BooksBarbecue
Back Jungle Up
Chapters (63)
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  29. 29
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  31. 31
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  33. 33
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  40. 40
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  46. 46
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  49. 49
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  63. Author’s Note

He went quiet and I told him everything I knew.

“Narcos?” he asked.

“That’s what she said in the voicemail.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, no bueno.” It couldn’t hurt to start brushing up on my Spanish.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“If I go through traditional channels, the earliest I can get boots on the ground is six days from now. Do you have any contacts left in the government who can expedite the process?”

“I’m not sure. I burned a lot of bridges on my way out of town.” He paused, I supposed to come up with names, but then surprised me by saying, “Do you think you going down there is the best course of action? Can’t we hire a rescue team to go in there or something?”

Sometimes pronouns are important, and I noticed he had said “we” and not “you.” Who knows, maybe he still carried a flame for Gina. Or maybe it was the fact he and Gina had grown up together. It didn’t matter to me either way, as long as he was willing to help.

“A rescue team?” I asked.

“Yeah, I heard about some college kid who went missing somewhere down in South America, and the family hired a private search-and-rescue team from Israel to find him.”

The idea of not having to go down to Bolivia myself hadn’t even crossed my mind. I mean, how narcissistic was I that I thought I was the only one who could find Gina? The only thing I knew about the jungle was what I’d seen on Naked and Afraid. Surely there were people far more qualified to find Gina than Thomas Dergen Prescott.

I said, “Okay, so let’s hire these Israelis.”

“It’s going to be expensive.”

“How expensive are we talking?”

“Probably a quarter million, maybe more.”

A few years earlier, I wouldn’t have balked at a quarter million dollars. My parents had left Lacy and me a sizable inheritance when they died just over a decade earlier. Most of that money was now tied up in real estate: the house on Puget Sound, a beach house in San Diego, another house in Maine, Lacy and Caleb’s flat in Nice, plus the commercial lease for Lacy’s art gallery. Not to mention the rising cost of Lacy’s medications, which even with quality insurance was still a few thousand dollars a month.

As for money coming in, Lacy was barely breaking even on the gallery, and any profits she did make went right into improving the space. As for moi, my last paycheck had been over four years earlier. Since then, I suppose freeloading might be the most accurate term.