In the midst of Mrs. Robbins’s teary walk down memory lane, River had an epiphany. She needed closure with her past in order to map a new future. Closure with her father and David. Never mind that it meant traipsing into the wild and battling deep-rooted fears. Suddenly, there was nothing more important than facing her demons. For the first time since David had dumped her, she had direction.
River clung to that thought as she tenderly ended the conversation with Mrs. Robbins. She didn’t mention she’d also received a package from Henry. Why tempt questions she couldn’t answer? Her father’s letter had effectively sealed her lips. Except to Bovedine, and Bovedine was dead. That ugly truth reinforced River’s decision to take action. What if Henry’s ravings had merit? What if he was in genuine danger? Or in danger of going genuinely bonkers? If she didn’t at least try to save him from whatever mess he’d stumbled into, she’d never be able to live with herself. For better or worse, he was her dad.
Rescue and closure.
Rescue and closure.
Mind racing, she tucked the amulet and journal into her satchel and squirted sanitizer into her hands. True, most tropical diseases were transmitted by insects and parasites, but just her luck, she’d be the first person in history to be infected by a malicious jungle germ clinging to the pages of a crusty journal.
That’s Grandpa Franklin talking.
Cursing her germ phobia, one of David’s top three complaints, River blocked out the haunting voices of her pessimistic, dysfunctional family. She could, she would do this.
Moving into the house, she fired up her laptop and ran a mental checklist. She had to move fast and she had no idea how long she’d be in South America. Her next booking was three weeks away—the bells-and-whistles church wedding of Kylie McGraw and Jack Reynolds. Although Kylie was a fairly new friend, she was a good friend and a kind soul. Aside from the professional obligation, River felt personally compelled to afford Kylie and Jack ample time to hire a different photographer. In addition, she’d have to give Ella some sort of explanation for her hasty departure without telling her about the contents of the journal.
Typing Cheap Airfares into her search engine with one hand and dialing her assistant with the other, River decided to stick to the generic truth. “Ella? Heads up. You’ll have to handle the studio for the next couple of weeks.”
“Are you having a meltdown?”
“No. I’m flying to South America to get my life back.”
CHAPTER TWO
Cajamarca, Peru, South America
Altitude 8,900 feet
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN they canceled the shoot?”
“An executive decision.” Spenser McGraw thumbed his cell to vibrate and placed it beside his empty beer bottle as Gordo Fish, his friend and professional sidekick, dropped into an opposing chair. The popular café buzzed with good cheer, offsetting the men’s grim expressions.
They’d flown from the Scottish Highlands to South America to film an episode for the popular cable show, Into the Wild. Spenser was the talent. Gordo was the one-man camera/audio crew. Now instead of exploring “The Legend of El Dorado,” instead of searching for a lost city of freaking gold, they’d been ordered to cool their heels in Cajamarca until the show’s new producer and a board of equally young turks hammered out the details of a new adrenaline-charged adventure. Spenser met his friend’s baffled stare. “They want to introduce an element of danger into the show.”
Gordo frowned. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Something tells me Necktie Nate is behind this.”
The nickname they’d given to Nathan Crup, their new Armani-suited producer. “Probably.”
“Has that asshole watched even one episode from the past five seasons?” Gordo complained. “We’ve battled extreme elements and hostile people. Survived mud-slides, cave-ins, avalanches and assorted injuries.”
“None of them life threatening.”
“Like hell. What about the time I got food poisoning in Cairo?”
Spenser found it amusing that a man who’d endured extreme temperatures, snakebites and altitude sickness would label the time he’d hugged the porcelain goddess in a ritzy hotel room as a near-death experience. “You weren’t even close to dying.”
“I ended up in the hospital.”
“Because you called an ambulance.”
“What I didn’t puke up shot out the other end. For three frickin’ hours. I’m telling you…” Gordo trailed off when he noticed the young woman standing next to them. “Sorry.” He squinted at her name tag. “Yara.”
Earlier, the sultry waitress had lingered at Spenser’s table, flirting outrageously, as most women did, until he’d received the phone call from Los Angeles. Now she was back, and though she spared Gordo a glance, her focus was on Spenser. He winked, encouraging the infatuation. Yara’s pretty face and voluptuous curves were a welcome distraction from Necktie’s disappointing mandate.
Gordo cleared his throat. “Why, yes, I would like to order something. Thank you for asking, Yara.”
Spenser smiled at the woman, then spoke in Spanish. “He’ll have what I’m having.”
“What are you having?” Gordo asked in English.
“Beer and tamales.”
“Forget the tamales.”
“They’re locally famous,” Spenser teased, knowing Gordo was still fixed on the Cairo incident and the “locally famous” molokhiyya.
“Just a beer, please,” he said in Spanish. “Make that two. No, three. Two for me, one for him.”
Beaming at Spenser, Yara nodded and left.
Gordo rolled his eyes. “You’re hooking up with her later, aren’t you?”
Never one to screw and tell, Spenser just grinned.
“Why aren’t you more upset about the canceled shoot? You’ve been hot on exploring the possibility that El Dorado is located in Peru and not Colombia for months.”
Spenser shrugged. Granted, at first he’d been royally ticked. Not just because Nate had pulled the plug on El Dorado, but because that pissant had called his Indiana Jones shtick old hat, insinuating in the next breath that Spenser was over-the-hill.
A) He didn’t do shtick.
B) Since when was he thirty-seven years old?
Shaking off the insults, he now saw the hole in the producer’s new angle. “When the board reviews Necktie’s brilliant idea, they’ll squelch it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it’s been done.”
Gordo
