing. This country has enough problems because a lot of people always choose the easy way out.” Life had taught him since an early age that the worst happened otherwise.
“You never make mistakes,” she said.
“You were one of them.”
“Of course. And I always will be, right?”
“Right.” There was no denying it. Growing up, he had to step up to the plate of taking care of a sick mother after his brother left to the States. Although now things were squared away between him and Bruno, Leonardo learned the hard way the price he had to pay for believing his brother’s lies. But that wasn’t the issue right now.
“What if …” she started, her voice trailing off. He stepped toward her. “What do you think could have happened to our girl?”
Brazilian Revenge (The Brazilians) Page 5
