Hero For Hire

“Oh.” He sighed with disappointment. “Well, I’d bet my entire day’s take—” He faltered at the steely, very hard cop look Rick shot him. “Er, I mean my week’s salary, man. Salary. I’m not on the take—”

“The necklace, Juan.”

“If it’s the real deal, it came from the Monteverde’s.”

“Monteverde’s?”

Face carefully blank, Juan held out his hand, palm up.

Rick swore, searched his pockets, then slapped some reals into Juan’s outstretched palm.

Juan pocketed the money and held out his hand again. “Try American dollars. They go further.”

“It had better be good,” Rick warned, going back to his wallet.

“Always.”

When Rick greased his palm with more bills, American this time, Juan gave him a grin that was missing more than one tooth. “Monteverde is the name of a famous Brazilian gem family. They have a huge business. An entire building in Ipanema, right on the beach. You might have seen it, it’s the ritziest place out there. All That Glitters. They cater to people with too much money on their hands.”

“Yeah.” Rick rarely spent time in Rio’s money belt. “Thanks. Stay clean, Juan.”

“Sure,” he vowed before slinking off.

Rick let him go, thinking with any luck he’d find the mystery woman by the end of the day and have a nice, fat wallet. Even better, he could be on another case by this time tomorrow. He straddled his motorcycle and drove down the steep, unpaved hills of no-man’s-land, leaving the dark alleys of the favela behind. Within five minutes he drove into another world entirely, where throngs of people walked beautiful beaches half-nude, laughing, talking, running, playing without a care.

Surrounded by tall, majestic mountains, the ocean bay glittered a brilliant azure blue, its beaches made so scenic by palm trees and tropical flowers.

High above on the closest mountain peak towered a 130-foot statue of Christ, arms nearly as wide as he was tall, looking down on one and all, sinners and saints. The scene never failed to give Rick a cynical smile.

All That Glitters was indeed a huge business. It occupied one of the dozens of buildings crammed right on the beach, though it was bigger and better than most.

All eighteen floors of it.

While Rick debated the best plan of action, he parked and sat at an open boteco—Rio’s answer to the American café—where he could watch the comings and goings, of which there were plenty.

The bottom floor of All That Glitters was an upscale jewelry retail store, where he assumed the Monteverde family sold what they had designed on the other seventeen floors. As he sat back to watch the goings-on through the store window, he caught sight of her.

The mystery woman.

In disbelief, he pulled out the worn photo. Same color chestnut hair, wild and full, though now the sides were slicked back with glittery combs. Same light-olive skin, smooth and flawless.

She turned then, and through the glass and the fifteen feet of hustling, bustling street that separated them, their gazes met.

And the oddest thing happened. She seemed to see him, really see him. Him. Something deep inside Rick jerked and came to attention at that.

It bothered him.

As a man for hire, one who’d effectively walked away from his own life, there was no one who knew or cared about him, and he liked it that way. People wanted him only for what he could do, and he liked that too, as frankly, there was little he wouldn’t do. He’d purposely built a reputation as being the best bounty hunter in all of Brazil, and he never got personally involved with a case.

Not ever again.

No one touched his emotions, which he’d buried so far deep down he was certain they no longer existed.

No one.

But this woman... One look at her, just one meeting of the eyes, and he felt something inside him crack and soften.

It had to be the sun.

Or the crowd. There were millions of people in Rio and he felt as if all of them were walking up and down this very street, showing off their youth, their bodies, their indifference.

Or maybe it was his busy schedule and lack of sleep. Since he took every case that came his way, no matter how difficult, and rarely hit dreamland easily, it was entirely possible.

Anything but a personal connection. Narrowing his gaze, he forced a cool, hard detachment, one he was terrifyingly good at, and got back to business.

Surveying her.

She was average weight and build, or so he assumed, since she’d hidden nearly every inch of her body behind a business suit that didn’t fit into the Brazilian wear-as-little-as-possible way of life. She was still behind the counter, and with a visible shake, broke eye contact with him and turned to talk to another woman. With a shy smile and a light pat on the other woman’s arm, his mystery woman disappeared into the back of the store.

She hadn’t looked at him again.

Rick let out a long, slow breath, but before he could clear his head, a waitress came up to his table. She was dressed in a skimpy little skirt that sat low-slung on her hips and a bathing suit top designed to cover only her nipples—barely. Her crooked smile was both friendly and speculative. “Something to drink?” she asked in Portuguese, and when it took him a moment to pull his thoughts from across the street, she added in the bold way of Brazilian women, “Or...something else perhaps?”

Women had come on to him plenty of times, and plenty of times he’d appreciated it, but at the moment he was distracted. “Have you been in there?” he asked, gesturing across the street.

Laughing wryly, she shook her head. “Too pricey for the likes of me. But I’ve window-shopped plenty.”

Window-shopped.

Yeah, that was it. He was going window shopping.

* * *

GRABBING HER PURSE, Nina Monteverde headed out. She was desperately in need of lunch, though it was already late afternoon. She’d skipped breakfast, and now that she thought about it, she’d skipped dinner the night before as well.

Her head throbbed with it.

Running All That Glitters was going to kill her. Second quarter paperwork was due, there were taxes to handle and several key employee contracts had come up for negotiation.

Terry could have handled all of it and more, with a bright smile.

At the thought of her beloved sister, Nina’s throat tightened. The weight in her chest seemed to double. Triple.

But she kept walking, relieved to find a small table available at the café across the street. Grateful, she sat down and ordered. When her drink came, she sipped it, acknowledging the burning sensation behind her eyes as exhaustion, and promised herself that tonight she’d sleep.

No more nightmares.

Even if today was—would have been—Terry’s birthday. Her sister should be home preparing her own celebration, just as she always had, and doing it in the outgoing, outrageous style in which she’d done everything.