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“I thought my father told me you were married,” she said as the plane leveled off and his hands began to relax in his lap. No ring had made her assume otherwise.
“Married? No.” His brow rose slightly at the question. “That would be my sister. She got married right out of college and now has three little girls.”
“So you never found Ms. Right?” She’d asked the question as a simple conversation starter, but from the look on his face, she’d just wandered into forbidden territory. “I’m sorry if that was too personal.”
“I was engaged. Once.” He stared past her out the window.
Yeah...definitely too personal.
Though honestly, she couldn’t imagine marrying someone with such a risky job, who was gone for weeks at a time. More than likely his ex had decided to find someone with a more...normal day job.
“What about you?” he asked, shifting the subject. “Any Mr. Right in your life?”
“No, though I was almost engaged once.”
Ellie frowned. That is if you could call wishful thinking almost engaged. The night she’d expected Lance to propose, he’d broken up with her. And to make it worse, he’d ended up marrying one of her best friends.
She stared back out the window, wondering how she’d allowed their conversation to become so personal. Maybe it was simply having to adjust to the lack of contact with any other Americans over the past few months that had allowed her to let down her guard now. But just because she was lonely didn’t mean she was ready to open up her heart.
* * *
Ryan settled back in his chair as their pilot leveled out the small plane, leaving the city behind them. Despite her personal questions, he hadn’t failed to notice how guarded she seemed. Though he couldn’t really blame her. She’d been in hiding for the past three months, without being able to communicate with anyone she cared about.
As for himself, this was already probably the most amount of time he’d spent around a woman for, well...for a very long time. His father was constantly trying to nudge him back into the dating game, and if he didn’t know better, he could easily believe his dad had set up this entire scenario to get the two of them together. In fact, a part of him wasn’t sure why he hadn’t started dating again. Enough time had passed for the major wounds of his heart to begin to heal. But something had still continued to hold him back and keep him running.
Just like Ellie.
Except Ellie had been running from a legitimate threat. From a man who wanted her dead because of retaliation over what she’d seen. He, on the other hand, had been running from his own emotions and fears.
The thought struck him hard. The revelation would no doubt be one his father would be proud of. If he was to start dating again—which he had no plans whatsoever to do—and if he was honest with himself, from the short time he’d been around her, he knew Ellie was the kind of woman he’d like to spend time getting to know better. When they were kids, he’d enjoyed hanging out with her, and she’d always been a good sport no matter how much he’d teased her.
“Where’d you learn Portuguese?” he asked, figuring they could both do with a neutral subject.
“I love languages and ended up studying both Spanish and Portuguese in high school and college. Right after I graduated, I was given an incredible opportunity to work for two years in a studio based in São Paulo. I ended up fluent in the language and loved my time here. So when my father was murdered, it seemed like the perfect place to disappear. And it would have been if Arias’s arm didn’t stretch further than we thought. I never imagined he could find me here.”
He watched her smile fade into a frown. The underlying reason they were here had once again managed to rear its ugly head.
“Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about the reason we’re going during the flight,” she said, “but I can’t seem to get away from it.”
“It’s hard to ignore.”
“Have I thanked you for coming with me?” she asked.
He smiled. “Once or twice.”
“I know this plan probably seems crazy, and trust me, I typically tend to avoid crazy.”
“Like jumping off the roof into a swimming pool?” He nudged her with his elbow.
She laughed. “I guess sometimes you can’t avoid crazy.”
They spent the next couple of hours chatting off and on about what had happened since they’d last seen each other. But never—he noted—about anything too personal. Her job as a medical illustrator, places they’d traveled, his last diving stint, the last books they’d read... And if the conversation started veering toward something personal, she always changed the subject.
Ellie glanced out the window, then grabbed his arm. “Look down below us.”
“What is it?”
“About four or five miles from Manaus, two tributaries of the Amazon meet but don’t mix.”
“What?” he said as he leaned over her. But she was right. The two colors of the merging rivers were clearly distinct.
“The lighter-colored river is the Solimões,” she said. “The darker side of the water is the Rio Negro. Its black-tea color comes from decayed plant matter, and with barely any sediment, it’s actually considered one of the cleanest natural waterways on the planet.”
“Wow...that is amazing,” he said, staring out the window at the water below them. “Though I am curious why they don’t they mix.”
“Because of the extreme differences in water temperature, density and speed, they stay separate until they hit a strong wave of whitewater and become a part of the Lower Amazon River. I know you’ve traveled a lot for your job, but I’m guessing you’ve never visited the Amazon.”
“I’ve worked in Eastern Europe, Australia, South America and the Middle East...but never visited the Amazon.”
“Do you see yourself involved in saturation diving long-term?” she asked.
“Probably not.” He didn’t even have to think about his answer.
“Why not?”
“Other than the fact that it’s an extremely demanding job? I think about having a family one day and, despite the money, would prefer not to be away for weeks on end.”
She looked back down at the river as the pilot made an announcement through his headset that they would be landing in about fifteen minutes.
“Where exactly are we landing?” Ryan asked, feeling the plane begin to drop in altitude.
“There’s a small, isolated airstrip where a contact is supposed to meet us and take us to Dr. Reynolds.”
“Is the pilot waiting for us on the ground?”
“He’ll return in the morning. I didn’t know how long it would take with the doctor, so I thought it was better to stay the night. It will be rustic—”
“You’ve forgotten I’m pretty used to the simple life,” he said. “On the job—when I’m not working—I’m sleeping, eating and relaxing in a tiny pressurized chamber. Let’s just say it’s about as far from glamorous as you can get.”
At half past one, just as the pilot had announced, they were taxiing down the short runway in the middle of the dense tropical forest they’d been flying over the past few hours. Ryan waited for the pilot to open the side door, then stepped out of the plane behind Ellie, thankful they’d arrived. Because the sooner they could talk to the doctor, the sooner they could get out of here.
Ellie picked up her backpack, then turned to their pilot. “We’ll plan to meet at nine in the morning.”
The pilot tugged on the waist of his pants. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to return tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute... What do you mean? That’s what we agreed to.”
“Things have changed.” The man glanced toward the tree line behind them. “Turns out you weren’t my highest-paying customer today.”
Ryan turned around. Three armed men started toward them. Adrenaline surged as instinct kicked in, and Ryan’s mind quickly ran through their limited options. His job required him to be able to stay calm in order to cope with emergencies. But while his gut wanted to jump in and fight them off, he knew there was no way he’d win. One of the men quickly grabbed his arm, ensuring he didn’t question his decision.
“Ryan...”
Another man grabbed Ellie’s arm and told her to shut up. How had he not seen this coming?
The pilot took an envelope from their leader, then boarded the plane.
“Wait!” Ryan said, shouting at the pilot. “You can’t just leave us here.”
The man holding him back tightened his grip on Ryan’s arm, his protests lost in the roar of the engine.
FOUR (#uda2b470f-7228-5a73-8eed-c418cf70fba0)
Ellie watched as Ryan lunged toward the man holding him. But the odds were stacked against them.
A rifle clicked next to Ryan’s temple. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The man dug his fingers deeper into her arm. She’d have a nasty mark above her elbow tomorrow, but if they didn’t find a way out of here, a bruise was going to be the least of her problems.
She glanced at Ryan, and the horror that she was the one who’d gotten him into this slowly sank in. She should have listened to his father. Or at the least should have insisted he drop her off at the private airfield, then take his own flight back to the United States.
Except then she’d have been on her own.
She watched as the airplane that had once been their ticket out of here taxied down the runway. It picked up speed, took off, then skimmed the top of the tree line before fading into the white clouds above them. She’d missed something. No one was supposed to have known about her meeting with Dr. Reynolds. She’d made sure of that. And now, not just her and Ryan’s lives were at stake, but the doctor’s was, too.
“Welcome to the Amazon.” One of the armed men with a row of tattoos running down his neck smiled, revealing a large gap between his front teeth.
“This isn’t exactly the welcome we expected,” Ryan said.
“Your plans have changed, though I am assuming you have already figured that out.”
The man ran his finger down her cheek. Ellie pulled back as far as she could, her stomach souring at the smell of alcohol.
“Let her go,” Ryan said.
“You’re not exactly in a position to argue with me.”
“Yuri? I could put an end to this right now. Teach him a lesson.” One of the other men aimed his gun at Ryan, the look in his eye making his intent clear.
“If I were you,” Yuri said, “I would do what he says. Pedro, he is a bit...trigger-happy, as I think you Americans call it.”
“Then just tell me this,” Ellie said, searching for answers as to what went wrong. “Who’s paying you to take us?”
“I am just the middleman, but don’t worry. All of your questions will be answered before long.”
He barked out a string of orders in Portuguese.
“What did he just say?” Ryan asked.
“He wants them to look through our bags.”
One of the men grabbed her bag off her shoulder, unzipped it, then dumped its contents across the ground. A second man did the same thing with Ryan’s bag.
“Any knives? Weapons?” Yuri asked her.
She pressed her lips together as the man searched the pockets, refusing to answer while at the same time hoping they didn’t find the survival knife she’d packed in the bag. It was one of the last gifts her father had given her. But it was too late. The man slid out the knife and slipped it into his pocket. Thirty seconds later, they were finished.
“Pick up your stuff. Both of you.” Yuri grabbed a Snickers bar from the pile beneath her feet and ripped off the wrapper before taking a bite. “We need to go.”
Ellie studied the surrounding terrain as she shoved her things into her backpack. The small airstrip was surrounded by thick trees for as far as the eye could see. This Amazon rain forest was twice the size of India and made up of floodplains, savannas and rivers. Not exactly a place they could simply walk out of, even if they did find a way to escape. The doctor had told her that the airstrip where they landed was less than a mile from the river—north, she remembered—but the plan had been to catch a ride downstream to where Reynolds would be waiting for her. There was no sign of the guide the doctor had promised to send.
“Trust me, there’s nowhere to go out here, unless you want to run into something even more deadly,” Yuri said, seeming to read her mind. He laughed, then took another bite of the candy bar as she slung the pack over her shoulder. “Without a guide, there is no telling what you might encounter out here.”
He was right. Where could they run? She glanced at Ryan and caught the concern in his eyes. He’d come to take her out of here, and she’d just walked them both into a trap.
Yuri slapped his leg. “Time to go.”
They left the open terrain of the airstrip behind and marched toward the jungle with Yuri in front of them and Pedro and the other man trailing a few feet behind. The thick canopy of trees enveloped them as they stepped into the heavily forested terrain. Large trees with thick vines soared toward the canopy that blocked part of the sunlight. A bird called out beside her. If she was right, they were moving south, away from the village and deeper into the jungle.
“You haven’t told us what you wanted,” Ryan said.
She glanced at Ryan, who’d just spoken out loud her own deep-seated fears. Because while this could be nothing more than a random kidnapping and ransom scenario they’d just stepped into, her gut told her this was no coincidence. Though she had no idea how, Arias’s men could have found her in Rio and somehow managed to track her next move here.
“Like I said, I’m simply the middleman,” Yuri said. “And like your glorified pilot said, whoever is willing to pay the most wins. Today, you just happen to be the prize.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Let’s just say you’ve made someone very unhappy. Poking into things you shouldn’t.”
“Like my father’s murder,” she said.
She’d been right. This had to be the work of Arias, though she still had no idea how they’d found her.
“Even I didn’t ask as many questions as you when I took this job.” Yuri sidestepped a vine that was lying across the uneven path they followed. “You will find out when we get there.”
“So where are we going?” Ryan asked.
“To a camp not too far from here.”
Ellie fought against the mounting fear. Arias was known for his brutality, for his seemingly unlimited resources...and for the people working for him—hired to do his dirty work.
A small branch snapped as she stepped on it. How could she have been so stupid? She’d known the heavy risks of coming here. Knew exactly what Arias and his men were capable of doing, especially knowing how far his reach was. They’d found her in Rio, and yet somehow she’d managed to convince herself that her plan was invincible. That flying here would be the linchpin that took down Arias.
Instead, she’d only managed to put more lives in danger.
She glanced at Ryan, guilt saturating her far deeper than the sunlight hitting the spongy jungle floor. At least they hadn’t tied her and Ryan up as they marched between the armed men. But why would they need to? Yuri was right. There was nowhere to run. And even if they did, there were plenty of other dangers in the forest besides the men holding them at gunpoint. Spiders, snakes, poisonous dart frogs. A chill shot through her despite the humidity. And if they ended up in the water, there were things worse to encounter than piranhas. For starters, the razor-sharp teeth of the cañero, who moved in packs and had sharklike jaws. Not to mention malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, that humidity made a breeding ground.
She tried to shut down her negative train of thought. Because it wasn’t the wildlife threatening to kill them right now. Instead, it was three armed men. And while she’d clearly read too many travel blogs about the risks of traveling in South America, no travel blog had told her how to deal with this situation.
