Ouch.
But I know you can hack it, Miri. Wrapped in the cloth are instructions on how to find the Cidade da Lua and a key to its location…
Miri paused from reading the letter, and again scanned the room to confirm that this wasn’t some sort of prank or aPunk’dreboot before picking up the object and slowly untying the string around the fabric. With careful, delicate movements, she spread open the cloth, setting the piece on the bedspread. Inside was another piece of paper and a large gold medallion on a chain. Miri lifted the necklace, dangling it in front of her face. It appeared to have originally been a disc, perhaps three inches in diameter, although about a third of it had been broken off. The piece was substantial and heavy, solid gold about half an inch thick. She took the necklace over to the nightstand and flicked on the bedside lamp to inspect it. One side had carvings—a temple with a moon above it. But the other had strange holes in a random pattern. Constellations, perhaps? Or simply weathered by the elements?
Miri set the pendant on the nightstand, then unfolded the paper that was with it. Corrie wasn’t kidding—it was a list of various landmarks.
Mesa de pedra. Rocha cara de macaco. Lágrimas de jaguar. Lago de nenúfar. Trilha de árvores gigantes. Ponte de videiras. Porta do coração da árvore.Miri’s Portuguese was spotty, but she was pretty sure she’d pieced it together:
A stone table.
A rock that looked like the face of a monkey.
A waterfall that looked like the tears of a jaguar.
A lake of water lilies.
A trail of giant trees.
A bridge made of vines.
And a doorway through the center of a tree.
The only thing missing was a dotted line showing how to get there. This list wasn’t so much a map as it was a scavenger hunt.
No freaking way! It couldn’t be this easy.
Miri continued reading the letter from Corrie:
The investor, Eugene Larity, spent two decades searching for the Cidade da Lua, and a team under his direction found this necklace in an abandoned settlement during an expedition to the Amazon last year. Regrettably, Mr. Larity had been working with Pierre Vautour, the smarmy piece-of-shit scumbag who was responsible for the fiasco in Mexico and for those pictures of me being leaked…but I digress. He wasn’t aware of Vautour’s notoriety, and Vautour managed to steal a copy of this list.
Mr. Larity believes Vautour has invested in lidar technology to locate the Moon City now that he knows what landmarks to look for. But as I’m sure you can imagine, there are thousands of spots in the Amazon that might fit these descriptions. That’s where the medallion comes in. We don’t know how, but somehow it’s the key to finding each of the landmarks on this list. The mesa de pedra is the gateway to the Cidade da Lua. This was the trading post for the Cidade da Lua, so it’s likely located near a waterway. Find the mesa de pedra, and this medallion will point you to the Moon City.
I’m sorry I can’t give you more help. These instructions are more of a guide than a map. There’s no “X” marking the spot. Just your intuition and keen eye…
Again with her intuition.
You must find the Cidade da Lua before Vautour does. Lord knows what he’ll do if he gets his hands on it first. Tell noone about this, Miri. I mean it—no one. Vautour has spies everywhere and is an expert at manipulation. There’s no telling who he might have gotten to.
We’re counting on you. You’ve got this.
Now go kick some ass.
—Corrie
Fuck.
Chapter
Five
Fuck, fuckity, fuck.
Rafa took a sip of his cafézinho at the sidewalk café across from the hotel the next morning while he scribbled in his notebook, debating how the hell he was going to get out of this mess. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. That wasn’t how theeveningwas supposed to go. Rafa had planned to wrap up his sting operation with the archaeological crew whereno onewould recognize him, then he’d waltz over to the hotel bar, buy him and Miri the “backpack consultant” a couple of caipirinhas. Laugh a little longer. Flirt a little more. And perhaps end up in one of their rooms for the night before saying goodbye forever.
Miri wasnotsupposed to be working alongside him for the next who knew how many weeks. And she certainly wasn’t supposed to be assigned lead.
He couldn’t tear his mind from her lips. They were cute, delicate, and appeared to be impossibly soft. The kind of lips that would swell after a proper make-out session. Lips that looked indesperateneedof a proper make-out session. But more than that, he couldn’t stop thinking about them because the words flowing out of those lips made him smile.
