“Very well, Tia. We’ll go to Rio for one day. But no matter the outcome, we’re returning tomorrow evening.”
Her exotic eyes shined with gratitude. “Thank you, Wade.”
Chapter Fifteen
As they strolled back to the cottage Miranda discussed the plans for this impromptu road trip with Parker. They decided to pack light, get up early and leave at the crack of dawn.
“Do you really think Rico’s at his agency?” she asked when they were inside.
“No.”
“So you’re humoring her.”
“More or less.”
It had been a while since she’d seen him look so drained.
She moved close to him and touched his face. “This business would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to deal with clients.”
That made him smile. He took her hand and tenderly kissed the inside of her palm. “I love you, Miranda.”
“I love you.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “It’ll work out. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find a clue in Rio.” She didn’t want to even think that they had at least one other suspect in Joca they were leaving behind here uninvestigated. And their client guarded by non-professionals.
At the moment, she didn’t want to think about the case or anything related to it.
While Parker started to get undressed she waltzed toward the bathroom. She eyed the gorgeous marble décor and the luxurious bath salts. “Hey,” she called to him. “There’s a sunken tub in here. Wanna pretend we’re on our honeymoon?”
That got his attention.
“A superb idea.” He tossed his tie on the bed and hurried toward her.
She giggled out loud as lifting her up in his strong arms, he began to move toward the tub.
“I’ll run the water. You order drinks.”
“An excellent proposal,” he murmured, his lips devouring her neck, his fingers working their way down the buttons of her blouse. “We’ll drown all our troubles in champagne and bubble bath.”
###
They lingered too long in the tub and even longer making love again in bed. They had been together a year and yet she couldn’t get enough of his lips, his tongue, his magical hands, working their way over her skin, setting her on fire. But at last endurance gave out.
It had to be after one when snuggled against Parker’s shoulder, Miranda fell into a lazy, sated sleep.
She didn’t know what time it was when she heard the knocking. A steady, relentless sound. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. And then nothing.
She rolled over and squinted into the darkness. Wait. There it was again. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. It seemed to be coming from the window. She got out of bed and crossed the floor to stare out the tall pane.
Nothing.
She peered into the deep green forest at the edge of the yard. The boughs of the branches swayed in the wind. In the darkness they seemed to beckon her.
Beneath them a shadow moved.
She started. Blinked. Had she really seen that?
Suddenly overcome with the need to find out, she pressed a finger against the glass pane. It gave way and she felt the cold wind blowing outside. She pushed harder and her whole hand slid through the glass as if it were made of butter. Then her arms, her head, the rest of her slipped through.
She was outside.
Leaves and branches rustled noisily in the trees. It had to be cold out here but she didn’t feel it. Not when she saw the shadow again. It was moving among the tree trunks, darting in and out, taunting her.
Determined to learn what or who that was, she hurried across the yard in her bare feet and plunged into the forest.
The overwhelming smell of pine filled her nostrils as she made her way through the underbrush. Thorns snagged at her ankles, tore at the hem of her nightgown. She went this way and that, following the shadow in a twisting arduous path. They were ascending. Going up, up to the top of the mountain.
Her lungs began to burn. It was hard to breathe. She thought she smelled smoke.
And then she realized the thick order of pine smell had turned sickening. It wasn’t the smell of trees. It was the smell of decay, rot, death.
“Watch out!” a voice whispered.
Heart hammering, she glared down at her feet. There lay the corpse of a man so rotten the flesh was falling away from the bones.
She stared at the face. Did she know this person?
Blood pounded in her temples but she dared to look closer. Something moved. In the eye socket. And then she saw it. A long black snake slithered out of the hole, flicked its tongue and crawled into the other one.
The voice clamored like a loud bell. “You will pay for what you’ve done.”
“No!” She turned and ran—and smacked straight into a tree trunk. Hands began to reach out for her.
“No, no, no!” She punched and kicked as hard as she could.
“Miranda! Miranda, wake up!”
With a jolt she opened her eyes and saw Parker lying beside her, holding onto her wrist tightly. “Woman, you pack a mean punch.”
In shock she stared at his ribs. The spot where the bruises had just healed. “Did I hurt you?”
“I caught you in time.”
Hence the tight pressure on her wrists. Parker’s reflexes were astounding.
“What…what happened?”
“You had a nightmare.”
“I did?”
He let her go and she sat up, pressed her hands to her head. What the hell was wrong with her?
She turned to look out the window, remembering it all. “I went through there. Right through the glass. I was in a nightgown. I don’t wear nightgowns.”
Parker listened in silence.
“I saw a shadow in the woods. I followed it. There was a rotting body at the top of a mountain. I smelled it. I saw the skull—it was full of snakes.” She shivered.
Parker drew her close, kissed her hair. “Oh, my darling.”
She closed her eyes relishing the comfort of his arms, still shaking from the dream. “I heard a voice. It told me I would pay for what I’d done.”
Parker stroked her hair. “It was a dream. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“The voice…it sounded like Leon.”
Parker turned her chin so he could study her face. She could see anger in his eyes. “I thought you were done with nightmares about him.”
“I did, too.” He was dead and gone, after all. “I don’t know. It’s like Leon’s…coming back. It’s stupid.”
Parker exhaled an exasperated breath through his nose. “You’ve seen too much death recently.”
He’d said that before. She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”
Stroking her back, he studied her closely again. “Perhaps you should make an appointment with Dr. Wingate when we get back to Atlanta.”
Dr. Wingate was the shrink Parker had pushed her to see when they first met. She had helped her work through the issues haunting her from her past. But she thought all that was over and done with, too. Heck, maybe she needed a booster shot.
She laid back. “I’ll think about it.”
Parker took her in his arms. “I’ll make sure you do.”
“I’m all right now.”
“Can you sleep?”
She snuggled into his shoulder and pulled one of his arms close around her as she opened her mouth in a yawn. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes.” She felt herself relax, go limp.
It was true. The fright was momentary. It was over now. He must have believed her. She didn’t hear him arguing.
Bathed in the warmth of his love after only another second or so she was fast asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Miranda felt like death warmed over when the alarm went off at five the next morning.
She dragged herself out of bed to find Parker gazing out the window, dressed in a business suit with a duffle bag beside him on the floor.
“You’re already ready,” she said.
She felt the warm glow of his love all over again. “Thanks. I guess I needed it.” She didn’t want to talk about her nightmare.
Parker didn’t press her. “How soon can you be ready?”
She scratched at her messy hair. “Not too long. I just need to get dressed.”
She took a quick shower, pulled on the most comfortable traveling suit she could find, stuffed a few things next to Parker’s laptop in the duffle and they took off.
It was still dark as Parker steered the BMW down the treacherous mountain path, on the opposite side of the way they had come yesterday.
Someone on the resort’s wait staff had dropped off a goodie basket at the cottage, so while Parker maneuvered the car, Miranda poured cups of strong, steaming coffee from a thermos. Inside the basket she found a warm batch of thick yellow squares.
“Fuba cakes,” Parker explained as she took a bite.
They reminded her of cornbread in the south. “They’re good,” she said and handed him one.
“A breakfast staple here,” he said taking it.
“I have to say, Brazilians know how to eat.”
That made him smile.
Munching, she looked out the window.
The sun wasn’t up yet and the dark forest loomed on one side of the narrow road, empty blackness on the other. But she could tell the field dropped off to a valley down below. That reality reminded her they were five thousand feet above sea level.
Despite the thrill in her gut at that thought, her mind went back to the after dinner conversation last night. “Those letters Tia’s been getting were delivered by hand,” she said, thinking out loud.
Parker nodded. “Whoever wrote them, or rather assembled them, had to do it himself.”
“Yeah.” Miranda recalled the Portuguese jigsaw of characters glued onto the pages. You will die soon. He’d probably been proud of that. Might have thought of them as some sort of work of art. Fold the paper carefully, slip it into an unmarked envelope, lay it on the spot where it will have the most impact when it’s discovered. “You wouldn’t ask someone else to do that kind of favor.”
“And there was no postmark on any of the envelopes so they didn’t go through the mail.”
“Right,” she said, taking another bite of cake. “This guy’s sneaky. And mean.”
“Yes.”
Didn’t tell them much. Those traits fit a lot of criminals. A lot of people with various motives.
“So,” she said washing down the cake with the hot black liquid. “What are we going to do when we get to Rio?”
“Visit the Dominguez Agency.”
“Naturally. But are we going to waltz in and announce we’re PIs investigating a case?”
“That would be the direct approach.”
She narrowed an eye at him. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
He nodded. “But…”
“That would tip him off.”
“If in fact Rico is our letter writer.”
She hadn’t made up her mind on that one yet. She bit into her second helping of Fuba cake and mulled it over. “We could say we were there to audition.”
He shot her a sly grin. “You would put the other models to shame.”
She snorted out a laugh. “I was thinking I’d pose as your rep. You’re the model type. The mature male.”
He gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “Don’t underestimate yourself.”
Shaking her head at his unwaveringly high opinion of her, Miranda glanced out the window at the blaze of pink and tangerine beginning to stretch over the distant peaks. Sunrise.
“I was thinking it might be most believable if we posed as accountants.”
That was good. “If we were in the states, we could say we were from the IRS.”
“I believe that agency is called Receita Federal here.”
How did he know that? “Might be hard to pull off since only one of us speaks the language.” And despite the database of knowledge in his head, Parker wasn’t fluent.
“True.” His sexy brows drew together as he mulled that over. “We could say we’re from a US auditing firm partnered with the Parisian dress designer.”
“Now that’s good. In fact, we could—what the—?”
The car hit a bump and coffee spilled from her cup onto her lap.
She was about to cuss, but before she could get another word out, the beamer swerved to her side of the road—the one with the steep drop off the side.
Parker’s face went hard as every muscle in his body tensed.
“What’s going on, Parker?”
“I don’t know.”
His hands were tight on the wheel, his jaw like iron. She saw he was pumping the brakes. Her heart began to pound. “Can you slow down?”
“There appears to be a malfunction.”
Dear Lord. “You mean the brakes don’t work?”
“Don’t panic.”
Don’t panic? There was a hairpin turn in the road coming up soon. She peered out the side window. In the light from the sunrise she could see the flimsy barrier alongside the road. The bank beyond was at least a forty-five degree slope. Maybe steeper. They wouldn’t make it if they ran off the road that way.
She suddenly remembered her car knowledge. “Downshift,” she told Parker.
“Already doing it.” He was working the lever between the seats, had it set at low. The engine rumbled in protest. The car only sped up.
Her ears began to pop as they descended. She felt a sick queasiness in the pit of her stomach.
“Emergency brake.”
He nodded, his hand already on it. “Nothing.”
“Can you shut off the engine?”
He shook his head. “The engine could lock. I’d lose control completely.”
That was right.
Okay, she was an adrenaline junkie. She got off on heights and speed and all that. But this was getting a little ridiculous. The engine growled and the car shook again. Panic welled up inside her like a geyser about to blow. No good. No good.
She forced it down. Think. Think. But nothing came to her. And they were going faster.
Parker began to zigzag this way and that across the road, kicking up dust. Coffee spilled from both cups, staining their clothes, scalding their skin. The smell of the dust mixed with the coffee made her suddenly want to gag.
“Trying to create some friction,” he explained, his voice dark and tight.
The back and forth seemed to help a little, but they were still going too fast and the hairpin turn was getting closer and closer.
She stared at Parker saw sweat beading on his brow, along his jaw. She jerked her head to peer out the passenger window again, searching for a solution.
The drop was straight down now. She could make out a few tiny houses in the shadows below. They looked like a child’s toys.
Terror buzzed in her ears. It was hard to breathe.
Her throat went dry. “I can’t jump here,” she told him, her voice croaking.
He nodded stiffly.
They were almost to the turn. She glanced at the speedometer. She couldn’t decipher the kilometer reading but the car must have been doing fifty. The beamer wasn’t going to make that turn. If they didn’t figure out something, they were going over.
“Hold on,” Parker barked and swerved to her side of the road.
Panic slicing her insides like a machete, Miranda grabbed the door handle. She didn’t dare ask what the hell he was doing, but she hoped he knew.
She glanced out the windshield and saw the bank on his side of the road had leveled off a bit.
The next second her body jerked against her door as Parker swung hard, steering the beamer off the road onto the ground. The car burst through a rotting wooden fence and slid up the rise, heading straight for a thick tree trunk.
They hit head on.
Miranda jolted forward. Her ears rang with dizziness a
s the air bags went off. She flailed against the inflating plastic wondering if they were going to topple over the edge.
She felt Parker grab her hand. “Come on. Get out now.”
His door was open. Somehow he’d gotten out of the car. He was standing on solid ground.
She let him pull her toward him on the tilted seat, but before she left the car something made her turn around and grab the duffle bag with their things and Parker’s laptop.
With Parker still holding her hand, they raced up the hill, trying to get as far away from the car as they could.
They must have been twenty feet away when Parker yelled, “Get down!”
She felt his hand on the back of her head as she dropped to her knees and buried her face in the thick green grass. She waited. It seemed like an hour.
All she heard was Parker’s jagged breathing beside her.
At last she dared to lift her head and look at the car. The front end was a disaster, the tree trunk wedged into it. It was turned at an angle but it hadn’t rolled over the edge.
And it hadn’t blown.
“Miranda, are you all right?” The deep concern in Parker’s voice steadied her nerves a bit.
“Yeah. I’m fine. You?”
“Fine as well.”
She sat up, brushed pine needles and grass off her clothes. They were okay. They were alive. Still she was shivering all over.
She blew out a long breath. “What the hell was that all about? We ought to sue the rental agency. They gave us a bum vehicle.”
Parker’s expression turned to granite. “The BMW was tuned up just before I picked it up.”
She blinked at him. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It was find on the drive here.”
That was true. “What are you saying? That someone sabotaged it?”
“All it would take would be a pinprick in the brake line.”
And he thought someone did that? When? Any time during the night. It was sitting along the narrow road outside their cottage that whole time unwatched, as far as she knew.
“It would have to be someone who knew where we were going. At least that we’d be heading down this road.”
“So it seems.”
Had someone been watching them? Spying on them? The thought gave her the willies.
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