“Thank you?” she asked.
“You’re right. My dad loves me. I shouldn’t be afraid to tell him what I need. Or…what I want.”
The way the wordwantreverberated in his throat sent a rumble into her core.
“Good,” she said, trying to take the focus away from the nearness of his body. “You should tell him.”
“I will. But first, we need to get the hell out of here. Are you ready to head back?”
Miri nodded. “Thanks for rescuing me from my pity party of one.”
“Oh, I don’t think you can say I’ve rescued you yet. We still have to find our way back.”
Miri smiled and puffed up her chest. “Well then, I guess it’s a good thing I knowexactlywhere we’re going.”
“Exactly?” he asked, smiling and raising his eyebrows.
“Okay, maybe not exactly. Come on. Follow me.”
Chapter
Fifteen
“I don’t understand what’s takingso long,” Rafa’s father said on the phone. “It’s been over three weeks. Why hasn’t she quit yet?”
Rafa sat alone in his cabin using the satellite phone he’d borrowed from Anissa. He’d just finished telling his dad that two more people had quit since they’d last spoken, but it didn’t seem to faze him. His dad was focused on one thing and one thing only: getting Miri to leave. The rest of them, he couldn’t care less about.
“I told you. She’s tenacious,” Rafa said, smiling as he scrolled through photos of Miri on his camera.
“Are you even trying to get her to leave?”
Rafa’s smile fell, and he quickly turned off the camera as if his father could see. “Of course I am.”
Right?
“We’re down to half a crew,” Rafa continued. Maybe his dad would take that as a positive, at least. “And we’ve gone practicallyevery direction possible from this resort. Honestly, Dad, I’m even beginning to doubt the Cidade da Lua is out here.”
“Then I guess it’s too bad you’re not the one who needs convincing.” There was an air of annoyance in his father’s voice. Which Rafa understood given his promise to Rafa’s mother and all, but he reallywastrying.
Or at least he had been.
Truth be told, Rafa hadn’t taken any active steps to interfere with the expedition in over ten days.
But how could he sabotage Miri when this was so important to her? At this point, Rafa’s best bet was to pray the rest of the crew would grow too weary to continue.
“Have you gotten any word about where Vautour’s team might be?” Rafa asked, deflecting from his own ineptitude. “I think Dr. Jacobs is especially focused on getting to the Cidade da Lua before he does.”
“Mmm, yes,” his dad said, clearing his throat. “There’ve been rumblings that they’ve given up.”
“Given up? Are you sure? I thought he commissioned some fancy lidar tech to pinpoint the location.”
“Lidar is very expensive…and very difficult to obtain. If anyone could get their hands on lidar imagery, then there wouldn’t be any such thing as a lost city. If respectable archaeologists like Drs. Mejía and Matthews aren’t able to get it, what makes them think a criminal like Pierre Vautour could? And even then, you’d have to know where to look.”
Rafa furrowed his brow. “Then why did they leave?”
“One of the team members got bitten by a lancehead snake, and they evacuated the entire crew. So if Vautour’s what’s keeping Dr. Jacobs on this mission, he shouldn’t be a concern any longer. Now she’s all that’s left. Please, Rafa. You have to finish this.”
Vautour or not, abandoning this expedition would crush Miri. Miri’s voice popped into his head.If I don’t come back from this expedition with something noteworthy, I probably shouldn’t bother coming back at all.If only his dad could get to know her. Then he’d see she wasn’t the treasure hunter he made her out to be.
