Page 25 of Girl in the Water

Not this time.

Not again.

She worked silently and carefully, her fingers like the delicate legs of the water bugs as they ran across the shallow ponds without disturbing the surface. She nearly worked the belt free when a large hand closed around her wrist.

Slowly, she turned to face the man who captured her. His dark gaze burned into hers in the dim moonlight.

“If you run, I will find you. Do you understand?”

Her heart beat in her throat. “Sim, senhor.”

The jaguar would let her go. But only when he was ready.

* * *

Ian

Ian dreamt of Linda and the twins under water, Connor and Colin screaming, “Daddy!”

He startled awake drenched in sweat, and for a moment, he didn’t know where he was. The bamboo walls, palm thatch ceiling, and oppressive humidity brought him to Brazilian reality.

Connor and Colin couldn’t have screamed, he told himself. They had been too young to speak. And too young to know who was at fault for not protecting them, letting them go into that river. The father who hadn’t come when he was needed.

The air and the room around Ian felt like a wet, dark weight, like it could drown him—not like a river, but a slow sinking in thick swamp water. His head pounded.

Next to him, Daniela was still sleeping.

He took in the small, curled-up heap she made in the bed. With tear streaks all over her face, she looked about sixteen. He felt like a dick.

He untied himself from her and fastened her to the bamboo footboard. He tucked the gun into his waistband, then hurried off to piss, hurried back, half expecting to find the bed empty, but she was still there, now sitting.

He leaned against the doorjamb, didn’t step any closer.

“You can unbuckle that now.” He nodded toward his belt.

And then what?

He needed a shot of something. Jameson’s would be good—a couple of shots, actually. He shoved his shaky hands into his pockets. Hell, he’d settle for some rotgut tequila, if Finch had only stocked some.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he told Daniela again, because judging by the tight set of her slim shoulders, it bore repeating.

She nodded but didn’t relax.

“Why don’t you use the bathroom, then we’ll see about breakfast.”

The promise of food seemed to galvanize her, and she sprang into action, confirming his suspicions that she’d gone without food in the past.Better and better.

He padded to the kitchen barefoot, found eggs in the ancient fridge and some coconut oil, used the pan on the stove to make scrambled eggs. When he heard her behind him, he turned.

She was staring as if he had a tap-dancing monkey on his head.

He had no idea what was wrong now, so he pointed at the table. “Sit.”

He put the eggs on the table. Half a dozen forks sat in a cup on the counter. He grabbed two. He didn’t feel like hunting around for plates. He grabbed a lone flatbread from a plastic bag, then carried everything over.

He hadn’t had breakfast with someone at a kitchen table in two years. Hell, this was probably the first time he’d have breakfast in the past two years that hadn’t come from a bottle.

For a second, he thought of Linda and the twins, the last breakfast they’d had together before he’d shipped out. Linda had been crying, begging him to stay.