She’d been magnificent then and she was even better now. “Do you keep a list? Against me, I mean?”
“No. I’d have run out of paper long ago on that.” When he guided her through the doors opening from the glass-enclosed solarium, she stopped, a soft sigh slinking out of her body as the now cool spring air hit them. Biting at her full lip, she said, “I have to admit, this has scared me more than I’m letting on.”
Brice escorted her down the terrace steps, then turned to give her a tight frown, the pool’s azure water glistening behind them. “Now you’re beginning to see things my way.”
“I didn’t say that,” she retorted, holding her arms close to herself to ward off the chill. “I’m still not happy about this. I know I’m at risk, but it seems silly for me to stay here since we can’t be sure what actually happened with my car until we get the police report back.”
Brice took in the spring evening, the freshness of the gloaming contrasting with the coldness that had come over him when he’d watched Selena’s car blow up. “Having you here while your parents are in Chicago is the only way I’ll get any sleep. I can watch out for you while I research this situation myself. We can’t always trust the police on these things, and CHAIM has a lot of resources for dealing with people like this.”
She went back into her adversary mode. “So you’re officially on the case then, not just playing bodyguard to me?”
“That’s the plan, and frankly, you can either be mad or you can be glad, but I’m not budging on this. We got you safely away from Día Belo, but our work isn’t done. We can’t allow innocent Christians to be slaughtered by criminals, nor will we allow innocent villagers to be caught in the crossfire. We’re supposed to be there to make a difference, but it’s always a hassle with these militant groups and the local government both involved and constantly trying to upstage each other all around us. If it becomes too dangerous, we won’t be able to send other missionaries back down there.”
He watched her face in the dusk, saw the flutter of scattered emotions moving over her features with a swift clarity just like the remaining random rain clouds in the early evening sky. She shivered and he quickly took off his lightweight coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Let’s not talk about it right now,” she said, her hands gripping the labels of his jacket. “I can’t talk about it anymore, not tonight. It’s so nice and peaceful here.” They walked through the budding azaleas and the tall oaks and magnolia trees toward the large narrow gardening shed at the back side of the expansive yard. Selena took in a deep breath as they neared a cascading dogwood ripe with white blossoms. “The gardens are beautiful, Brice. Especially after this afternoon’s rain.”
“You can thank Charles and Betty for that. Since they’ve been here to supervise the yard crew, this garden has really taken off. Or as Roderick would say, ‘It pops!’”
She actually laughed, the delicate giggle like the sound of tiny bells. “It was kind—what you did for him. You could have sent him to jail for a very long time.”
“That’s not usually the CHAIM way, unless of course someone deserves to go to jail. Then we turn them and the evidence over to the proper authorities.”
She stopped near a large stone fountain sculptured in the shape of two smiling, robed women holding one clay pot while they stood by several other colorful pots, trailing wisteria vines twirling behind them. Adele called this her Ruth and Naomi fountain. Listening to the gurgling water as it spilled over the multitiered centerpiece where purple wisteria blossoms danced in the splash, she asked, “And these people who killed Diego—the ones who appear to be after me now, what do they deserve?”
He heard the danger underneath her soft-spoken words. She wanted retribution. Brice wondered just how close she’d been to the young doctor who’d been murdered in a shoot-out that had also killed several villagers, wondered what she hadn’t told him during her frantic phone call to him late on that terrible night. And as he’d flown down to the tiny village of Día Belo, his imagination reeling with what might happen to her before he could reach her, he also wondered why the smugglers had targeted La Casa de Dios. True it was located in a place of poverty and despair near the border with Brazil, where the villagers had very little money and even less hope, and they did keep a cache of prescription drugs at the on-site pharmacy and dispensary there. But for the most part, Selena’s team of devoted missionaries and villagers didn’t cause trouble and they didn’t bring on any trouble. They were simply part of a humanitarian effort trying to help.
If Selena hadn’t been on the other side of the camp, checking on a sick baby when the ambush had taken place, she might have been right in the middle of the slaughter, too. She’d heard the shots as she was walking back toward the clinic and had managed to hide in the jungle growth just as the culprits finished the job and left. But she hadn’t wanted to talk about what she had witnessed. And now he needed her to talk, to remember, so he could find information on how to protect her. Brice couldn’t think beyond that, beyond the scent of jasmine and wisteria and the way her hair lifted in the damp night wind.
“Brice, did you hear me? How are you planning on handling this?”
Nothing about this brutal act made sense to him and he intended to dig a little deeper to get some answers. But he tried to answer her question in the only way he knew how. “I want justice, of course.”
“CHAIM justice?” she asked, her hand trailing along a damp honeysuckle vine. “Or the real kind where they actually serve jail time for the rest of their days?”
He stopped her, taking her hands in his as he looked down at her. “You know how we handle things. We work with the proper authorities to bring any criminal to justice. But in this case, that will take a lot of evidence and a lot of cooperation with the authorities in Argentina—if we can even get them to cooperate. But first we have to gather information and find these people, and Selena, these are the kind of people who make it their business not to be found.”
She yanked her hands away, held them up like a shield. “Well, it seems they didn’t have any trouble finding me.” Then she halted again, her eyes full of liquid fire as she stared up at him. “Why would they kill Diego, Brice? And why would they follow me here to Atlanta?”
“Well, that’s what we have to figure out. And we will. I’m going to get busy again tracking down any information or leads I can find to see what’s going on and what exactly these people were trying to keep undercover besides the obvious—we know they’re smugglers but why did they suddenly attack the clinic? You don’t keep the kind of drugs they deal in there, so why would they bother?”
She looked away, out toward where the sloping yard met the Chattahoochee River. “Diego must have stumbled onto something.”
Brice’s antenna went up on that comment since this was the first time she’d alluded to that possibility. “Did he ever talk to you about anything out of the ordinary, anything that could have caused this?”
She shook her head, then looked down. “We spent most of our time fighting red tape and trying to help patients. We didn’t have time to worry about some rogue gang of militants and smugglers. Saving lives didn’t leave room for anything else.”
And since she’d been home, she hadn’t allowed for any talk about Diego or his death or what exactly that gang had taken. All Brice had managed to piece together was that a renegade group had passed through the village and wreaked havoc on everything before murdering Diego and some of the villagers. What they’d taken or what they’d left behind was still being investigated. But nothing had been forthcoming from the local authorities. And Selena didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
Brice wanted to believe she’d told him everything she could, but he’d seen the subtle shift of darkness in her expression just now. She was worried, no doubt. But she also looked unsure and—he hated to think it—guilty. He didn’t press her, but he would have to keep at her until she told him