Page 35 of Girl in the Water

Chapter Six

Eduardo

“Get the girl too,” Eduardo Morais shouted the order as he sent his men into the house.

He’d seen Finch’s friend. That guy wasn’t going to respond to torture any better than Finch had. But the man seemed to have grown fond of the little whore. Maybe if they tortured the whore in front of him…

Eduardo wasn’t going to fail his brother, Marcos, this time.

He stayed outside, at a safe distance, listening to the sounds of fighting, furniture crashing. A gun popped. Then another.

Few people were out on the street after dark, and those who were weren’t bothered by the sounds of violence. They weren’t much interested either. They took a look at Eduardo, dressed as an important man, in a suit, the silver of his gun glinting in his hand, and they hurried by.

The crashing and yelling continued inside.

Eduardo had brought six men from Rio. If he lost one or two… He was a businessman who understood the cost of doing business. And there was no way Finch’s friend would fight off all six.

As if to underscore that thought, the house fell silent. No more crashes, no shouting, no gunfire. Just the sweet silence of success.

Now that’s how you take care of business.Eduardo smirked to himself as he strode in. Then…Meu Deus. For a moment, he faltered.

Bloodied men covered the floor.

Six.

All his.

Fernando, the bald one, was shaking his head, coming to, his nose broken and bleeding. His shoulder stuck out at the wrong angle, dislocated.

Merda.

Fury burned through Eduardo. “What the hell happened?”

“They went out the back.” Fernando gasped out the words in a nasal tone. “The whore can fight like a freaking ninja.”

“What the hell are you talking about, you useless piece of shit?” Eduardo kicked him. “Get up. Get after them.”

He finally had to help the guy up—carefully, so his suit wouldn’t get bloody. Then the two of them, with guns drawn, hurried out back into the darkness together. Or, more correctly, Eduardo hurried, and the idiot Fernando limped behind him.

Something in the river caught Eduardo’s eye as soon as they were down the backstairs. A white fishing boat chugged across the black water.

Monte de merda.

He ran to the end of the dock and knocked the sole fisherman coming home from the night into the water, jumped into the man’s ancient motorboat, waited for Fernando, then headed after the people he was chasing.

Nothing but jungle waited on the opposite side of the river. The foreigner and the girl weren’t going to escape him there.

* * *

Ian

Ian looked up from under the tarp that covered Daniela and him as they lay pressed together on the bottom of a small canoe stuck in the mud on the riverbank.

They were a tight fit lying down like that, but lack of room was the least of his worries. He was more concerned about poisonous snakes or spiders that might have bedded down for the night in the canoe. He hadn’t had time to check.

“We’ll go upriver.” He whispered because water carried sound a little too well.

They climbed out and pushed the canoe into the water. He did look for other occupants in the moonlight then, but they lucked out. Nothing too scary save a few bugs here and there.