The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) (46 page)

“I know she is. The photo has a
time stamp of just a few weeks ago. It was taken at the Praia de Sol hotel.”

“Maybe she knows something!”
Falkon said. “Maybe she’s the one who took everything!”

“That’s what I’m thinking too.
If nothing else, at least it’s a place to start.”

*****

Raquel was showing off her
necklace to a man at The Avalon nightclub.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It
looks like the sun.”

“Yes it does,” said Raquel. She
twisted the pendant from said to side, allowing the onyx to glisten in the
light. “I like to surf. The sun and I are good friends.”

“What’s your name?” said the
man. He had dark curly hair and a perfectly manicured beard. He wore a
tight-fitting suit and a Rolex watch.

“Teresa,” said Raquel. “Teresa
Silva.”

She danced a few songs with the
man, then moved on to somebody else. She didn’t want to stay too long with any
one person tonight. At least, not yet. She would find some sucker to latch onto
later, after the booze really loosened them up. For now, she just wanted to
enjoy the moment. She wanted to feel what it was like to be a girl at The
Avalon.

When her name was Raquel, she
slept on dirt floors and didn’t have running water. She drank cheap beer,
smoked cheap pot, and was frequently in trouble with the law.

But her name wasn’t Raquel
anymore. Now she was Teresa Silva. Her passport said so. As did all three of
her credit cards.

Of the many treasures Raquel
stole from Shannon, none had proven more valuable than her alias. Raquel would
never know why a girl named Shannon Evans had a second identity as Teresa
Silva, but she was thankful for it. It turned out that Teresa Silva was a
valuable name to have. Once Raquel adopted the identity for herself, everything
changed.

Raquel had a criminal record.
She had terrible credit. She couldn’t get a loan, couldn’t open a bank account,
and she couldn’t rent an apartment. But Teresa Silva could do all those things.
And she did. Living as Teresa, Raquel became one of the fabulous people who
wore pretty dresses, expensive necklaces, and danced the night away at The
Avalon.

And while she danced, she
trusted that, at some point before the night was over, she would find her next
conquest. There was another Shannon here in this club. Another rich victim to
fleece.

One song bled into another.
Raquel danced under the moon, taking in the night air and the cool ocean
breeze. She didn’t find a new victim on this night. But she did come face to
face with an old one. When she finally decided to step away from the dance
floor and approach the bar, she ran into the girl who used to be Teresa Silva.

“Hello Raquel,” Shannon said. “I
bet you weren’t expecting to see me tonight.”

*****

Some twelve hours after Jill
sent her a text message, Annika called her back.

“Hello, Annika? Have you
landed?”

“I’m still on the plane,” Annika
said. “I just turned on my phone. What are these texts all about?”

“Listen Annika, there isn’t time
to explain everything. You just have to trust me. Renata is in Rio. She landed
before you and went to Shannon’s old house. She’s headed to the Praia de Sol
hotel right now. Call Shannon and get her out of there. Figure out a place to
meet. Tell her that no one can know where she’s going.”

“Alright,” Annika said. “I’ll
call her now.”

“And call me back after you talk
to her!”

For ten minutes, Jill sat in
silence, watching on her map as Annika’s red dot sat in place at the airport,
and Renata’s blue dot drove down the coast.

“Shannon’s not picking up!”
Annika yelled when she finally called back. “My call went to voicemail and she
sent me a text saying she had to settle an old score and she would call me in a
few minutes.”

“Settle an old score? What is
she doing?”

“I don’t know! The text is the
last bit of info I got from her! I think she turned her phone off.”

“Is she in the hotel?”

“I don’t know! I called the room
and nobody answered there either. I think I should go to the hotel to look for
her. Do you think it’s safe?”

“Hang on,” Jill said. She looked
at the tracking program. Annika was a few miles closer to the Praia de Sol than
Renata was.

“You can go to the hotel, but
hurry. Renata’s on her way.”

*****

“You left me for dead,” Shannon
said.

They were standing in the middle
of the dance floor, the party going on all around them.

“But you survived,” said Raquel.
“Good for you.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t try
to murder me. You took everything I had and left me in the slums.”

People were looking at them now.
Raquel knew she should leave. There was nothing in this argument for her.

But she couldn’t walk away. She
found herself with entirely too much to say to this spoiled American brat.

“Who are you to have so much
when others have so little?” Raquel said.

“It looks to me like you’ve got
plenty, Raquel.”

It made her angry when Shannon
said her name. It reminded her that, not that long ago, Shannon thought she was
worthy of Raquel’s love. It reminded her how low she had been, how dirty she’d
been forced to play.

“Is that my mother’s necklace?”
Shannon said.

Raquel immediately put her hand
over the silver pendant.

“This is mine,” she said, her
tone of voice daring Shannon to try and take it.

Shannon shook her head in
disgust, and Raquel felt herself growing more and more angry. Who was this
little bitch to judge her? This soft, spoiled loser, daring to condemn Raquel,
as if she had even the faintest idea how many years Raquel had waited to get
into this night club.

“You know how I found you,
Raquel?”

“How?”

Shannon pointed at the hotel
that loomed above them. “I just looked out the window from my room,” she said.
“You stuck out like a sore thumb. This hotel, this nightclub, that
necklace—they are meant for people like me! You left me in the slums to rot,
but here I am, not two months later, back in the fanciest hotel in Rio. And you
may have a little bit of pocket change right now after robbing my house, but
one day you’ll have spent it all. One day, you’ll be back in the slums
wondering what the hell happened, and I will still be staying at the fanciest
hotels and dancing at the most exclusive nightclubs.”

Raquel had heard enough. With
speed and strength she had developed over many years on the waves, she punched
Shannon in the face. Shannon fell back into the crowd of dancers, who raced to
get out of her way.

What happened next surprised
Raquel. She fully expected Shannon to run out with her tail between her legs.
But she didn’t. She crawled back to her feet, shouting, “It’s on!” and then she
charged, throwing her shoulder into Raquel’s stomach and tackling her to the
ground.

*****

“I’m at the hotel,” Annika said.
“She’s not in the room.”

“Did you check the lobby?” said
Jill.

“Yes, and the bar,” said Annika.

“Do you have a picture of her
with you?” said Jill.

“A picture? Yeah, I guess on my
phone--”

“Bring up her picture and start
asking around,” said Jill. “Someone might have seen where she went.”

“Really? Just start asking these
people? Oh Jill, I don’t know. Maybe I should just go look around outside.”

Jill looked at the tracking app
on her phone.

“Whatever you’re gonna do, you
need to do it fast. Renata will be there in a few minutes.”

*****

Renata arrived at the Praia de
Sol shortly before eleven o’clock. There was a long line of people waiting to
check in at the front desk. Renata cut to the front and handed a photograph to
the clerk.

“Have you seen this girl?” she
asked.

The clerk was a young man with
dark skin and unfortunate teeth. According to the badge on his jacket, his name
was Victor.

Victor glanced at the photo. He
pushed it back at Renata. He was about to tell her to get in line, but she
caught him with her eyes.

Have you seen this girl?
she asked with her mind.

Victor’s pupils dilated. He had
seen her. He just didn’t have it stored in his conscious mind. Renata made him
remember.

“She is here,” Victor said. “She
is in room 1108.”

“Thank you,” said Renata.

But Shannon wasn’t in the room.
Renata took a moment to inspect the place, looking carefully for a necklace
with a silver pendant. She found nothing. So she went downstairs and checked at
the bar. She showed the photograph to the bartender.

“Yes,” he said. “I recognize
her. But she hasn’t been to the bar tonight.”

Renata went to the concierge. He
too knew
who
Shannon was, but not
where
she was. Same with the
bellhop, a woman from the housekeeping staff, and even a waiter at the
restaurant. They all had seen Shannon before, but didn’t know where she was.

She’s close
, Renata
thought.
But where?

She stood in the center of the
lobby, imagining she was a seventeen-year-old girl.
Where would I be at this
moment?

She heard music. Not the soft
piano music of the hotel lobby. Something more distant. A thumping sound. The
teenage jungle beats that kids loved to dance to these days.

That’s where you are, isn’t
it Shannon? The night is young and you’re out dancing.

*****

Jill was hunched over her
computer screen, watching Renata’s blue dot and Annika’s red dot floating ever
closer together.

“I’m out on the beach,” Annika
said. Jill had her on speaker phone. Behind Annika were the sounds of nightlife
in the city. Dance music, people laughing, the chatter of the crowd.

“Annika, I don’t want you to
panic,” said Jill, “but I need you to be aware that Renata is getting close.”

“How close? You don’t think she
can see me, do you?”

“Just be cool and keep moving. You
want to head north to stay ahead of her.”

“Good Lord, which way is north?
It’s the middle of the night and I’m in Rio de Janeiro!”

“The opposite direction of the
way you’re going now,” Jill said. “Put the ocean on your right-hand side.”

“Oh, okay, that makes sense.”

“The best way to hide from a
vampire is inside a crowd,” said Jill. “Is there a crowd of people you can
join?”

“There’s a nightclub,” said
Annika. “It looks pretty packed.”

“See if you can get in there,”
said Jill. “Renata’s getting too close to where you are. You need to hide until
she’s passed.”

“Okay, I see the entrance. I’m
headed in there now.”

*****

Who knew a rich white girl had
so much fury inside her? Raquel was shocked to find that Shannon could hold her
own in a fight. She was like a crazy weasel, thrashing and kicking and clawing
as the two of them rolled through the crowd.

Raquel threw her knee in
Shannon’s face. It was a good shot, and Shannon went tumbling across the dance
floor.

Raquel stood up and looked
around her. The bouncers were pushing their way through the crowd. This fight
was almost over.

One more good shot before
it’s done
, Raquel thought.
One more punch to put this brat in her place.

Raquel was about to charge
across the floor when she got distracted by a sound from the crowd.

“Shannon?”

“Who said that?” Raquel
demanded.

Shannon and Raquel both turned
to see a blonde in street clothes working her way through the crowd.

“Shannon!” the girl said. She
had an American accent. “It’s me! It’s Annika!”

Taking advantage of Shannon’s
distraction, Raquel landed a quick sucker punch to Shannon’s face. It sent her
reeling to the floor, where she landed hard, right at the blonde girl’s feet.

The blonde put an arm around
Shannon and lifted her up. The bouncers arrived and offered to help. The blonde
waved them off and pointed at Raquel.

The bouncers came at Raquel and
grabbed her by both arms.

“It’s time for you to leave,”
one of them said.

“What about her?” said Raquel,
nodding her head in Shannon’s direction. “What are you doing to her?”

Dragging Raquel across the dance
floor, they said nothing.

“What about her?” Raquel
screamed. “What about her! Throw her out too!”

It was maddening. The bouncers
were going to let Shannon and the blonde girl stay in the club, but had firm
grips on both of her arms and were carrying her down the stairs.

“Do you know who I am?” Raquel
screamed. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to be here?”

*****

Renata stepped through the front
door of The Avalon nightclub to find two beastly men dragging a young woman
across the floor against her will.

She was putting on quite the
show as they dragged her out. Flailing and kicking and screaming,
Do you
know who I am? Do you?

And then she saw it.

Dancing around the girl’s neck,
the pendant sliding every which way as the girl thrashed like an animal.

The girl looked nothing like
Shannon Evans.

Renata approached the men. “Be
still,” she commanded. Everyone within earshot of her voice stopped moving,
including the girl.

Renata squatted down and put her
hands on the necklace.

A silver pendant with a black
onyx stone and eight lines coming out on all sides. Renata pressed on the onyx
with her thumb and a USB port shot out of the bottom.

“Well, hello there,” Renata
said.

She tugged on the pendant until
the chain broke, then, holding the necklace in front of the girl, asked, “Where
did you get this?”