Curtain Call (The Jewel Project #7)

35. Nowhere Left to Go

Maxi couldn't remember the last time she'd traveled for fun. Just step out of an airport with excitement for what would follow, look forward to exploring a new place.

Every journey she'd taken for most of her life had been tainted by dread, despair or disgust.

Seeing her mother, her vacations with Freider, going out to France to see her children in the hospital... And after that, after Freider had started his useless hunt, she'd never left again. Had nowhere to go.

Now was not exactly different. She'd left on her own terms, true, but this was hardly a vacation. She was on a mission. A mission which turned out to be much harder than she'd anticipated.

The heat of the sun sent sweat running down her back and the humidity made it hard to breathe. She swatted around herself, trying to disperse the cloud of mosquitoes buzzing around her. This was horrid. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been alone like this, with no one to call for help, no chance to turn back.

You can turn back. No one made you do this.

But it wasn't true. There was no life for her if she turned back now. To be honest, after what happened to Kyle, there was no life for here anywhere, so she might as well put the breath she still had to good use.

After all, her children had been doing this since they were teenagers. How hard could it be?

Near damn impossible, it seemed.

Copying what she'd seen her kids planning, Maxi had brought a plane ticket to Peru and then boarded a bus to take her across the border and into Brazil. So far, so good. Except the map she'd taken from them showed that she had to get into an uninhabited stretch of jungle and this realization left her in a dingy village outside the rainforest with a map, very little luggage and a desire to just give up and run away.

"No, you're doing this," she mumbled, swatting away at more mosquitoes. "Who cares if no one understand English and you can't speak Portuguese?" Or that everyone around her threw her shady looks because they could see her for what she was?

A rich, foreign white woman, with no idea what to do. An easy target for both thieves and rapists.

What was she thinking? Could she throw enough money at someone to ensure her safety? And if she did and got to the place circled on the map, then what?

She glanced into the mass of green and brown in front of her. "Are you even in there?" And if he was, why were her children going in after him?

Had Freider finally won from beyond the grave? Had her sons decided to turn the tables and end Snitch Gravel before he could deal the final blow?

But he promised to leave them alone. He had, for four years. Something had suddenly changed and danger had engulfed their lives again, like a toxic cloud choking out the little hope they'd managed to hold on to.

This time, it wasn't that easy anymore. Her children had built families, had children of their own, all of them in danger because she'd failed to face her past.

The thought of her grandchildren sent a powerful pang into her stomach. She knew her kids had needed her to take over and babysit, but she'd had enough of that.

She'd stood back and let them fight her war long enough. Her crappy decisions had led to Kyle's death. Every day since she'd found out felt just as heavy and as senseless as the first. Time did nothing to dim her pain, to extinguish the agony inside, the guilt and the disgust at herself. 

For months, every morning she cried and wished everything had been a nightmare, that her baby was still alive. This constant pain inside her pushed her away from the rest of her children, from her grandchildren. She couldn't continue to go on like that, pretend that everything could ever be right again.