"You're going into the jungles of friggin Brazil? Do you have even the slightest clue about what you're getting into?"

Friggin? She must have been impressed by Sabrina to clean up her language like that. So what did that say about her respect for me?

"Absolutely no clue," answered Sabrina. "That makes it more exciting!"

Mo looked at me. I shrugged.

"This is how she is. She lives for adventure."

"It's not Sabrina I'm worried about."

"Oh."

"Del, I'm not saying that you are helpless, but you've been stuck in an office for ten years. Are you ready for this?"

"Aren't you the one who told me I have to start doing something with my life?"

"I thought you might do it in increments, not jump off the cliff the first chance you got."

"Don't have a lot of choice now."

"We always have a choice."

"Del's right," said Sabrina, coming to my aid. "We've kind of put ourselves in a situation where we have to see it through. We have the Russians on our tail now…"

"Russians?"

"Long story. We'll tell you about it in a minute," I said.

Mo rolled her eyes.

"I think," continued Sabrina, "the only way to get them off our trail is to solve the mystery. Then they have no reason to go after us."

We told her about our speculation about the Russians. When we were done, she just shook her head. "I don't know whether to be scared for you both, or …"

It suddenly dawned on me. "You're jealous!"

"Hell, yeah, I'm jealous. I'd give anything to go with you." She turned to Sabrina. "Take care of him. Don't let anything happen to him. If you don't hold onto him, he'll get lost."

"Actually, he's the one who's kept me from getting lost."

I got the feeling that sometime down the line Sabrina and Mo were going to become good friends. Sabrina wouldn't have even hinted at her issues with anyone else. That showed an amazing amount of instant trust. Maybe there was some progress after all.

Chapter 29

The flight to Belém was long. We could have traveled across the U.S. three times in the time it took to get to there. If we were going to Australia or China, I could understand it, but wasn't Brazil just somewhere south of us? Of course, the seven-hour layover in Miami didn't help.

We had tried to time it so we'd arrive at Logan as close to boarding as possible to avoid excessive contact with people. Up to that point we had managed to avoid the press, but our luck didn't hold. When we arrived in Miami, two sleazy tabloid photographers were there to greet us. We managed to give them the slip thanks to some good planning on my part—yes, me for a change, not Sabrina—and some help from the very people Sabrina didn't trust—the public.

When we were buying our tickets, I suggested that since we had such a long layover in Miami, we should buy each leg of the trip separately. That way, someone smart enough to track us would see us going to Miami, with no connection to the flight to Brazil. A room at a local hotel would further shield us from the possibility of detection.