Renato had pretty calves, muscles used to jogging, skin tanned from the sun.
Bad start.
After breaking up with my ex-husband, I had spent the last three months in love with myself, which wasn’t much different from before. He usually passed the role of pleasing Emily Bennett to me. But the certainty that I was not being cheated on anymore was liberating. After going over the pain of our breaking apart, I felt free, focused on my job, and decided on not having an affair in the next few months, specially in Rio. I was there to work, to write papers.
Renato walked past a revolving door that led to the outdoor portion of the airport, equally populated by confused bystanders and loud cars. When we left the comfort of air-conditioning, I felt Rio’s scorching heat under a clear sky.
It struck me with a steamy punch, taking my breath away.
“Are you feeling well, Senhora?,” Renato said.
“Yes . . . it just feels hot. Very hot,” I said.
Renato grinned. “You’ll feel better inside the car. I’ll set the temperature to cold.” Then, he winked at me.
Chapter 3
Renato’s car, a black sedan, had its windows tinted a deep black that made it impossible to look inside the vehicle. I sat behind the passenger seat, and before we had escaped the traffic jam on the airport driveway, I went back to my phone.
“I’m already in Rio. On my way to the Hotel. Love you,” I typed to Mom. To Joanne, I sent, “Carlos sent his nephew. I’ll talk to you when I get to the hotel.”
We lost a few minutes just to get on the main highway that would take us to Rio. Cars piled up on the road, traffic slow, and around us, instead of the blue ocean that I had expected, my eyes only captured deep, brownish roofs and bare brick walls of city slums.
How did people live like this? Garbage on the streets, streams of sewage water trailing along open-air ditches and shoeless children running through debris. Really?
Our car slowed down , held back by traffic congestion. I hadn’t crossed eyes with Renato’s up to that moment. He exaled the kind of charm that ought to be avoided.
I eyed two young men who strolled behind the highway’s boundary walls. They wore rags as brownish as the slum behind them. They waved at the car.
“Don’t worry about them,” Renato said. “kids want your money, but only if you’re willing to buy the bottles of water they sell.”
“Okay,” I said, hardly feeling reassured.
Through the rear-view mirror, Renato stared at me with eyes that seemed to give shelter to puzzles behind the curtains of his eyelids. I tried to focus on the city encompassing the car, but my sight kept going back to him.
Quick glimpses tell a lot, and I sensed that with every glance at Renato I would get extra details to better know him.
But then I sensed he was doing the same with me. His eyes darting away whenever I glimpsed at the rear view mirror, and back when I looked away.
My cheeks heated up. A notification popped on my phone. It was Joanne, again.
“I’m unable to contact Carlos since last night. Got you a new driver, his name is Ricardo. Are you ok? I have scheduled a meeting for you tomorrow, right after the opening ceremony. Call me.”
All of a sudden I felt the car too small for us, the air too cold. Renato wasn’t supposed to be my driver, not at all. He had sneaked into my life motivated by some dreary, unspellable purpose. I had fallen into a trap.
What did he want from me?
I fumbled over the screen while tapping my response.
“What do you mean? I’m already in a car with a guy named Renato. He presented himself at the airport, he had my name on a paper sign,” I replied to Joanne.
Inside the black sedan, I tried to conceal my panic, to control my breathing, to avoid Renato from noticing my figuring out his scheme. I was aware of events like this in Rio. Kidnappers disguised as taxi drivers, willing to drag dazzled tourists into webs of corruption and evilness, its infinite strings spreading throughout the city.
Once newcomers got caught, odds were not even their bodies would be returned to lessen the grief of their families.
I looked around and noticed that our car came to a complete stop. Traffic a mess, my situation a disarray, and the man on the wheel plotting a sudden twist.
“It’s rush hour,” Renato said, in a relaxed way.
I took a glimpse of the rear-view mirror, my eyes bolting from side to side, but this time I didn’t see Renato’s face. He had tilted the mirror downwards, all I saw were the reflection of his trunks.
I knew what that meant. He wanted to take a good look at my body, at my legs, and had probably started adapting his evil scheme to fit a rape before the looting.
The phone rang, boss calling, I quickly turned it off. Renato might easily dispose of my phone in case he suspected I was trying to challenge his plan. Where was his gun? He ought to have it hidden somewhere in the car.
He tilted the mirror upwards and squinted at me. This time, I didn’t avert my eyes, while his didn’t seem as riddled as before. Now, his intentions were clear to me.
“Is the temperature ok to you?” he said.
“Are you going to kill me?” I replied, betrayed by my own mouth. Whatever my destiny, I would not grant to my hideous predator the safety of an ignorant victim.
He blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are not
