Dying.
But, he had survived. And come home …
Home was a blur; he’d had to get out.
He’d come to Brazil.
River blinked, staring at the page. He’d put things in there that didn’t belong there.
Walking into the chaos was a man in a business suit. A business suit with a hat.
He was the man coming for River. The clock across the street bonged. Once, twice … it kept going. It was 7:00 P.M.
He couldn’t believe so much time had passed. He looked around—even the waitstaff at the café had changed over. And if he didn’t move, he’d miss the train.
He got up, stowed his sketchpad, and hurried down the street.
Rio tended to be a late-night city, and with Carnaval on the way, dusk seemed to arouse the city as if it truly woke up and found life when darkness came.
There were people everywhere, thronging the streets. As each day brought them closer to Mardi Gras, with Ash Wednesday to follow, people seemed to be in a greater fever to party as wildly as they might.
There were jugglers out on the street, musicians too many to count, dancers, clowns, all vying for a piece of the action—and attention.
Music blared from every nightclub.
River took in the sights and sounds as he hurried toward the station as best he could through the crowds. Everywhere, he looked for the man in the blue suit.
But when he glanced into one club that he was passing, he paused. His heart seemed to stand still before speeding into double-time.
He didn’t see the man in the blue suit.
He saw Natal.
CHAPTER 15
She wore a colorful crop top with a brilliant red skirt that swirled and waved about her perfect legs as she moved to the music of a samba. Her dark hair traced her skirt’s movements. Others in the room had stepped back.
All to watch her.
She moved with such joy. With so much life. She seemed to epitomize all that was right and wonderful and vibrant in Rio.
For a minute, he just stared, enchanted.
And then, hardly aware of what he was doing, he entered the club.
Natal spun, her dark hair flying and draping around her like a velvet cape.
And she saw him.
The smile she gave him seemed to radiate throughout his entire body. He felt as if that smile gave him light—and life.
Swaying to the music in the most sensual walk he’d ever seen, she came right up to him, slipping her arms around him and toying with his hair.
“Can you dance, drifter man?” she teased. “Can you move—like Brazil, like Rio?”
He should have felt awkward. He could barely find his tongue—a way to speak. But if he didn’t, he feared she would go away.
“I can do anything,” he said, “when I’m with you.”
He knew, at the back of his mind, that he needed to get to the train station.
He knew he should leave.
He couldn’t.
She drew him closer and he discovered that he could feel the music through her, move as she moved. It didn’t take much. He’d seen the samba before … he’d played at it before. He’d never considered himself much of a dancer.
But the crowd around them was dancing too, drinking, laughing—and calling out in encouragement. Suddenly, he discovered that they had moved out into the streets, in the midst of a massive party. Bright, vibrant lights and colors abounded; fireworks went off over the water and streaked across the sky.
Someone handed him a slice of lemon, salted his hand, and gave him a shot glass. Natal had one too. She laughed and sucked the lemon and then placed her lips on his hand to taste the salt there. “Quickly, drink!” she told him.
And he did. They thanked those around them and the music continued to throb like a pulse inside of him, but they weren’t moving anymore.
They were just standing in the street, staring first at the sky bursting above them, then at one another.
“I thought you had to be home,” he said softly.
“I do what I wish,” was her response.
“Then you wish to go home?”
She looked him square in the eyes. “There are times I must.”
He shook his head. “No. Not to him. Reed Amato is a bad man.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
His eyebrows arched. “But—”
She pressed her finger to his lips. “Not tonight,” she said passionately. “Not tonight. We will not speak about him.”
Every muscle in him seemed to tighten at her words. He couldn’t push—he would lose her. But he had to make her see the danger she was in.
“I am with you tonight,” she continued.
As she spoke, in the whir of colors around him, River found that his eyes suddenly focused on one.
Blue. Dark blue.
The man in the blue suit and the hat was there, just beyond them. He seemed to be intrigued by the celebration.
But he was looking.
Looking for River.
“I have to go,” he said.
She stared at him, puzzled.
“From me?” she whispered.
“From here.”
She studied him a moment, then caught his hand and tugged at it.
“Come,” she told him.
Together they hurried through the crowd. Natal knew what she was doing; she led him swiftly and managed a unique pattern through the dancers and celebrants in the street. When he turned back, he saw people filling in the gaps their bodies had made—no one could follow them.
Natal led the way through street vendors and entertainers and then down a quiet street where there were few lights in the houses. Finally, they came to a gate. Behind it he could see a children’s playground set and beyond that, paths through the trees and brush.
“Come,” she said before climbing quickly over the gate.
He followed.
When they had both landed softly on the other side, she caught his hand again.
“Come—I know a place.”
They ran across the children’s play area, over a manicured lawn, and through to the trees. There were trails here, made up of soft earth and grasses and what looked like pine needles. She kept going until they broke through the trees to a small lake.
Lights from the now-distant city fell gently here, casting a soft white glow upon the water.
Natal stopped, gasping for breath and smiling at him. His own breathing came just as heavily.
“Here we are now,” she said. She slipped off her shoes and headed down to the lake. Sitting by the water’s edge, she tapped the surface with her foot, sending ripples onto the calm surface.
He sat beside her.
“We’re safe now, safe here?” she asked.
“I think,” he said softly.
“What were we running from?”
River hesitated, not sure how to answer. To tell the truth would mean admitting to having stabbed a man. He ran a hand behind his neck. He was supposed to have been on a train. As long as he remained in Rio, he wasn’t safe—not with the blue-suited man following him.
Who was the man? Not a cop—he seemed to be alone as he came after River.
It occurred to him that the man might be another goon in the employ of Reed Amato. That he’d been sent to find River—and take the matter of revenge into his own hands.
“River?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “With you is where I want to be. Even if you insist on being with a drug lord.”
“I’m not with him,” she asserted angrily.
“You go home to him.”
“We argue,” she said. “I am not his—he does not own me. No one can own me.”
He wanted to believe that she hadn’t been with Amato again since she had been with him—that he was what she needed, what she wanted.
“We’ll stay here tonight?” he asked her.
She smiled at that. As her eyes met his, she untied the knot to her crop top, nest
led between her breasts. She slowly removed the top, leaned forward, and kissed him. He drew her into his arms and slid his hands over her flesh, her bare breasts, as their lips met in something passionate and forceful and tender, liquid and intimate and beautiful.
She rose to let the skirt slip from her hips and was caught in the white light that gleamed in from the city. He looked at her body, lithe and graceful and beyond beautiful. Then he tossed his pack aside and scrambled out of his clothing, rising up to meet her.
But she leapt aside, avoiding him.
“Catch me!” she said softly, smiling broadly, and raced into the water.
He paused at the edge of the lake. She had swum out and was treading in the deep water, looking back at him. “Come in, americano!”
“Is it swimmable?”
She snorted. “Children swim here all the time.”
River stripped off his clothes and stepped in and cursed at the frosty bite on his flesh. He could hear her laughing at his discomfort.
“Move about and it will not be so cold!” she told him.
“If I catch you, it won’t be so cold,” he assured her.
When he was finally within reach, Natal dove, swimming away from him. They played the game several times.
She was laughing with delight when he finally caught her. She turned in his arms and their naked bodies touched fully, their legs entwining as they kissed and tread the water. The kiss broke and she swam from him again quickly, heading back to the shore.
He followed with all speed, and hurried out of the water to her.
She had no intention of eluding him then.
As they stood, naked, alone, surrounded by the pines and the whisper of the night, she had never appeared more beautiful. The moon played upon her sleek, damp skin, and she seemed like something out of a magical tale.
She stepped closer to him so their bodies touched and her warmth seemed to engulf him. He tenderly touched her damp hair, smoothing it from her face. They kissed again and sank back to the earth together.
There, upon the soft grass of the embankment, with the gentle lap of the water nearby and the music and the life and pulse of the city distantly behind them, they made love. And in the moment, in the loving, River dreamed that this was his life, that this could be his life …
Perhaps it had even been his life, but they had lost it somewhere.
He dozed without dreaming. When he awoke, she lay at his side, leaning on an elbow, studying him. He loved the look of her, the beauty of her every line and curve, the way her hair, just beginning to dry, curled around her shoulders and her breasts.
“I have to sketch you,” he said. “You won’t move?”
She grinned. “I will try not to move—that’s the best I can promise.”
He found his sketchpad and began to draw. She was stunning. It seemed that her life and vitality went into every movement of his pencil.
When he was done, he showed it to her.
“That’s how you see me?”
“Yes. Perfection,” he told her.
“But I’m not perfect. I have a funny little mole.”
“In my eyes, you are perfect. You are a dream. You’re life itself.”
She rolled her eyes and shoved him playfully. “Now I’ll draw you,” she said, crossing her legs in front of her, natural and uninhibited. She took the pad and began to draw.
“Let me see,” he said, when enough time had passed.
“Wait, wait…”
He forced himself to be patient. Then he looked. She burst into laughter.
She’d drawn nothing but a stick figure.
“Worth waiting for?” she teased.
He laughed, caught her by the shoulders, and bore her back down to the ground. He kissed her but then held his face above hers as he whispered, “You’ll always be worth waiting for.”
She caught her breath for a moment. “If you’re ever looking for me … the statue. The statue of Christ the Redeemer. It’s my favorite. I always go there.”
“I don’t need to look for you. I have you here, in my arms,” he said.
She smiled and told him, “There is nowhere I would rather be.”
They made love again. Slowly. As if they had all time in the world.
And then they made love again.
When he fell asleep next, it was the deep sleep of someone truly, utterly at peace.
* * *
River woke slowly to the sound of birds chirping. He felt the grass and earth beneath him and opened his eyes, squinting at the sunlight shining through the trees.
And there was a boy there—a kid of about ten—staring at him.
It occurred to River that he was stark naked, lying by a lake. He leapt to his feet, looking for Natal, trying to cover himself and find a way to cover her too.
But Natal wasn’t there. He quickly scanned the entire area.
Her clothing was gone; she was gone.
He grabbed his clothes and quickly stumbled into them—pants first. The kid continued to stare at him. River waved a hand in the air.
“Hey, leave me alone, will you?” But the boy didn’t move.
Dressed once more, River grabbed his backpack and his drawing pad.
He saw the last drawing done—the stick figure, by Natal. He grinned. He loved stick figures. He had once drawn them for …
The thought eluded him and it didn’t matter.
Because printed on the drawing were the words Christ the Redeemer.
Had she written it? Was it a message to him—to come and find her?
He thought about his train ticket. He could buy another.
“Hey, kid, show’s over—scram!” he said, packing the sketchpad in his pack and throwing it over his shoulder.
Without warning, the kid screamed something. River fought through the blurry scramble of his mind to translate the Portuguese.
“Here—he’s over here!” the kid had called.
River looked up. Halfway around the lake, he saw a man. A man wearing a blue suit—and a blue hat.
He turned and started to walk in the other direction, his heart quickening.
He quickly came to a dead halt, staring straight ahead in disbelief.
Another man in a blue suit was right in front of him. There was more than one?
It was impossible for it to have been the same person—absolutely impossible that any man could have come around so quickly, impossible for one man to be in two places.
He couldn’t go forward and he couldn’t go back.
River hopped past the kid and tore onto one of the pine-needle-laden trails through the trees.
CHAPTER 16
What the hell? Was the damned man a clone?
No, he had to be logical and not be so panicked that he went off and got himself caught by letting facts confuse him. There were two of them. They were both tall and well-built—muscled—River thought, diving through the trails. He didn’t know how, but he was determined to lose both men and find a place a study them.
Eluding them came first—and he managed that easily enough. He could hear them thrashing about but they were at least a quarter of a football field away from him. Dodging behind a tall, thick tree, he paused to breathe, adjust the backpack, and watch them.
They weren’t wearing identical suits—and neither were they clones or identical men—but they were damned close. Only one was still wearing his hat. The other was clean-shaven and bald. They both appeared to be in their early thirties or a little older.
Hitmen? Henchmen? Did they work for Tio Amato?
Or were they just a branch of the Brazilian police that he didn’t know? Why would they be—why would a special police force be after someone who had beat up a lowlife like the man who had tried to kill him?
He didn’t know—he just knew that he needed to get the hell away from them.
The park, he saw by daylight, had a number of entrances—he could see that none of them had closed gates now that morning had come. He walked away from
the direction the men were searching and hurried out into the street. With only a couple of days to go now to Carnaval, the streets were bursting with humanity—the population having grown incrementally every day of the last week. In a number of the city squares in all the bairros, River quickly saw the entertainment was just about nonstop.
It was easy to blend in with the crowd.
But then what? he wondered. Would the men in the blue suits be after him forever now?
He could feel his train ticket in his pocket. He still had all day to catch the train. Except that he wouldn’t be catching it until that night.
He would head up to the Christ the Redeemer statue.
Because Natal might be there. And he knew he’d let his ticket go—and that he would go there every day until either she came or the men in blue managed to catch up with him and subdue him.
Who the hell were they?
So far, at least, it didn’t seem that any of the city’s regular officers were after him.
It was just these men in blue. Two of them now.
How many of them might there be? he wondered.
He was careful as he made his way through the streets; he was in a hurry, but he wasn’t rude. A few people spoke to him in passing. Music seemed to come from every shop and restaurant doorway.
Small parades were already making their way through the streets, and eventually River had to pause to let one pass. The parade was being put on by one of the many samba schools in the city. The last float was the most amazing. It was filled with beautiful dancers, moving about their platform with grace and beauty, the women dressed in skimpy white costumes, the men in black tuxedos. The sight was mesmerizing, and as the float passed, people stopped and stared, awed at first, then clapping enthusiastically. Samba seemed to be imbedded in the very blood of the city, but the dance being performed on the float seemed to transcend the concept of human motion. It wasn’t that difficult to be caught up with the crowd, to blend with the crowd. The beauty of the movement was almost hypnotic. He imagined Natal in such a costume; she could, he was certain, move with equal grace.
Of course, she would have him as a partner, but he could learn. There were samba schools on almost every corner in Rio—he could find the right one. She loved dancing and music and he did too; for her, he would really learn how to dance.
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