Page 14 of Chasing Paradise

Sure enough, when I made my way back out, she was leaning against the white stone hotel, looking tired and grumpy.

“That Panama hat looks ridiculous on you,” she said as soon as she spotted me.

“They’re called straw hats,” I corrected, glancing down the street. “And it looks great on me.”

That got a surprisingly charming snort out of her as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at me.

“You ready for this?” I asked as I spotted the local ride-share car pulling up on the road.

“Ready for what?” It was right then she spotted my backpack and duffle bag, though.

By the time she straightened from the wall and dropped her arms, I had the door open and my bag inside.

“Catch me if you can, duchess.”

Then I was gone.

CHAPTER FIVE

Violet

“Dammit.”

I mean, kudos to him; that was probably the coolest brush-off I’d ever gotten from a skip.

But I had to scramble to find my own cab, then try to direct the driver with my tentative grasp of the native language and his—slightly better—English.

If he thought it was weird that I was essentially telling him to follow some other car, he showed no signs. Though maybe groups of people did that all the time while on vacation when they didn’t all fit in the same vehicle.

Even with only a small head start, we managed to lose his car somewhere along the way.

That said, logic told me that even if this guy had access to his fortune that his file said the government never found, the chances of him taking a ride-share on some never-ending drive seemed unlikely.

So I asked the driver where someone might be heading after Cuenca.

We settled on Guayaquil.

But unlike Wick, I didn’t exactly have bottomless funds to work with. So I needed the driver to drop me off at the nearest bus stop that went to Guayaquil.

Where I sat and waited a few hours until the next bus showed up.

As much as my scratchy eyes wanted me to spend that time resting, I perused the maps and guidebooks I’d picked up in town while shadowing Wick instead, wanting to get to know the lay of the land. And possibly try to anticipate my skip’s next move.

I had a good gut when it came to tracking. Maybe that was from experience or something more innate. But I usually didn’t have to kick around in the wrong places for long before I found who I was looking for.

That said, that was in the States. Where I could guess the most likely places someone hiding from the law might go. Even if it was in a different city or state from mine.

This was a whole new country.

And I had no idea what Wick was trying to do here. Disappear? Fine some nice house somewhere and drop off the face of the earth? Use Ecuador as a jumping-off point to some other country?

If he was going to stay, what was he looking for? Rural or city life?

Sure, I’d made snap judgments given Wick’s white-collar crimes, figuring he would be too persnickety to ever rough it, that he would need to live in a city where all his creature comforts were easy to come by.

Now that I’d actually met the guy, though, I wasn’t so sure.

The real Wick Hughs was rougher around the edges than I’d been anticipating. I could easily picture him in the jungle somewhere, fighting off… snakes and black caiman. Or with hispant legs rolled up, standing in the river with a spear, ready to catch dinner. Or with his shirt off, muscles tensing as he…

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