“Something like that.” Ana threw her head back and laughed again, her smile enormously wide, fixed for a snapshot. “I know a nice little place where they serve local food, cheap but delicious. We can come up with some sort of plan for Grace.”
“How d’you know my daughter’s called Grace?”
“I heard you talking, telling the manager her name.”
“Ah, I see.”
THE RESTAURANT WAS simple; little wooden tables and straw chairs with a seashell theme as a backdrop. Ana seemed keen to order for them both. Tommy hadn’t realized how hungry he was. It was the first proper meal he was about to have since his illness and he hoped he wouldn’t throw up.
Ana widened her eyes. “Okay, the best thing to do is to share as there are so many delicious things to try. Have you ever eaten Brazilian food before?”
“Once, years ago in London, but I can hardly remember—just that I liked it.”
Ana stroked her nose. “You’ll love it, trust me. It’s like a mix of all the different cultures we have here—Indian, African—you know, a lot of slaves were brought here by the Portuguese—a lot of coconut milk and palm oil is used.”
Tommy felt himself uneasy. Palm oil, coconut—was he ready for such rich cuisine? He’d been expecting something more down-to-earth—he didn’t want to take up the whole evening with some elaborate dinner—every minute was a click on the clock, every second a moment further away from finding Grace.
“Maybe I should just have something light. I was pretty sick recently.”
“Oh you’ll love everything,” she assured him in her thick, Brazilian accent. “We can start with
Acarajé
which is a popular street food snack here, especially at the beach. The main ingredients are black-eyed peas seasoned with ground dried shrimp and onions—” she licked her lips, “which are shaped into balls and deep fried, then split and filled with a spicy shrimp and caramelized onion filling. Sounds good, huh? I love them. Then I thought we could get some octopus and some
Xinxim de galinha
, which is chicken, flavored with garlic, salt, and lemon, or maybe some
Carangueijada
, which is whole cooked crab.”
“Sounds way too much for just two.”
Damn his English manners
—he should be nipping this fiasco in the bud right now. Instead he was being polite. Tick-tock. He wanted Ana to help him, not waste time with an elaborate dinner!
She laid her fingers on his hand. “We can always get a doggy bag which I can put in my mini-bar fridge. We can eat the rest tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Tommy hadn’t yet thought ahead to tomorrow. So far, the topic of Grace hadn’t even come up. This was crazy. He needed help and soon. But he didn’t want to be rude to Ana; she was his ticket to getting something done around here. He’d ask her to accompany him to the police station, the second they’d eaten.
A waitress approached their table and Ana ordered the spread she had described. She turned to Tommy and said in an excited voice, with her hands clapped together, “I love to eat. Oh, and I’ve ordered us
Caipirinhas,
too. I adore that heady mix of limejuice and
cachaça
. The sugar kind of takes the edge off the lime and makes throwing these drinks back just a
little
too easy.” She chuckled. “I’m so pleased we met, Tommy. I really am.” She rested her hand on his again and her fingers slowly fondled his wedding band. “You’re married?”
“Why do you sound surprised?” he said edgily. “I have a five-year-old daughter, after all.”
“Of course. How silly of me. What’s she like, your wife?”
The question took him by surprise. But Ana
was
South American—their culture was more open, he supposed.
“She’s great,” he replied with a frown.
Like a beautiful ice princess.
Hard to get close to, but when you do you see that she can melt and is just the sweetest, most trusting woman ever.
“But not in the best of spirits right now, obviously.”
“So things are a little tough between you?”
Jesus
!
What was she like, this woman?
“Our daughter’s missing, Ana. We’re just under a lot of strain—beside ourselves with worry about Grace.”
“Is she intelligent, your wife? Serious? Funny?”
Why all this interest in my wife?
“Yes, very intelligent. She reads a lot.”
Tommy thought of how Sylvia loved poetry, how she was deep, philosophical, and sensitive. But with a quirky sense of humor, too. That he had to work though, to keep her spark lit, that sometimes he thought he wasn’t interesting enough for her. She’d be reading
Anna Karenina
, or something, and he’d be looking at books about fly fishing or photography.
He blurted out, “The closest I get to reading literature is a Tom Clancy novel.” As he spoke, he mentally kicked himself. Why the fuck was he giving any personal information away? It was none of this woman’s bloody business. But he went on, “How about you then? Married?” Again, that ingrained be-polite-at-all-times British bullshit. But she was his ticket to get stuff done—she could help, so he didn’t want to be curt or rude. His foot tapped the floor impatiently.
Hurry up
!
Let’s go to the fucking police station and find Grace.
Ana looked down. “No, I’m not married. I’m single.”
“What about the American fiancé?”
“Oh, we split up a little while ago. It just wasn’t working. I guess he wasn’t able to fulfill my needs, you know?”
Tommy felt ill at ease—his nerves had him revealing things about his private life with a total stranger. This dinner was a time waster—she’d offered to help and he needed to pin her down.
“About Grace, Ana. We need to go straight to the police station after dinner so you can translate for me.”
Ana threw her arms up. “Oh, you don’t want to go there! Have you any idea how corrupt they are here? They’re really not going to give a damn about a missing child when they already have tens of thousands of their own on the streets of Rio to deal with. That’s not counting the rest of the continent—there are homeless children living on landfill dumps everywhere.”
Tommy could feel a lump in his throat. “That sounds very cynical, Ana. And Grace isn’t
homeless
. She was
kidnapped
by a very sick person. Her parents are desperate for her. She
has
a home. I’m sure the police will be as helpful as they can.”
“I’m sure whoever took her had a reason.”
His brow furrowed into a hard knot. “Hitler had a reason. All nutters have a ‘reason’ in their own sick minds.”
“You think this woman was sick?”
“
Is
sick. Yes. Very sick. Psychotic even.”
Ana smiled faintly and stroked her nose again. “Perhaps she regrets what she’s done.”
“If so, she would have brought our daughter back to us by now.”
“Maybe she can’t.”
“Can’t or
won’t
?” he retorted.
“Same difference. Maybe she realizes she doesn’t even
want
Grace anymore.”
“I doubt that very much. This woman is forty-six and can’t have children. She stole Grace because she was obviously desperate to be a mother. The woman went to all that trouble to steal her in the first place. Besides, Grace is an angel. So easy to fall in love with. She’s the sweetest, smartest girl in the world. Anyone would topple head over heels for her. And I’m not just saying that because I’m her father. She’s special. Unique.”
“You never know. She might decide that being a parent isn’t what she thought it would be.”
All the food arrived at the table at the same time. Ana’s eyes lit up, her wide grin planted on her face like a poster for a toothpaste commercial. She started to serve out the dishes on both plates. Tommy noticed she’d been smoothing her fingers across the fine bridge of her nose all evening.
“Does it hurt?”
“What?”
“Your bruise. That bash from the horse. Is it sore?”
“Oh, that. No, not really.”
“Look, Ana, I don’t mean to sound pushy, and you’ve been very kind to offer your help but I really
do
want to see the police. I got a tip and I need to get Grace’s picture out there ASAP. I could really use your help.”
“Do you have a photo of the woman?”
“No, that’s the whole trouble. She seems invisible.”
“I guess she must be super-smart.”
“Something will make her slip up,” Tommy said bitterly.
“You think so?”
He took a bite of one of the shrimp ball things. It was good but he really didn’t feel like eating. There was something about this woman that was really irking him. She seemed strangely detached for someone who had seemed so keen to help earlier.
“You don’t have kids, then?” he asked, with an accusing shift of his eyes.
She looked up at the ceiling for a second and when her eyes rested back on him, he saw they were filled with quiet tears.
“Sorry, have I touched a nerve?” he said, feeling awkward.
“I did have a child,” she answered softly. “Grace’s age. Her name was Adela.”
Oh dear, I’ve put my foot in it.
“And what happened?”
“She went missing one day. Just vanished. And I never found her again.”
Tommy clawed his fingers through his messy hair. “Oh my God. I’m
so sorry.
So then you’re in the same boat as us? You
understand
and that’s why you want to help—you identify with the kind of pain we’re going through.”
A tear slid down Ana’s cheek. “You see my point about the law here? They don’t give a damn. Trying to find a missing child in Brazil is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Tommy’s insides churned. “I’m not just dealing with Brazil. I’m dealing with the whole of Latin America. Grace could be anywhere.”
“Have you tried Central America?”
“I was just in Honduras. Why?”
Ana shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Just a hunch. You might try somewhere like Nicaragua. The rainforest there is second only to the Amazon in size. With miles and miles of deserted beaches. It would be a clever place to hide a child.”
“But I got a tip that she was seen here. They were
here.
”
Ana took a long sip of her cocktail, and then said, “Well perhaps that tip was full of baloney. Perhaps that person was pulling your leg, have you thought of that?”
“Yes, we had. The tip was anonymous which was a bit off-kilter.” Jesus, he needed to get out of this restaurant. But the poor woman looked so forlorn. So that’s why she offered help—she wanted sympathy from someone who’d understand.
“I’d try Central America.”
Tommy couldn’t stop chewing his lower lip. “When I think of Nicaragua all that comes to mind is extreme poverty. You really think she would have taken Grace
there
?”
“Well I think you might want to investigate places like that. Do you have any idea what this woman looks like?”
“My wife does, of course. But all
I’ve
seen is the police photofit. You must have seen it too—it’s all over the web. On TV. My daughter said she looks like a weasel with eyes the color of poo. Funny that—you should always trust your first instinct about a person. We should have heeded more attention. Sadly, Grace changed her mind when that bitch bought her a pair of bloody shoes.”
“Eyes the color of Pooh Bear?”
“No. Eyes the color of shit.”
Ana gazed downwards, a pained look on her face. Then she touched his hand. She downed the rest of her Caipirinha and said, “I’m sure you’ll find your daughter. I’m sure she’s just fine as we speak. Probably devouring an ice cream somewhere.”
“Something makes me doubt that very much, I’m afraid, but nice of you to be so upbeat about it. So how do you cope never having found your daughter again? How do you get
through
each day?”
Ana touched the gold cross around her neck. “Faith.”
“You know what gets me most about this woman? The mendacity of it all,” he said in a low rumble. He felt like his insides would split. “The filthy lies, the tricks, the schemes. The pain she’s putting everyone through makes me want to literally
kill
her.”
“But you said you don’t even know what she looks like.”
“One day I’ll find her. And when I do? Well, that bitch had better watch out, that’s all.”
“Tommy, you were right. We ordered too much. I don’t feel so well myself. Can I ask you one little favor? As one lost desperate parent to another?”
“Sure.”
“I could really use a hug right now.” Ana got up from her seat and moved over to his side. She sat on his knee as if she were riding sidesaddle. He thought she was wiggling about to get comfortable but he felt her pressing the muscles of her butt into his groin. She flicked her auburn hair close against his neck. She wriggled some more on his lap—he could feel the tension of her gyrating buttocks. Then she put an arm around his shoulder. She rested her lips against his ear and placed her other hand beneath her ass, cupping his crotch firmly, palming it with her whole hand. “You are
so
hot, you know that? So goddamn handsome! I would just love to straddle you—I bet you’ve got a really huge cock. I’m wet right now just thinking about it.” She put her tongue inside his ear and licked it slowly. “I could so fuck you all night and suck your huge dick, lick it up and down, up and down, put that huge, thick cock in my mouth and then ride you all night the way you
deserve.
”
Tommy’s conscience was doing one thing, his dick was doing another. How could he undo millions of years of male DNA? He simply couldn’t help it.
He felt himself getting hard.
Sylvia
S
ylvia’s nerves about her trip to Rio de Janeiro had her teetering on the edge. Excitement, mixed with terror, and sprinkled with hope, surged through her fragile veins. Tommy, oblivious to her plans, still didn’t know she was on her way, and Melinda had insisted on coming to Rio with her. Good, she needed the support. They
would
find Grace. The thought of the contrary was too painful to contemplate and, as Tommy had said, “unacceptable.”