“So why hire Claire and me?”
“Did she not tell you?”
Now she’s acting suspicious of me, Novak thought, thinking that a bit ironic.
“She told me to wait at the condo for you. I don’t know much else, and I won’t until she shows up and fills me in.”
Alcina didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her. That was a good thing. She shouldn’t trust him, not in a million years. She didn’t know Novak from a hole in the ground, or if he was even who he said he was. He watched her exquisite face and could almost see her mind working. She was gauging what she should believe. She was deciding how much she should tell him before Claire vouched for him. She was not stupid, not by a long shot, but she needed to work on hiding her thoughts. She was easy to read. She had not learned to put up a shield. A moment later she arrived at the right decision and decided to believe him.
“Eldon and I have a mutual friend in Guatemala City. She is a doctor, and she sent us here and asked Eldon to protect us.”
“Those guys obviously want you dead. Anybody else after you?”
“The man who sent them took my baby, and he wants to kill both of us. You saw.”
“Who took your baby?”
“They did.”
“You don’t know who they are?”
Tears filled her eyes and gleamed in the flickering light. “No, but Claire Morgan says you will find Rosa for me.”
This conversation was getting Novak nowhere. “Does anybody know who took your baby?”
She shook her head, and fat tears oozed over those long lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Novak tried not to be affected by her obvious grief, because he didn’t know enough yet to feel sorry for her. She might trust him this soon, but that wasn’t mutual. She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
“They came to our village one night and kicked in our door and just took Rosa.” She held his gaze. “My husband tried to stop them, but they shot him. They just killed him right there beside Rosa’s crib.”
Novak watched her face as she relived the moment. If this tale was true, it was a terrible thing, all right. She looked legit, she sounded legit, and he wanted to believe her. Claire obviously already did, but who wouldn’t be affected by that kind of sob story? “So you’re telling me that these people just rolled up in the dead of night, broke into your house, murdered your husband, and kidnapped your baby. Did they try to take you or hurt you?”
“We ran away after they shot Luis. They looked but couldn’t find us.”
“Who’s us?”
“Pedro and me.”
“Did they take anything else?”
“No, they only took Rosa.”
“How old is the baby?”
“Eight months when they took her. She was screaming. She was so scared. I can’t stand to think about it.”
“Why do they want her?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did this happen?”
“One month and six days ago. So she’s nine months now.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. So this doctor told you to come up here and get with this Eldon Osceola guy, and he’d help you find your kid. And all those guys around that fire are his family?” He gestured at the men. None of them were paying any attention to them.
She nodded. “They are his sons and nephews and cousins. They work this place for the people who come to visit the Everglades.”
Novak looked around. He couldn’t see anything but darkness outside the ring of fire. “What’d you say this place was?”
“They take airboats out into the water, you know, to see the birds and deer and alligators. This place is called the Pa-hay-Okee Safari. That word means grassy waters, Eldon said. Lots of people come here to go on the boats.”
“The Everglades is a couple of hours from Fort Myers. I was out that long?”
“We have been here three hours. You were unconscious all the time. It is safer here for you. They’re looking for you now. We had to bring you along. It was for your own good.”
The fetid odor of standing water came to Novak on the wind. It smelled like that at his house on Bayou Bonne, too. He’d recognize it anywhere. “Do these guys live out here?”
She shook her head. “No, but they work here. There’s a museum here with tribal artifacts and alligator shows and booths to buy crafts. The airboats take the people who come here out to the preserve. Eldon and his family all live in Naples.”
Novak couldn’t get over her English. In Novak’s mind, that didn’t compute. If she was from the kind of jungle village in Guatemala that he’d visited, how the devil had she mastered English so well? Many of the Maya still spoke their ancient language as well as Spanish, but he’d never heard them speak English. She didn’t even have an accent. That bothered him. He glanced out at the men again. A lot of things weren’t adding up for Novak. “He’s got a lot of relatives out there, and they all wear identical black clothing and carry weapons. Looks more like a SWAT team to me.”
“They are very brave. Jake, the one who hit you with his bat? He’s Eldon’s youngest son. There are seven sons and two daughters. They have taken turns keeping us safe until you and Claire Morgan could come and bring back my baby.”
He hoped Claire hadn’t promised a miracle like she usually did. If this case concerned a missing infant, Claire was going to be extra gung-ho because she was pregnant herself and would relate big-time to this young woman’s plight. “Where the hell were those guys when that punk tried to drown you in the ocean? I thought you said they were protecting you.”
“They were out front watching the road. They did not expect them to come through the thicket on foot. We thought we were safe there at Eldon’s condo. We were good and did what Eldon told us to do. We kept inside every day and let no one see us. We saw you and we thought you were Claire’s friend, but we could not be sure. We were afraid you might be one of them.”
“Okay, I want to talk to this Eldon guy. Which one is he?”
“He’s in Miami. He will come back in the morning.”
Novak was tired of wondering. “How come your English is so good? Where’d you learn it?”
She looked down. Not a good sign. “Dr. Eloise lived with us for a year. She taught me English and trained me as a nurse’s aide. She chose me.”
She sounded proud of that. “Is she with Doctors Without Borders?”
“Yes. She taught many of us to speak English better, and she cared for our sick. Our village is far away from the cities. She was good to us and believed me when I told her that
