Esperanza Read Online Free PDF

knew she had to figure out these glitches in her memory, but wasn’t sure how.
    “That’s some nasty bruise on your arm,” Ian remarked.
    The marks were now a deep purple. “Some guy outside grabbed my wrist and told me I was an intruder.”
    “A local?”
    “I don’t know. But he was Quechua.”
And then he turned up dead outside.
    “I saw a dead man outside by the outhouses,” he confided, glancing around uneasily.
    Ripples of shock tore through her.
It happened, here’s your confirmation.
She kept her eyes fixed on the floor and whispered, “I don’t think we should talk about this right now.” Then she raised her head and pointed at the menu. In a normal tone of voice, she discussed the menu posted on the wall.
Plátanos
were plantains, a kind of banana, served baked or fried.
Pollo
was chicken,
legumbres
were vegetables. “It’s smart to stay away from pork and beef. Chicken’s probably okay, but vegetables are safer, the hotter the better. And bottled water is safer than soft drinks with ice. Or any drink with ice.”
    “Got it. Thanks.”
    She desperately wanted to linger, to continue talking to Ian. But her attraction to him was so strong that it troubled her. It might be too easy to allow camaraderie on the road to turn into a sexual adventure that she’d regret. She hadn’t come to Ecuador to get her heart broken. “I need to get my ticket stuff straightened out. Excuse me.”
    But even when she got into the line at the ticket counter, she glanced back at him, drinking in the sight of him, unable to satisfy a need to look at him, to make sure he was real.
    She noticed that people still peered out the window, the drunken cop still argued with someone, the door remained shut.
Not my business.
Tess checked her cell. No signal. But it looked as if her message to Maddie earlier had gone through. She typed a message to Dan in the hopes that once she was out of this valley, she might have a signal again. She updated him on the lead she’d gotten in Quito and her detour to Esperanza. She wanted to add something personal, that she missed him. But she didn’t. In fact, she felt conflicted about writing him at all, and what was the point if she didn’t have a signal?
    She turned off the phone, slipped it back into her pocket. The American family waited just in front of her. The little girl was no longer crying, the boy had fallen asleep in his father’s arms, and the wife seemed distraught. But Tess saw a plump, ripe papaya sticking up from her shoulder bag.
    The girl looked back at Tess and said, “I feel better now. Thanks.” She held out her teddy. “This is Roo. He feels better, too.”
    “Roo looks cold. Maybe you should tuck him inside your jacket.”
    The mother smiled nervously at Tess, tugged on her daughter’s hand, leaned down and whispered something to her. Probably,
Don’t talk to strangers, she found a dead man outside . . .
    Except she wasn’t a stranger. She had given the woman all of her papaya enzymes.
    When she reached the ticket agent, he listened with patient boredom. He said she had two choices—to return to Quito, a trip that would take about fifteen hours, or take the bus to Esperanza and make her travel arrangements from there to Tulcán.
    “When does the bus leave for Quito?” she asked.
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    “Where’s the nearest hotel?”
    “No hotels. You sleep here.” His sweeping gesture encompassed the waiting area—plastic chairs lined up along the windows and walls, most of them occupied, the dirty concrete floor, dozens of stranded passengers.
    No, thanks. Esperanza it would be. “Is my ticket set to go?”
    He stamped it, gave her a thumbs-up. “Set to go.”
    Tess navigated through the crowd again and made it outside. The fog seemed thicker, and the cold, damp air penetrated her jeans, socks, jacket, chilling her to the bone. She wished she had one of those colorful wool blankets the Quechuans wore.
    Two buses pulled up, Otavalo 12 and Baños