Girl in the Water

by Dana Marton

  “You can take the bed,” he said without looking away from the screen.

  “I don’t want to. It wouldn’t be fair. We are on business here, and we are partners in the investigation.” Equals.

  A stifled groan escaped him.

  “The bed is big enough to share,” she pointed out. “But if you don’t want to, then I’m fine here.”

  He said nothing, so she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

  He stayed up another hour before he went to lie down on the top of the covers, fully dressed.

  She turned away from the air conditioner. The frigid blast of air was about to blow her eyebrows off. She pulled her blanket to her chin. She wasn’t a big fan of air-conditioning. She didn’t mind heat.

  “All right. Fine,” Ian said. “Get up here.”

  She didn’t make him ask twice. Her skin tingling—maybe from the AC, maybe from his sudden change of mind—she eased into bed. She kept at least two feet of empty space between them. If she moved closer, he might go and sleep on the floor again.

  She was in the same bed with Ian, a start. No sense messing it up right off the bat.

  He was the one who’d taught her, back when he’d been tutoring her for her GED, how to set goals, then how to break down big goals into manageable steps. Didn’t he realize that she never forgot a single word he said?

  She stretched and luxuriated in the idea of having gotten this far. She briefly considered “accidentally” rolling against him in the middle of the night so she could wake up in his arms, but she cast the thought aside. She didn’t want to push him over the edge.

  “Go to sleep,” he ordered. “We have to get up at six to check out and catch the flight at eight.”

  She tucked herself in and lay looking at the dark ceiling, listening to him breathe right next to her.

  “Are you scared?” she asked.

  “I’m not scared of a damn thing.”

  “I’m scared a little,” she admitted.

  He turned onto his side, facing her. His voice gentled as he said, “Of what?”

  “Of never finding my place.” She turned on her side too, facing him. She couldn’t see his expression in the dark, and maybe that was for the best. “I am from the Amazon, but I don’t feel like I belong in the Amazon anymore. I don’t feel like I’m going home. I feel like a grown turtle, trying to wiggle back into the egg it came from. I don’t fit.”

  He listened.

  Her lips tugged into a half smile she knew he couldn’t see. “I’m very American now. I think I can chose my destiny and my place in the world. I want to control my fate.”

  He still didn’t say anything.

  “Back in the village, everything just was. I never even thought of myself as a prostitute. Never thought the word. I thought I was like my mother, and I loved my mother. She was a good woman. It was okay to be like her.”

  “You were an exploited child,” Ian spoke at last. He didn’t use the other word. He’d never used that word in relation to her, ever.

  “Sometimes,” she spoke her deepest fear into the dark, “I’m not sure if I deserved to be saved.”

  “Nobody has to deserve to be saved.” His voice roughened. “And your place is with me.”

  “But you want me to go off and make my own life.” And lately, every time he talked of her having that future life, separate from him, the words throbbed and hurt inside her chest.

  “You’ll have your own life. You’ll have a husband and kids and a great job. But you’ll always have a place with me.”

  “You think I deserve happiness.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Americans think everyone deserves to be happy. The people I knew before, they just hoped they’d survive from one day to the next.”

  He fell back into silence.

  “I think you deserve happiness too,” she said carefully. “I don’t think you should punish yourself for Linda and the twins anymore, Ian.”

  And he did what she knew he’d do. He turned on his back and closed his eyes, ending the conversation.

  * * *

  Ian

  The flight to Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon, ate up four hours, the plane booked full, people pressed together, so Ian and Daniela couldn’t discuss the case.

  They couldn’t discuss the previous night either, because somehow, in the fricking two minutes that Ian actually slept, he managed to roll over to her side of the bed and had put his arms around her.

  He didn’t know which one of them was more surprised when they woke. He’d never shot out of bed that fast in his life, not even in his army days.

  Letting Karin Kovacs pair them up on this case had been the worst idea ever. This could never happen again.

  Ian looked out the plane’s window at the meeting of the rivers. The Rio Negro converged with the Rio Solimões just below Manaus, the Rio Negro’s nearly black water meeting Rio Solimões’s light brown. The colors stayed separate where the rivers met, didn’t mix, as if some fancy barista had drawn a cream line on coffee.

  All that water made Ian think of the Potomac.

  The Potomac had taken away Linda and the boys.

  The Rio Negro had given him Daniela.

  One river had swallowed his heart; another river, halfway around the world, had gifted it back. A different heart, beaten up, scarred, but a beating heart at least.

  He shut off that line of thinking and examined the city below them instead as they came in for landing.

  Manaus spread on the side of the Rio Negro, surreal in every way. You didn’t expect to see a metropolis of almost two million people, bigger than Philadelphia, in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, in a region with the population density half of Mongolia’s.

  As they left the airport, stepping into the noise of a group of boys playing drums on the sidewalk, Ian watched Daniela slow and take a sniff. Even here, in the city, the earthy smells of the rain forest were in the air, mixing with the smell of fish from the river, and the harsher smells of civilization like car exhaust. But you could tell, just from the smell, that you were in the Amazon.

  A disturbing thought that hadn’t occurred to Ian before gripped him.

  Daniela said last night that this was no longer home for her. But maybe she’d feel different now that she was here. She could take a boat back up the river. She could stay, be anything—a teacher or start a business. She’d always been a river goddess.

  What if the Içana calls her back?

  She turned and smiled at him. “On the way home, I want to pick up some souvenirs for my friends at the airport before we leave.”

  And something Ian hadn’t even known was knotted inside him slowly relaxed.

  Cabs lined up by the curb. The cab driver at the head of the line opened the back door for them. Daniela gave the address for See-Love-Aid’s Manaus headquarters in Portuguese and chatted with the man as they got in.

  She watched the city as they passed through. Ian watched her.

  They didn’t go all that far. Less than half an hour later, the cab stopped in front of a building that might have been a shipping warehouse once but had been converted into See-Love-Aid’s sanctuary for displaced girls.

  Mrs. Frieseke, a fifty-something American woman with softly graying hair and warm brown eyes, showed them around. She was the site manager. She reminded Ian of the director of the organization in Manaus, both women brisk, confident, competent, like distant sisters.

  “The older girls make sisal rugs, placemats, flip-flops, bags, and baskets.” Pride bloomed in the woman’s voice like a flower as she led them to a workroom filled with teenagers. “Basically everything and anything that can be made from sisal. Then See-Love-Aid sells what we can through the Internet via fair trade channels. It pays for the children’s housing and education. And we’re able to set aside enough money for them to get started in life once they graduate out at eighteen. At that age, they’re mostly too old to be dragged into the sex trade.”

  Ian raised an
eyebrow, thinking he misheard.

  But Mrs. Frieseke said, “Unfortunately, sex tourism is a booming industry here. People come from North America, Europe, all over the world. But they mostly want what they can’t get at home. Children.”

  Ian glanced at Daniela. Sadness sat in her eyes. Obviously, this was no news to her.

  Ian must have looked ready for murder, because Mrs. Frieseke patted his arm. “We’re working on it. Giving girls a safe place is one aspect. We’re also working on changing politics. Politicians, in general, don’t care. Sex tourism brings money into the region. The better the economy, the more likely a politician is to be reelected. And the girls are too young to vote, so they’re of no use to the men in government. But we will change it somehow.” She stuck her chin out. “I know we will.”

  Ian had seen army drill sergeants with less determination.

  They crossed the largest workroom as Mrs. Frieseke explained more about how the See-Love-Aid shelter in Manaus worked. The girls followed their every move, dark-haired, dark-eyed for the most, but a handful of blondes among them, skin every beautiful shade that God created. Safe. Ian liked that thought very much.

  He glanced at Daniela and caught her watching the teens with a suspicious sheen in her eyes.

  What is she thinking?

  He didn’t want to ask in front of Mrs. Frieseke.

  Maybe Daniela was thinking about how different her life might have been if she’d ended up in a place like this instead of Rosa’s. The thought slammed like a fist into Ian’s stomach. He stepped toward her… To do what? He stopped a foot from her, held back.

  He suddenly understood that bringing her here had been a mistake, but not for all the reasons he’d thought. Not because any investigation could turn dangerous. Daniela’s presence here was a mistake, because being back, even a hundred miles away from her village, was hurting her.

  He knew her well enough to know that she was struggling with her emotions, her face just a little too impassive. And the fact that she had to struggle made Ian’s chest feel hollow, like the drums those boys had played outside the airport for tourists.

  “Could we talk to the Heyerdahls?” he asked Mrs. Frieseke, to get them moving.

  “They had to fly to Rio this morning. Their visas are expiring, so they need to renew them. They should be back tomorrow, or the day after, at the latest.”

  That would work too. Ian and Daniela could lay the groundwork, get a good idea for what they were facing, before the parents and their emotions were brought into the mix.

  He followed Mrs. Frieseke up the stairs, Daniela close behind them.

  The dormitories were upstairs, for both the kids and the volunteers. Two separate staircases led up—one to the kids’ dorms, the other to a smaller area that belonged to the permanent staff and the visiting volunteers. The two areas were sealed off from each other, connected by a single steel door, to which, Mrs. Frieseke told them, she held the only key.

  The adults’ section had twenty rooms, each with two single beds pushed against opposite walls. Some rooms housed permanent See-Love-Aid staff, the rest went to the volunteers who rotated out every two weeks.

  “We have only one empty room right now,” Mrs. Frieseke opened a door for them and showed them in. “We’re usually booked full. I hope this is okay.”

  Two beds, two chairs, a small table, and a nightstand. No dresser or wardrobe. Apparently, while the volunteers were here, they lived out of their backpacks.

  Mrs. Frieseke said, “Bathrooms are at the end of the hall. Ladies to the left, gents to the right.”

  “This is great.” Daniela swung her backpack onto the bed by the window, while Ian wondered if this was all a great conspiracy.

  Separate rooms couldn’t be found? Really?

  Why did everyone keep assuming he’d be okay with sharing a room? Thank God, at least they wouldn’t have to share a bed.

  Waking up this morning… Daniela had her head on his shoulder, her arm across his chest. The way her eyes slowly opened to look into his. That moment when neither of them could look away…

  That could not happen again.

  “Thank you for the accommodations,” Ian told Mrs. Frieseke when she looked at him with expectation, as if he might have missed something she’d said. He added, “We appreciate you putting us up here.”

  Being at the scene of the kidnapping would be helpful to the investigation, better than trekking over daily from a distant hotel.

  “Could you please show us where the Heyerdahls’ room is?” Daniela asked the woman.

  Mrs. Frieseke pointed at a closed door at the end of the hallway.

  A difficult spot, really, for a kidnapper. He or she would have had to stroll through the entire length of the dormitory to reach the room, then back, with a potentially crying baby. Yet, according to the original police report, nobody had seen anything.

  But maybe the report didn’t record everything the police had learned.

  “I’d like to talk to the police, if you could point us in the right direction.” Ian was itching to get started. They’d rested on the plane. He wanted to hit the ground running.

  He had the name of the local detective he needed, so once Mrs. Frieseke told them where the police station was, they headed off that way. They took the bus they were told to take and stood in the back.

  Within five minutes, Ian spotted two pickpockets. As the two youths headed toward them, Ian flashed a look of I’ll-break-your-scrawny-necks. They glared at him but turned away.

  “Impressive,” Daniela said under her breath. Then, “Do you think the police will help us?”

  “They should. The delegado from Rio said he would call ahead to make sure.”

  “They won’t want to be shown up.” She looked down at her sandals, then shifted on her feet. “They could be involved in trafficking.”

  And he bit back a curse, because he remembered what she’d told him about the red house on the river, how Rosa had been friends with the cops in her small town, and that they were frequent visitors to the girls.

  He kept his eyes on Daniela, who’d already shook off her moment of hesitation. But still… Would she be uneasy with the local police? She had every reason to hate them. Meeting them might be the last thing she wanted to do. What if the uniforms brought back miserable memories?

  Yet she stood on the bus now with her back straight, the angle of her chin pure determination, ready to face down whatever came her way. She was brave, perhaps the bravest person Ian knew, but even brave people hurt.

  Oh, fuck it. He was hanging on to a support pole so the bus’s jerking and swaying wouldn’t knock him off his feet or into someone, but he reached out with his free hand and pulled her against him, her back to his chest, and held her there.

  She immediately relaxed against him.

  He didn’t tell her that she didn’t have to go to the police station if she didn’t want to. It would imply that he thought her weak; he thought she couldn’t handle it. He knew she could. But he would have spared her.

  “I feel like I’m in a clothes dryer,” he said, and made it sound like he was only hanging on to her so they wouldn’t be thrown around as the bus turned, once again without slowing down, at the next intersection.

  She responded with “I think the bus driver learned driving at a tractor derby.”

  She was tough both mentally and physically. No slouch in hand-to-hand combat either, but she felt small and fragile against him. And quickly, Ian learned the danger of holding her. Once he allowed his arm around her, letting her go was nearly impossible.

  Chapter Twelve

  Daniela

  Daniela’s body was still tingling as they sat at the police station. Ian had held her for the entire twenty-minute bus ride—which passed way too fast.

  That kind of physical contact between them was new—a first. Okay, second. This morning, she’d woken up in his arms. He was finally seeing her as a woman and as his equal. She could have spent the rest of the day daydrea
ming about his arms around her, but they weren’t here on a pleasure trip. Unfortunately.

  They went through the case step-by-step with the investigating detective, Gustavo Santos, a man in his late forties who was graying at the temples and thinning on top. He wasn’t overweight, but he did sport a respectable potbelly, a sign that he’d primarily been riding a desk for the last couple of years. He wore a wrinkled suit and a tie that had tomato stains on it and smelled like fish. Quite a bit sloppier than the delegado had been in Rio.

  Santos had his own office, crowded with file cabinets, but a decent size. He had his own coffeemaker. Must rank fairly high up. Probably the old fox of the department.

  One of the men who’d always beaten Daniela at Rosa’s, the man who’d been the roughest, had been a policeman. But Santos was the picture of friendliness and cooperation.

  He scanned through his own report, a copy of which they already had, but the printout in his hand was embellished with handwritten notes on the margins that he must have added since the official report had been filed.

  “The call came in at nine thirty in the morning,” he said. “We responded immediately, arrived at the scene at nine forty-seven.”

  He took a sip of his coffee, then went on. “We were told by the parents that they discovered the baby missing just before nine.”

  Ian asked, “Why wait half an hour to call?”

  “The parents had gone down to breakfast. They left the baby sleeping in the crib. They thought it was safe. The whole group had been looking after her. In fact, a couple of people had said they’d look in on her if she woke up and started crying.”

  Santos sipped some more coffee. “So when the parents came up and saw the empty crib, they thought the baby cried and someone came in and got her. They went from room to room to see where she was. Some time passed before they realized that the baby wasn’t on the premises.”

  “Do you have a list of who was upstairs at the time?”

  The man paged through his notes, didn’t find what he was looking for, so he went to his computer. “Four of the six permanent See-Love-Aid staff were downstairs, coordinating breakfast. Out of the twenty-one visiting volunteers, fifteen were downstairs, including the Heyerdahls, and six were upstairs, including the baby. The metal door between the girls’ dormitory and the adults’ section was locked.”