One Grave Less

jeans for each of them, a pair of sunglasses each, two baseball caps, toiletries, a towel each, socks, a magazine in English, a shoulder bag, and a doll. Maria wanted to look more like the student she said she was. Right now they both looked like they’d spent the last week crawling through the jungle. Not far from wrong.
    Maria tied her hair back and each donned their caps and sunglasses. Rosetta grinned. Clearly she liked shopping.
    “What do you say we go find a hotel room and a telephone?” said Maria.
    Rosetta nodded vigorously. She clutched her Raggedy Ann-like doll as closely as she had the backpack all the way through the jungle. On the way, they passed an open market where they purchased bananas and another kind of fruit with a red skin that Rosetta said was good.
    They started to cross one of the main streets when something on a telephone pole caught Maria’s eye. Perhaps it was the new, unweathered look of the yellow piece of paper . . . More likely, the drawing. She and Rosetta walked closer and looked.
    “That looks like you,” whispered Rosetta.
    The eight-by-ten flyer had a drawing that looked very much like Maria, with her muddy dreadlocks and bandanna on her head that she had cut from the fabric. It was a copy of a drawing and suffered from being too dark, but a sharp eye would certainly be suspicious. The writing was in Portuguese. Even with her poor understanding of the language, she knew what it probably said. The word for homicide stuck out.
Procurado por homicídio e abdução
Diane Fallon también conocido como Linda Hall
Extremamente perigoso
    There was a paragraph of smaller print near the bottom. The only good thing was that Maria didn’t know who the heck Linda Hall was.
    “What does it say exactly?” asked Diane.
    “Can you pronounce it for me? I can read English pretty good—sort of—but I can’t read Portuguese,” said Rosetta.
    “Sure,” said Maria. She smiled inwardly at herself. She had thought of Rosetta as Superkid for so long that she was surprised there was something she couldn’t do.
    Maria pronounced the words as best she could. She had to do it a couple of times before Rosetta understood. Rosetta repeated the words after Maria said them.
    “Wanted for murder and kidnapping, Diane Fallon, also known as Linda Hall. Extremely dangerous.”
    Maria read the paragraph at the end. She was a little better this time.
    “It says you kidnapped a child named Rosetta Medina. I guess that’s me. The Medinas were the people I was working for in the village where we met.”
    “Who is Linda Hall, I wonder?” asked Maria.
    “Didn’t that guy Kyle call you Linda?” said Rosetta.
    “Yes, and he was the only one to see me in the bandanna. At least we know the little weasel didn’t die. He’s a pretty good artist. He should have stuck to that,” Maria muttered. “But what is the Hall? What is Portuguese for hall?”
    “ Sala? ” said Rosetta. “It also means room.”
    “Okay, which is another word for chamber. He called me Linda Chambers. Something got lost in the translation. So there is good news and bad news.”
    “I should have used another name besides Rosetta,” said the little girl. She looked close to tears.
    Maria hugged her. “Rosetta is a common name. Many girls have it. Besides, it may work in our favor if anyone asks us about it. If I kidnapped you, wouldn’t I change your first name?” Maria smiled at her. “You’ve done great. Don’t lose faith in yourself now.”
    “I think the person who wrote it was a Spanish speaker,” said Rosetta. “It’s put together like Spanish and some of the words are really Spanish.”
    “Okay, I’m impressed. That’s useful information for us. See, you’re a great kid, so keep the faith.”
    Rosetta smiled back, but Maria could still see the fear in her eyes. They were getting so close and Ariel wanted her mother so badly. It will happen . Maria would make it happen.
    “Let’s go check into the hotel and get cleaned up. If I can get the mud out of my hair and get rid of the dreads, I’ll look less like the drawing.”
    They crossed the street and followed verbal directions they had been given to the hotel. The fear that had been in the pit of Maria’s stomach since the ordeal began, and that had started to recede, was returning. Damn it, she was not going to accept only a few hours of peace. They needed to get comfortable and clean and she could think this through.
    The thing that worried her, though,