Stolen Grace (28 page)

The world seemed to stand still in that moment. “Seen by whom?” Sylvia croaked out, her mouth trying to gather enough spittle to get the words out.

“The waiter at the restaurant. And the barman.”

“Together?”

“Very
much
together.”

The coffee she’d drunk on the plane, the roll she’d eaten—all rose in Sylvia’s throat. She swallowed it back. She could feel short, panicked breaths tugging at her lungs as she fumbled for her half bottle of mineral water. She glugged it down in great gulps. Surely there had been a mistake? Yet . . . maybe not. That’s why Tommy hadn’t called—why he didn’t want her to come to South America in the first place . . . because he was off to meet Ruth at the Copacabana, not to track her down, but to elope with her! That’s why Ruth had the parental consent form which Sylvia had assumed Ruth forged. Not forged, she realized now, but signed by Tommy! A vision of what had happened flashed through her mind—Tommy had planned it all. Somehow, somewhere, he knew Ruth. They’d been lovers all along. He was sick of his marriage—he didn’t love her anymore. He’d plotted the whole thing, planned it alongside Ruth—Grace’s kidnapping, the money—he’d told Ruth to look in the filing cabinet for bank details. Perfect. Set the whole thing up to make it look like a crime when
he was in on it from the
beginning
! Meet Ruth alone, then both of them would collect Grace from her hiding place and live together happily ever after on a remote beach somewhere, or in a tree house in the jungle. Tommy could hang out and take photos while Ruth wrote her novel, both living on
her
inheritance money. Sylvia’s mind contorted itself into this
film noir
—maybe it was farfetched. But maybe, just maybe, this was exactly what had happened.

“Mrs. Garland? Sylvia, are you still there?”

Sylvia blinked her eyes. “Yes, I’m still here. Go on.”

Melinda laid her hand gently on Sylvia’s shoulder. “Honey, you look so pale. What’s she saying? Are you okay?”

“Ssh, wait” –Sylvia waved her hand at her cousin—“I can’t hear—as you were saying Agent Russo . . .”

The agent carried on talking while the nest of vipers writhed and twisted in Sylvia’s incredulous brain.
Heads locked together
? If that was really true, Tommy was guiltier than Sin itself.

“Like I said,” Agent Russo continued, “the police are on their way over now. It remains to be seen if Ruth is hiding your daughter.”

“How did you locate Ruth?”

“Blood work. She checked in a week ago to a plastic surgery clinic to have a procedure. Rhinoplasty.”

“A nose job?”

“Correct. Her blood work matched samples of DNA taken from the IVF clinic in Guadalajara.”

“Good job FBI! I’m impressed. I was terrified that all this time you’d forgotten about Grace because no progress seemed to have been made.”

“No, ma’am, we
were
making progress but didn’t want to get your hopes up until we had confirmation. We’ve been working around the clock on your case. I can assure you we have it as high priority. Kidnapping is a serious crime. Not to mention grand theft and larceny.”

“What’s Ruth’s real name?”

“That’s the crazy thing. We still don’t know. She checked under a bogus name at the clinic, under the name of Rocío Guirnalda, and paid cash—but the DNA is a match to the very same Ruth Vargas from the IVF clinic in Guadalajara. Get this: Guirnalda means Garland in Spanish.”

Each word that passed the agent’s lips made the horror of the situation magnify. “Oh my God. She’s trying to take
everything
from me. My daughter, my husband, my money, even my name!” The image of Ruth slavering all over Tommy with her pretty new nose, enticing him with her “man-magnet” powers of seduction while playing Mommy to Grace, was repulsive. “I guess she must have always wanted a nicer nose and used my money to do it with. What even gave you the idea to search the clinics?”

“We’ve seen instances of this before with fugitives. Nose jobs are common, we pre-empted that possibility. We had Rio earmarked—it’s famous for its world-class plastic surgeons. The photofit was working in our favor, obviously. She was frightened of being discovered and wanted to change her identity. If she’s abandoned Grace, it’s because of that—fear of getting caught. On her own, she has a lot better chance of slipping into oblivion, but with Grace’s photo everywhere, the alerts on TV, and so many people on the lookout for her—”

“You think for sure she’s
abandoned
Grace?”

“Nobody has seen your daughter. Ruth/Rocío checked into the hotel alone. We verified—no food has been taken up to the room. It looks as if she came to Rio without her.”

A snatch of fury grabbed Sylvia by the throat. “Why didn’t you just have her arrested immediately, for Christ’s sake?”

The agent’s voice was cool. “Because we had not come into contact with her up until now. Plain-clothed detectives will be waiting to arrest her the second she returns to the hotel—she stepped out a couple of hours ago. We only just had confirmation of the match and confirmation from the before and after photos the clinic did for the surgery. It only just all came through. It wasn’t easy with doctor/client confidentiality in a foreign country but we were able to swing it. It was the clinic that furnished us with her hotel address. She was told to stick around for ten days or so—they took off her splint six days after surgery—yesterday afternoon. She must be using make-up to cover the bruising around her eyes and cheeks.

“Anyway, we’ve retraced her steps over the last forty-eight hours, interviewed everybody who has come in contact with her, hence the waiter at the restaurant, last night, revealing your husband’s . . .er . . . presence.”

“How can you be sure it was Tommy?”

“We have photos. We have your YouTube video clip. All the witnesses are one hundred percent sure it’s him.”

The agent’s words were a stake through Sylvia’s heart. “What was he doing having
dinner
with her? I still just can’t get my head around it all—how could anybody
do
what she’s done?”

“Whatever her reasons, she’s obviously one sick puppy.”

“Puppy is far too cute a word to describe her,” Sylvia sneered.

“Anyway, don’t lose hope—she can lead us to Grace. Keep your phone on. I’ll be getting back to you as soon as they’ve arrested her. We’ll see what excuse your husband comes up with. It had better be good or he’ll be arrested on suspicion—an accessory to kidnapping and larceny.”

“But he must have had a reason . . . anyway, I’m on my way to—” The line cut out. Damn, her battered old phone needed recharging; the battery never lasted long enough. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell Agent Russo she had arrived in Brazil, let alone Rio.

They were finally at the front of the line. Melinda bundled them both into a waiting taxi and, speaking to the driver, she said, “El hotel Copacabana, por favor, señor.”

“Por favor, rapido,
rapidisimo,
” Sylvia begged the driver, realizing she, like Melinda, was speaking the wrong language. There was no time to lose. She wanted to see the expression on Tommy’s face when the police turned up.

And find out what the hell was going on.

Grace

T
he bus stop at Chin Anne Dega was huge. Motorbikes, three-wheely things carrying passengers, and people on bicycles were everywhere—wheels whirling in the dust. Grace spotted a wooden stall with posters stuck all over it and a Coca Cola sign. She asked the man behind the counter for a Coke, some peanuts and some small red bananas. Within minutes, a swarm of half naked children surrounded her, demanding food, begging for Coca Colas. She gave them her 1 córdoba pieces—poor things, they looked starving. They had no mother with them, no father, and were wild with matted hair and dirty faces.

“I like your shirt,” one little girl said, her eyes big, her shy smile friendly. She was barefoot and wearing a Britney Spears T-shirt that came to her knees. “And your teddy-bear, I like that too. The colors match.”

Grace looked down at her stained yellow and white shirt. She felt like a princess compared to the ragamuffins around her. She held Hideous tightly against her heart.

“What’s your name?” the little girl asked. “My name’s María.”

She wanted to say Grace but it sounded funny in Spanish. “Adela,” she answered. “I want to go to school.”

The children giggled as if she’d said something ridiculous.

But Grace insisted, “Where’s the school?”

“I can show you the school,” said a boy in trousers way too big for him. They were held up around the waist with a piece of string. Grace thought he looked like Charlie Chaplin—her dad’s favorite actor. “Come with us,” he invited. He sipped his Coca Cola (that Grace had paid for) through a straw, making bubbles and slurping noises. She noticed the children had all kept the change from their 1 córdoba coins. Some of them hadn’t bought any drink at all, they’d just pocketed her money. She’d get more tomorrow. “This is delicious!” he yelled, “the best drink in the world!” All the children laughed.

“Where do you come from?” another girl asked, who was taller than the others. She must have been about eight years old.

“America.”

They now all howled with amusement, the slurping boy rolled on the ground in hysterics.

“It’s true,” Grace shouted. “I’m American!”

“You sound funny, different from us. Did you come on the bus from El Viejo?”

“I came from The Boom,” she said seriously.

They all laughed again, fascinated by every word she uttered.

“Where’s your mother?” one asked.

“She’s dead,” Grace replied, making patterns with her flip-flops in the sandy dirt.

“Me too, both my parents are dead,” mumbled a boy holding an old butter knife.

“I never had any parents,” another said.

“Let’s go back,” María said. “Come with us!”

Grace hesitated. “But I want to go to school.”

“Come, I can show you the school afterwards,” the Charlie Chaplin boy said.

María slipped her hand into Grace’s and pulled her into their tight group. “Come on, let’s go back.”

“Where to?” Grace asked.

“To my uncle’s house. Everybody can meet you. Come on!”

They ran through streets, dodging sleeping dogs lying in “beds” they’d made for themselves—small piles of leafy rubbish—and the children zigzagged around noisy motorbikes, and skinny horses pulling carts of vegetables and great sacks of bananas. Grace got a whiff of coffee and trash and wee-wee and fresh flowers, all mixed in a medley of smells. There were striped umbrellas shielding market stall people from the hot sun above, with pretty bags and fabrics in pink, yellow and parrot-green, hanging down in curtains of color—more colors than
Joseph and his Multi-colored Dream Coat
! Mama Ruth had told her all about Joseph and his coat of many colors in their “Sunday school” classes.

Grace saw great chunks of bleeding meat drooping with buzzing flies, and pyramids of fruits piled in baskets. There was a baby being washed by her older sister with dirty water from a blue plastic bucket, and another girl, only seven or eight, was carrying a toddler on her hip. There were pots and baskets spread out on the street which Grace tried not to trip over, and giant sacks of overflowing grain. Little plastic bags wrapped in triangles with bright, bubblegum-pink powder inside caught her eye—um, tasty. Grace wanted to stop but the children raced ahead. She trailed after them as quickly as she could, scared of losing her new friends.

She cantered on, keeping Charlie Chaplin in her sight.

They finally arrived at a garbage dump. Just like the one Ruth described when she threatened to give Carrot and Hideous away. They must be in Rio, Grace realized. Maybe Ruth would come and find her right there. “Why are we here?” she asked María.

“We live just over there. Come on, Adela!”

Grace found herself, not at the school she had imagined with smart uniforms and piles of books and crayons, but in the middle of this smelly trash heap. Around the edge she saw small shelters made out of wavy bits of metal in the shape of waffle irons. Children were walking about in their bare feet with nothing on but underwear, each carrying a stick with a hook. She watched them as they stalked the dump, picking up anything interesting they could find with the hooked stick. Not just children, but grown-ups, too, were searching through the trash. But mostly children, many of them about her age. As they walked ahead, away from the big mound of garbage, she saw something that caught her eye. “Who lives there?” she asked, pointing to a bigger cardboard house in the far distance.

“That’s the church,” María said. “Sometimes the priest comes to visit and says prayers with us. He’s Italian. Sometimes he gives us food.”

“And what are the other things, back where we came from?” Grace asked, turning round and pointing.

“Those are our houses. That one we passed earlier, with the hairless dog outside, is mine. We can go there if you like.”

They walked back toward the big piles.

“Why is everybody looking through the trash?”

“To sell, silly. We all need to make money.”

“It smells of poop here,” Grace said, holding her thumb and finger on her nose.

María didn’t understand. “Of what?”

“Ka-ka.”

The little girl giggled. “Come and meet my family.”

But Grace stood still, her stare fixed on a little boy covered in black soot, standing by a smoky fire. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s burning old electrical wires to get the plastic off the copper.”

Grace didn’t understand. “What?”

“The metal, silly. He needs to burn off all the plastic. The copper’s worth a lot of money. He can sell it and give the money to his mom.”

“What’s that little girl over there doing? The one in the red skirt?”

“She’s looking for food. The truck was here just an hour ago. There’s fresh stuff for the picking.”

Grace noticed a cow eating a piece of cardboard, and a dog doing a pee just near where the little girl was looking for something to eat. Grace held Hideous close to her chest and ran over to María. “Where’s the school?”