Ransom in Rio

by Theresa Lynn Hall

  “You have a really good sense of humor,” she said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Class clown in school. I also have four brothers. I’m the youngest so I had to learn how to make them laugh so they wouldn’t beat me up. It’s basically a survival tactic.”

  “I bet you were hilarious when you were younger. I wasn’t the comedian in our family. That role belonged to Jace—for what it was worth. No one in my house laughed much.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. You seem to have turned out great…in spite of everything.”

  She shrugged. “I guess so. I was lucky to have Jace. He made me laugh a lot.” At the mention of his name, her throat tightened. A warm hand touched hers and she looked up into eyes the color of ocean water inches from her face. Before she could say anything, he placed a kiss on her cheek.

  The feel of his mouth on her skin felt electric. She was as good as gone. She smiled and managed a strangled, “Thank you.”

  “I hate dancing,” he said, holding her gaze with his eyes. “I mean I really hate it. I hate crowds too.”

  She didn’t know if it was the spirit of the night, the music, or the fact that she was falling for this man, but whatever it was, she was going along for the ride. He leaned in and touched her mouth with a gentle whisper of his lips. It was a shadow of a kiss, but she felt it to her toes.

  “Promise me you’ll find who killed my brother,” she whispered. She wanted him to make so many other promises to her in that moment. Instead, she asked him for the one promise she knew he would keep.

  “I promise.” He rubbed the top of her hand with his thumb, then placed a kiss on her forehead.

  She wanted to sit in that moment as long as time would allow, but like everything else that felt good in her life, it was short-lived.

  “I think I’m going to grab something to eat. Promise you’ll stay here at the table with your family. I’ll get enough for us both to share, if you want.”

  “Sure. I’ll be right here.”

  She watched him walk away. She liked the way his broad shoulders filled out the tuxedo jacket. She liked the way he walked with a little saunter in his step. It reminded her of how the jocks in high school walked down the halls on game day.

  “You’re falling in love, dolce anjo.”

  Her aunt’s words slapped her in the face. The gasp she took in must have resonated around the family’s table. Several of her cousins looked up in surprise, although she was sure they hadn’t heard her aunt’s words.

  “Tia! Why would you say that? He works for me.”

  “Ah, but the heart works for no one. It does what it wants.”

  She knew what he’d said about not leaving the table, but she had to get away from the eyes that were on her. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back. I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’ve had something in my eye all night.” She faked a blink and wiped at the corner of her left eye with an index finger.

  “OK, angel. Hurry back,” Sofia said.

  Lexi pulled the skirt of her green dress up a little so she could walk easier through the crowd. She passed a table where some scantily clad women had obviously indulged a little too much in something intoxicating. It was Carnival, after all. She excused herself as one of the women jumped up and bumped into her. After making her way to the ladies’ room, she glanced back to see if Brayden was at their table, but the crowd was too thick to see through.

  She exited down the hallway leading to the restrooms. As Lexi waited in line behind several other women, she noticed no one came to get in line behind her. Something felt odd to her all of a sudden. The line had been long when she’d rounded the corner. Now, it seemed as if no one needed the restrooms. She should’ve listened to Brayden. She had to get back to the table. As she turned in the direction of the ballroom, a hand tightened around her arm. She pulled away but the force only grew stronger. She tried to see who was behind her, but the feel of something cold on her neck forced her to turn back around.

  “Not a good idea. You walk and you won’t get hurt. Yet.”

  Lexi remembered when she was nine and a police officer had come to her girl scout meeting to tell them how to get away from strangers. One of the methods: yell, make a lot of noise, draw attention to yourself. She opened her mouth to yell over the music. If she left the hotel she was as good as dead.

  Something loud vibrated in her ears. Then the world went black.

  6

  Brayden carried two plates of hors d’oeuvres back to the table, scolding himself for kissing her. He knew better than to give in to his desires. His resolve had crumbled, and he’d acted like a goofy teenager. Leaving her at the table was making him nervous, but he had to get away from her to get his mind straight. This was business, and he knew it. He wouldn’t make another mistake tonight.

  As soon as he approached the table, he knew something was wrong. Lexi was gone. He scanned the room for her red hair and green dress.

  He thrust the plates of food onto the table. “Where did she go?” he asked her aunt.

  “She had something in her eye.” Her aunt laughed at what could only be a private joke that he wasn’t getting.

  Panic set in, and he went into professional mode. He weaved his way in and out of tables, raced past the long line of women waiting outside the restroom door, and reached around a woman wearing a mask and dressed like a bumble bee. He flung open the bathroom door.

  “Lexi!”

  No one answered.

  An elderly woman appeared in the door and glared at him.

  “Have you seen a woman with red hair wearing a green dress?”

  The woman stared blankly at him.

  “Cabelo vermelho mulher. Vestido verde,” he repeated. His Portuguese was a bit rusty, but he knew enough to get his point across. How many redheads in a green dress could there be?

  “Nao.” She shook her head as she darted past him.

  He raced back into the ballroom and scanned the room. There were too many people to see into the crowds. He ran back into the corridor and called her name. Sofia, Pedro, and a couple of other people he didn’t know joined him in the hallway.

  “What’s wrong?” Pedro asked.

  “I told her to wait for me at the table.”

  “Maybe she went back to the house. I know she was tired, and her heart is hurting over the death of Jace,” Sofia said. “And she doesn’t like to be embarrassed. I’m sorry. We were only playful with our teasing.”

  Brayden didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “No, she wouldn’t leave without me. She knows the dangers.”

  “Danger? What danger?” Sofia grabbed his arm.

  He knew better than to slip up like that. Where was his head? “The whole Carnival thing is a lot to deal with, especially since she’s been grieving. It’s not safe for her to be out alone.”

  It didn’t matter if they believed him or not. He was wasting precious time. “I’ll be back.” He yelled out her name again and raced through the crowd toward the front of the hotel. He had to find her. She’d been ripped right out from under his nose. And he’d let it happen. Brayden grabbed his cellphone from his pocket and called Luke.

  “They got her.”

  “Who?”

  “Lexi. They got her.”

  “What? How?”

  “She left to go to the ladies’ room and someone took her. I should have stayed with her every second.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, maybe she’s—”

  “Trust me. She’s gone.”

  “I can’t believe it!” The line lapsed into silence.

  “What do you have for me, Luke? Can you help me out? Any names of suspects?”

  “Well…we have a few names so far, but need time to check them out.”

  “We don’t have time, man. We’ve got forty-eight hours to find her, and then you know what that means.”

  “I gotcha. I’m working on—”

  Brayden disconnected the call.

  He shoved his phone into his pocket and w
ent back into the hotel lobby. He scanned the room. The undercover security officer stood near the entrance to the ballroom. Brayden signaled to him and waited for the man to walk down the hall and disappear into a room marked with a sign: STAFF Do Not Enter. Luke had alerted the security staff hours before they arrived so they would be ready to act if something happened to Lexi. Brayden scanned the hallway one last time then went in.

  As he entered the room, his heart raced. Every second wasted was crucial. Hotel security guards were ready to work with him.

  “What do you have?” he asked as he entered the room.

  “We’ve pulled surveillance cameras. Look here. It shows a woman grabbing her by the arm. A man wearing a mask comes up behind her, tells her something and she walks away with them. She appears to struggle at first, but then the man hits her over the head. I can’t tell what with, but it knocked her out.”

  His heart sank. At least she wasn’t going willingly.

  “It doesn’t look like she knew him,” Brayden said.

  “Hard to say, but her body language says she was being threatened. She walked quickly and looked like she was trying to stall them just before they hit her.”

  “Enlarge it. Show me who I’m looking for.” He studied the faces on the monitor and cringed at the thought of Lexi being alone with a lunatic.

  His phone rang. “McCoy,” he said. He held his breath for any news.

  “Henry Ramos just received a phone call from Brazil. He knows she’s been taken.”

  Brayden leaned into the desk and ground a fist into the top of it.

  ****

  Lexi fought to open her eyes, but she didn’t dare make a sound. The smell of cheap cologne and perfume permeated the car. Her stomach lurched, and she fought the urge to vomit. The pain in her head was searing into her brain. She reached up and felt the back of her head then checked her hand for blood. At least she didn’t seem to be bleeding.

  A woman laughed from the front seat of the small sedan. It was dark, and Lexi wasn’t familiar with Rio, but she tried to concentrate on watching out the window to memorize landmarks. She had to get to the cellphone she’d hidden in her dress. Hiding it there had been a last minute decision so she wouldn’t have to carry a purse. Panic settled over her as she tried to remember if she’d silenced it.

  The couple in the front seat continued to smile and laugh at something that was probably about her, since they kept looking into the backseat. She knew what they were saying wasn’t good. She was able to decipher the words Morro dos Pobre. Her stomach twisted. She recognized it from the newspaper article she’d read that morning. She’d also heard stories of the favelas. From what her family had told her, they were nothing more than shanty towns taken over by drug lords. Some were lawless slums. If that’s where they were taking her, she was as good as dead. If only she could get to her phone to call Brayden.

  She fought between listening to their conversation and studying the scenery. One thing she heard them repeat was dinheiro. Maybe they were getting a lot of money for kidnapping her.

  Had this happened to Jace? Her stomach tightened. She wasn’t ready to die, but if that was the plan they had for her, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She had to do something to make sure these people were caught and that they’d pay for what they did to her brother. And to her. She swallowed hard and fought back hysteria at the thought of how her death would come.

  Lexi didn’t dare pull out her phone where they could see it, but she hoped Brayden was smart enough to track her signal.

  “We’re almost there, beautiful,” the woman said. “I bet your little daddy is wondering why his money isn’t buying what he wants.”

  Lexi wasn’t sure she should engage in conversation with these people, but if she was going to die anyway, she deserved the right to know why she was being killed.

  “What does my father have to do with this?”

  “Your father has everything to do with this,” the man said and shot a grin at his partner.

  She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic in return, but stopped herself. It was then she knew she was definitely going to die.

  “You killed my brother.” She fought to keep the rage out of her voice.

  “Estupido!”

  “Jace was never stupid,” she retorted.

  “You are stupid! You are stupid to talk and to put up a fight.”

  “At least tell me what happened to my brother.”

  The couple exchanged looks. The driver finally shrugged. “We do not know what you are talking about.”

  “Just tell me.” She braced herself for the horrid facts.

  “We know nothing of your brother. Your precious father, well…he’s not who you think he is. Your family owes us money. It is time to pay up.”

  “Money for what?”

  “For losing our shipment. He let our drugs fall into the rival’s hands.”

  “No! We would never smuggle drugs. You’re wrong!”

  “Shut your mouth! Did you ask to hear this or not?”

  This only brought his female sidekick to hysterical laugher. “She is a crazy woman if she thinks she’s going to make it out of this alive. Tsk-tsk.” She shook her head and wagged a finger in Lexi’s face. “You wanted to know the truth. As if you don’t know the truth already.”

  “I don’t know anything about any drugs,” Lexi said in a steady voice.

  “Your father and his father before him were drug lords here in Rio,” the driver said. “He met your mother here and moved to the States. Your whole family is nothing more than…how you say…mafia. Cartel. They have us do all the work. Only they have all the dinheiro and we get all the scraps. We do all the work and they get all the money for it.”

  “Please, just tell me how my brother was involved in this.”

  The man pointed a finger at her. “We know nothing of your brother. How many times do we have to tell you this?”

  “So that’s why you killed him?” She fought to keep her voice steady.

  “You are crazy. Maybe your brother was killed the same way we are going to kill you.”

  “I wish he would’ve called the police. I wish he would’ve killed you both.”

  The woman next to him climbed over the back seat and hit Lexi in the neck with her fist. “Shut up!” she screeched.

  A chill wracked Lexi’s body as pain shot through her head. She tried to open her mouth to tell them both more of her opinion of them, but her words sounded like they were echoing in a tunnel. Before she could say anything else, her world went dark.

  ****

  Brayden went back to the table to talk to Lexi’s family. He needed them to know she’d been kidnapped, but he was careful not to say too much. He didn’t know which, if any, Ramos to trust right now. It took him a few minutes to console Sofia. Her husband agreed to take her home where they would wait to see what happened next. They both promised to call him right away if they heard anything.

  He went back to the security room and called Luke again. “Have they taken Ramos in for questioning yet?”

  “No, we’re working on it. I can’t believe that scum would endanger his own kids to protect his drug smuggling empire.”

  “I don’t know why that would surprise you. Remember, there are all kinds of crazy people in this world.”

  “Hey, you doing OK? I think it’s getting kinda personal for you right now.”

  “No, I’m not OK. I was supposed to protect her. I let them take her right out from under my nose. If they harm one hair on her head—”

  “They won’t. We’ll find her before that happens. As soon as they get her father in for questioning, we’ll know more.”

  “I don’t think he’ll talk.”

  “Oh, he’ll talk, all right.”

  Brayden’s stomach knotted. He hoped Luke was right.

  “You did real good on this case, Brayden. The accounts you uncovered are leading us to some very interesting things. Insurance policies for one. We’ve got survei
llance on him, and we’re watching Ramos’s every move. When we’re done with him, he’ll save her to save himself, if for no other reason. Have a little faith, man. She’ll be OK.”

  “Insurance policies? Like life insurance?”

  “Among other things.”

  That wasn’t good.

  “Hang in there. I’ll call you after we find out anything else. In the meantime, don’t go out looking for her. Stay out of the way, OK? FBI’s in touch with the Brazilian government and the DEA on the drug investigation.”

  Brayden hung up without answering. He made it a habit not to lie to people.

  ****

  Someone was yelling. It took Lexi a moment to realize it was her own voice screaming out Brayden’s name. She didn’t know how long she’d been passed out on the floor. They must’ve drugged her with something because she had to fight to keep her eyes open. Her stomach was in knots and the green dress she was wearing was suffocating. She wished she could take it off and put on something comfortable. The smell of cigarette smoke filled her lungs, and she coughed to get rid of it.

  “Did you call the old man?”

  “Yeah, we called him. He wasn’t too happy to hear what we had to say.”

  Lexi opened her eyes enough to make out the shapes of two men. She wondered where the woman was now.

  “What did you tell him? I need to know every word.” This new man was tall with a lot of tattoos. Mostly skulls.

  “I told him we were playing on our terms now. He acted confused. He said he was getting the money from the insurance company and needed time. I told him we also want the next shipment of his furniture—with the drugs still inside this time.”

  She recognized one of the men from the car. None of this was making any sense. What insurance money could they be talking about? Her stomach felt queasy again. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol. She knew the shipment was the one she was sent there to receive. How could her father smuggle drugs all these years without them knowing about it? There had to be an explanation.