Lucy's Money: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 4) by J.J. Henderson

Author:J.J. Henderson [Henderson, J.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

THE SHADOW OF ARENAL

An hour or so later Lucy pulled off the Panamerican Highway southbound into the dusty parking lot of a Liberia steakhouse. Guanacaste was cattle country, much deforested to make room for ranches supplying cheap beef for the billions of burgers sold, and so the local eateries specialized in steak. The dark, cool restaurant offered a welcome break from the harsh light of mid-day on the dry, dusty plain. The noon temperature stood at 98 degrees, with a hot wind blowing down from the smoldering volcanoes of the Guanacaste range to the east.

By the time her slab of beef arrived she was into her second beer and had cross-referenced all the Liberian listings in her guidebook against the local phone book. Everything checked out, and she even decided to add to the guidebook the one internet café she found in the phone book. After eating she doled out eight dollars worth of colones and woozily emerged into the blistering early afternoon heat, climbed into her car, and crawled towards downtown Liberia, a short drive east of the highway.

A colorful assemblage of one and two story buildings encircled a shady plaza in the city center. She found the internet café, parked, and went in. She ordered iced coffee from a bored teenage girl with spiky bleached hair, a pierced lip, and a hummingbird tattooed on her neck, then sat down and got online to google The Four Señors.

What came up first was a generically appealing investment company website, with bland, polished paragraphs in four languages, and lots of pretty pictures. Nothing she didn’t already know. The Off The Book projects were also off the site. She thought she knew now why the hotel was off the books, but why the orphanage and the fishing camp?

The related sites that Google delivered were business stories from Latin American and U.S. newspapers about the firm. No scandal, no smoking guns, no evil juju.

Next she googled Rancho de la Luna. Several listings came up, led off by a recording studio in the California desert and a waterfront hotel in Cienfuegos, Cuba. And the orphanage: the website’s home page included introductory text and a color photo of a lovely spread with several well-maintained residential and farm buildings, nicely situated on cleared, tended farmland acres along the banks of a pretty, greenwater river. She scrolled down to view portraits of assorted merry-looking children, single and in groups. The text described an idyllic institution devoted to the well-being of children from not only Costa Rica but all of Central America. The kids in the photos looked well-fed, happy and healthy. In a section called About Us, Lucy found a link to a New Jersey-based organization called Adopting from the Americas, or AFTA. She had a look.

AFTA offered adoption counseling and services, specializing in children from Costa Rica. The website featured photos of smiling Hispanic kids with smiling North American parents, testimonials from assorted satisfied clientele, and services ranging from home study counseling to legal referrals to assistance in locating children in Costa Rica.

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