Page 94 of Girl in the Water
But it seemed Ian wasn’t yet ready to let go of the Carol topic. “I hope her baby is born safely. I’d like to catch her in the morning before she leaves to say good-bye.”
Daniela swallowed her jealousy. “Where did you go today?”
Then she listened as Ian told her about Clara seeing Essie, the phone call that brought Essie to the hospital, then following Essie back to her apartment, finishing with “I wish I could take you there right now, but if we show up at her door at night, it’ll make her suspicious. She’s home alone with her child. She isn’t going to let in strangers in the middle of the night.”
“We’ll go in the morning.” Excitement over a possible clue made Daniela forget all about Carol. She popped up from the floor and settled on the middle of her bed with her laptop so she wouldn’t be in Ian’s way as he moved around. “I’ll say I’m from the post office and she needs to sign for a delivery.”
Ian went straight to his bed and sat on the end of the mattress, facing her.
She stifled a sigh. One of these days, she would dearly like to be in a bedroom together with him and be in the same bed again. She couldn’t forget how she felt when she’d woken up in his arms in Rio, or when he’d held her on the bus the other day. She wanted his arms around her again.
“Essie lived within thirty yards of the Heyerdahls’ window,” he was saying, his thoughts clearly far away from the two of them in bed.
Because he was a professional investigator, and she was a twit. She forced herself to focus on what he was saying.
“Her boyfriend came to visit pretty frequently, from what the neighbor said. So maybe Fabricio saw the blonde baby girl out back at See-Love-Aid, maybe the Heyerdahls watched a basketball game with their daughter, and Essie’s boyfriend figured he could make money. Right now, it’s the best possibility I can come up with.”
Daniela could see it. “He either talked or forced Essie into helping him. He needed Essie to take care of the baby. And if he passed the baby out the window, lowering her somehow, he needed Essie down on the ground. Probably with a stroller. Once baby Lila was in the stroller, if someone caught a glance, they wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Essie must have been out there with her little boy all the time.”
“So they plan out the kidnapping,” Ian said, “then Essie moves, a day or two before. Perfect alibi. The cops never even thought to track her down.”
“But she only moved into another neighborhood.”
“She’s waiting for the boyfriend to return with the money.”
Maybe. “Or,” Daniela said, “maybe the boyfriend is still here. And baby Lila too. Maybe they decided to stick around Manaus for a while, until the police stop looking for the baby. I doubt they can keep an intensive investigation up much longer, even for an American baby. They wouldn’t have that kind of budget.”
Excitement flashed across Ian’s face for a second, then melted away. “Would Essie have run to the hospital if Fabricio was living with her?”
“Maybe he’s living with her, but he hadn’t been at the apartment when you called. He could be keeping up appearances, out fishing.”
Ian gave a slow nod. “Or he could be off somewhere, trying to make connections, find the right person to pass Lila to. He’s a fisherman. He isn’t in the human trafficking business.”
Daniela watched him. Did he see how good they were together? “A crying baby wouldn’t be suspicious at Essie’s new apartment,” she said, “since Essie has her own child. She could move around with a stroller, the baby covered up, and nobody would think anything of it.”
God, if they could bring back baby Lila tomorrow to her parents. She’d be willing to do anything to make that happen. But she also wanted to stay realistic. “And if the baby isn’t there?”
Ian lay down on his bed and folded his arms under his head, but tension hung around him like mist around the river as he stared at the ceiling. “We call in Detective Gustavo Santos and the local police. A city as big as Manaus has to have some kind of a forensics team. They can sweep the apartment for DNA. Babies spit up and mess up diapers. If baby Lila has been in that apartment, she left DNA evidence, I guarantee it.”
Daniela put away her laptop and lay down on her side. She’d already showered and had on her nightgown. She watched Ian in the light of the single table lamp on the shared nightstand between them. The sleeves of his T-shirt stretched over his muscles.
He was a strong man. Probably stronger than Henry and Pierre put together.
In her experience, the strong took what they could from the weak—the law of the jungle. But Ian protected the weak. He made her feel safe, but he made her feel other things too. He wasn’t crazy religious, but to her, he was a better man than the village missionary.
He cared about the baby they were looking for. He cared about Carol and her unborn child. He cared about the girls. He cared about his friend Finch, and still would not forget Finch’s death, no matter how many years had passed. He put himself in danger to get Finch justice.
He had a heart, but he refused to acknowledge it.
As she’d locked away her past, Ian had locked away his heart. The difference was that her past had to be locked away. The past was ballast around her neck, dragging her down to drown. And Daniela wanted to fly. She wanted to live the life Ian had promised her, being anything she wanted to be, because everything was possible.
She could live without her past. She was better off without her past. But Ian couldn’t live without his heart.
“Hey,” he said. “Before we leave town, do you want to take the girls out for ice cream? We could all take the bus, with the volunteers as chaperones. I’m not complaining about the cafeteria downstairs, but I’m beginning to think that they’re unfamiliar with the concept of dessert.”
Her heart jumped like a fish jumping from the river in the sunset, in a slow arc, tail flapping with joy, water spraying, sparkling. They had postcards like that all over the city, catching that perfect moment.
“Sure.”
