One Grave Less

care of you first and leave this guy to wait. But we need to defuse this. Are you in a position to wait?”
    “Sure,” said Pendleton. “I’m fine. Just a flesh wound. Do whatever it is you’re going to do with that asshole. I want to watch anyway.”
    Diane was impressed with Liam’s diplomatic skills. He let Pendleton make the decision, and set it up so he would look tough for waiting.
    “Okay,” said Liam, “this is the tricky part.”
    The kidnapper looked over at him and smiled.

Chapter 52
    Maria and Straw Fedora were sitting at one of the brightly adorned tables in the lobby of the hotel.
    “What did you say to my daughter?” she asked.
    “Nothing bad, I assure you. All these people heard it and weren’t alarmed. I simply told her she was a very pretty little girl.”
    The man had a British accent when he spoke English. He sounded Portuguese when he called after Rosetta. Good with languages, Maria thought.
    “What was with the whistling?” asked Maria.
    “A bad habit,” he said. “I know it annoys people, but you know how habits are.”
    “Who are you and what do you want with me?” she said.
    “Senhor Michaels,” said one of the hotel clerks. He was the one that was on duty when Maria had first seen Straw Fedora. He had two cups in his hand. “I brought you and the senhora coffee.”
    “Thank you, but none for me,” said Maria. Michaels, she thought. She didn’t recollect running across the name. Senhor Michaels did not look pleased. He hadn’t intended to give her his real name, she realized. Given away by the clerk.
    “My name is Cameron Michaels. I’m with Interpol,” he said, handing her his card.
    Maria arched an eyebrow. “Interpol’s United Nations representative. What on earth do you want with an archaeology student?”
    “I’m looking for this woman.” He laid the flyer on the table.
    Maria would have liked to snatch it up and throw it at him. But she turned it around and studied it. Frowning, to make it look believable—she hoped.
    “You know her?” he said.
    “No one I recognize. This is a drawing. Is it one of those police artist sketches?”
    “It was done by someone she ran across in the jungle and tried to kill,” he said.
    “Really? Why do you think I would know such a person?”
    He gestured to the flyer. “It could be you,” he said.
    She looked up at him sharply. “You think so? Really? I assure you I haven’t tried to kill anyone.”
    She handed it back to him.
    “Read it,” he said. “You will find it interesting.”
    “You will have to read it to me. I fear my only foreign language is German, which hasn’t been very useful here. I do know a couple of words in Spanish.”
    He read it to her. It sounded more sinister coming from him than when Rosetta read it.
    “Ah, you think because my daughter sometimes goes by the name Rosetta, I am this person and I kidnapped her.”
    “You were lost in the jungle with a little girl you call your daughter and whose name is Rosetta. Diane Fallon, Linda Hall, or whatever her name is, was traveling through the same jungle with a little girl named Rosetta whom she called her daughter.”
    “My name is Maria West. And that ‘same jungle,’ as you call it, is huge. They don’t call it the Amazon for nothing.”
    “You could have changed your name.”
    “Why didn’t I change my daughter’s name?”
    “You may have felt that she couldn’t remember a new name.”
    “Rose of Sharon has a good memory.”
    “Is that her name?”
    “Yes.”
    “So the Rosetta that you call her is a coincidence, you are saying?”
    “When she was born, she was all red and wrinkled, like babies are. My dad thought she looked like a little rose. He called her Rosetta. My mother calls her Rose and one of her aunts calls her Sharon. I call her Rosetta because I think it is pretty. Her father calls her Rosasharon—all one word. She answers to all of them.”
    “She is from here,” he said with such authority that she wondered if he expected her to cave in and confess.
    “What in the world makes you say that?”
    “Look at her. She looks like some of the tribes around here.”
    “So would her father if he came here. He is an American Indian. A Cherokee.”
    For the first time, Michaels looked taken aback. He hadn’t seen that coming.
    “Do you have a photograph of him?”
    “I did. It was lost along with my other important papers. I have to go to Rio to replace them.”
    “You have an answer for