Rafa tapped his thumb on Miri’s shoulder, casually trying to get her attention. She looked at his hand and smiled, then at his face. But Rafa wasn’t smiling. He shook his head with the most minuscule movement possible. Without words, she ticked her head in their direction and lifted her brows with the subtlest of movements as if asking,Are you sure?Oh, he was sure all right. Nationals ballpark was in the Navy Yard neighborhood, miles away from Columbia Heights. And the Lincoln Memorial wasnowhere near the stadium, certainly not within viewing distance. He nodded, but his solemn eyes said it all—they were in trouble. She pulled her mouth in a tight line then returned a nod with the same amount of movement, signaling that she understood.
“How long is your trip in the Amazon?” she called out to them.
“Two weeks,” Kevin replied.
“When did you get here?”
“Yesterday. It’s gonna be wild.”
Miri glanced into the back of the truck bed, likely thinking the same thing Rafa was. “Then where are your bags?”
Kevin and Hunter exchanged the tiniest glance. “Oh, uh, they’re already at the boat. Speaking of, here we are.”
Hunter rolled up about thirty feet from the edge of the river, and sure enough, there was a ramshackle fishing vessel waiting for them. The thing looked like it was barely waterproof. Mismatched boards. A cracked window on the small captain’s cabin. Rafa wouldn’t be surprised if duct tape held it together. To put it as nicely as possible, it was a hunk of junk. And completely out of place in the Amazon.
Dusk was upon them, bringing the wildlife out in full force. Birds hooted and called. Bats flew overhead. A splash in the distance signaled the caimans weren’t far. Rafa seriously regretted his choices earlier in the day. This was not a place to be stuck all night, that was for sure.
“All right, let’s get everything loaded up,” Hunter said, hopping out of the truck. “There’s the captain. Olá, Sérgio! We found some stragglers who need to hitch a ride upriver,” he called to the man.
“Sim, senhor,” Sérgio said as he tipped his straw hat at Miri and Rafa, then continued prepping the boat for their journey.
“Can that thing even hold us?” Rafa asked Hunter.
“Good point,” Hunter said. “Let’s load the most important stuff first. You might have to ditch some of your things here. Come on.”
Hunter, Kevin, Logan, and Felix started carting stuff back and forth between the truck and the boat, while Rafa and Miri stayed back, pretending to be sorting through a few of the bags.
“I don’t like this,” Rafa said under his breath.
“I don’t, either,” she said. “I’m sorry…I…I shouldn’t have insisted.” Worry—and guilt—read all over her face. If they were going to play the blame game, though, Rafa would win by a landslide.
“Not as sorry as I am for bringing us this way in the first place,” he said, rubbing her shoulders. “I don’t know who these guys are, but he’s not from DC, that’s for sure.”
“What should we do? Should we tell them we changed our minds and ask if they would let us take the truck back to town?”
“Something tells me they won’t agree to that.”
“Maybe Sérgio can help us?”
“Sure. Unless they’re working together.”
Miri and Rafa looked over toward the boat, checking for any other crew members. Only one—Captain Sérgio.
“Do you think he’s in on it?” Miri asked.
“I have no clue.”
If these were the men Quinn was talking about, then Rafa was in deeper shit than he thought.
“You guys get the last of the things,” Hunter called over to Felix and Logan as they headed back toward the truck.
Once they were near, Miri pulled Felix and Logan by their arms and huddled everyone together. “Something isn’t right,”she whispered. “I think they’re up to no good. I don’t think we should go with them.”
“We were about to say the same thing. Hunter…he whispered something to Kevin about the Cidade da Lua,” Logan said.
“Let’s get our things and tell them we changed our minds,” Miri said.
They all stood up to face the boat, but the boat was no longer docked. Instead, it had pulled away from the riverbank, with Hunter and Kevin watching them from the bow.
