Page 69 of Girl in the Water

He bought four large cones, giving two to the boy on the curb as they passed him again. “One for your brother,” he said in his broken Portuguese. “It’s a hot day.”

The kid searched his face, looking for the catch. Was he a cop? What did he want? Was he trying to buy some kind of services?

Then, as they walked on, and Daniela looked back, the kid was shoving both ice creams into his mouth as fast as he could, melted goo running down his dirty chin.

“I’m sure if they had another way to make enough to eat, they’d do that,” Ian said.

Probably a thousand out of a thousand people seeing those kids would have seen garbage. If the small boy came too close, some would kick him away. Daniela had seen that happen and worse.

Ian wasn’t like most people. He had dark places he tried to hide from her, didn’t let sunshine reach. But all his places, dark or light, were good and honorable.

After the ice cream, they decided to grab a bite to eat and ended up at a tourist dive, a bad choice, in hindsight. The place had a large tank in the middle filled with piranhas, which the tourists could feed with chicken wings for a few reais.

Ian ignored them. Daniela was appalled. She couldn’t believethiswas going to be their first unofficial date.

They couldn’t even talk, since they couldn’t hear each other over the tourists’ horrified and delighted screams and squeals. They ate their fish stew, then got out of there.

Ian’s cell phone rang.

“Yes,” he said after he picked up, then, “That sounds great. I can be there tomorrow afternoon.” He listened with his forehead in a frown. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Who was that?” she asked when he hung up.

“I have to fly back to Rio tomorrow. I plan on being back before the end of the day, the following morning at the latest.”

“For what?”

Instead of responding, he said, “Stick around See-Love-Aid. Plenty of people to interview there. That should more than take up your day. I don’t want you out, wandering the city.”

Her earlier optimism plummeted.Shemight be thinking they were equal partners, but clearly, he wasn’t thinking the same.

“Why are you going to Rio?”

“A little side business.”

She waited for him to say more, to explain. He didn’t.

Why was it a secret? Either he thought she couldn’t handle it, or he didn’t trust her.

The fish stew sat in her stomach like a handful of river mud, her good mood washed away by a flash flood of darker emotions.

So Ian expected her to cower in the safety of See-Love-Aid tomorrow, did he? Doing what? Reorganizing the paperwork?

No.She was an investigator just like him.

She was going to investigate. She could go to places and talk to people that he couldn’t.

* * *

Ian

Looked like fish were nibbling on the bread Ian had thrown on the water at Lavras Sugar and Ethanol. They’d called him for an interview. He wished he could fly back to Rio right away, but he wanted another look at See-Love-Aid, wanted to talk to as many people as possible. That way, while he was in Rio, all that could percolate in the back of his head.

So he called in flight reservations for the following morning.

When they got back to See-Love-Aid, Mrs. Frieseke was more than helpful, once again. She gathered the permanent staff together in the empty downstairs dining room.

Other than Mrs. Frieseke, three women sat around the largest table, and two men. Mrs. Frieseke made the introductions.