Chapter 2 Current and Contact
Nora
I'm on the dock with my coffee in one hand and my notebook tucked against my body in the other.
There's no wind yet at six-thirty in the morning, so the surface of the lagoon is mirror-flat.
The tannin-dark water holds the tepuy reflection so perfectly that for a moment, the sky and the falls are doubled.
The real thing above, its dark twin below, with the horizon somewhere in between.
I'm surrounded by so much inspiration here for my book, but it's hard to know where to start making notes.
"You're up early."
I turn and see Alex Morrison coming down the walkway from the caba?as, looking like a man who has already been up for hours getting things done.
Alex came to Adler as part of the French Riviera hotel acquisition a few months ago.
As the Director of Financial Strategy for Adler, I spent quite a bit of time with him and Isla Laurent during the early days of contract signing and all the complications that come with that.
"Couldn't sleep?" I ask.
"It's the falls." He stands beside me and looks at the lagoon in much the same way I had been moments ago.
"Don't get me wrong, they're magnificent.
But they don't stop, do they? It's just—water.
Constantly. All night." He flashes one of his signature grins at me; it feels like stepping into a spotlight of warmth when he gives those out.
And he gives them to everyone; it's part of what makes him such a great guy.
"Like living next to a highway, but beautiful. "
I snort.
"Isla would've lost her mind." A pause. "In a good way."
"Where are Isla and Roman, actually? I know they couldn't make it, but no one told me why."
Alex gives me the look of a man who has been waiting for someone to ask this.
"Right," he says. "So, you know how Roman and Isla are." He gestures vaguely. "With each other."
"I know they're very happy."
"They're extremely happy. They are aggressively, constantly, furniture-damagingly happy.
" He leans in conspiratorially. "Roman sent his apologies and said there was a scheduling conflict.
Isla sent her apologies and said the same thing.
Channelle, who actually manages both their calendars these days and therefore knows the truth, told me—" he pauses for effect "—that they have blocked the entire week as unavailable and Roman's out-of-office says he's at the Nice property for 'strategic review. '"
I arch a brow at him. "Any reason we shouldn't believe that?"
"Nora," he says patiently. "He wrote that from the bedroom.
Not that they keep it in the bedroom, mind.
The archive room, Isla's office, and the rooftop terrace at the Adler London last month.
Channelle has it on good authority that they also did it in a glass elevator, which I'm trying not to think too much about. "
I gape at him. I got the impression that the lovebirds were a bit playful when I visited on business, but I had no idea... They could be characters in a romance novel. And I do very secretly love a good romance novel.
"So, anyway, they couldn't make it. They sent Channelle and me along in their place." He beams over my shoulder. "Speak of the devil."
Channelle comes down the walkway looking like she has had nine hours of sleep and a professional blowout, which she can't have because we are all in a sweaty jungle with one power socket per caba?a.
"Morning," she says, stopping beside us and looking at the lagoon. A beat. "Oh. Oh."
"I know," I say.
"I didn't expect—" She stops and looks at it properly. "Roman is going to be devastated that he missed this."
"Roman," Alex says, "is not thinking about the lagoon."
Channelle's mouth curves slightly. "No," she agrees. "He is not."
We stand in comfortable silence for a moment, the three of us, while Canaima does its slow morning work on all of us.
By eight, the full group has assembled at the dock for the day's activity briefing.
Mateo runs through the plan with a friendly and patient warmth: lagoon circuit by kayak and paddleboard, then into the shallower tributary channel where the tepuy walls come close and the water changes character.
Two hours, maybe three. The light will be good until eleven, after which the midday heat changes everything.
It sounds extraordinary. I write three things in my notebook and close it, then pack it away in my bag, where it will have to stay during this adventure.
Andrew appears last, wearing sunscreen on his nose and carrying a paddleboard he has absolutely no idea what to do with yet.
He looks good, as Andrew always does, but there is something slightly unmoored about him this morning that I have not seen before—Andrew is usually one of the most present people in any room, and today he is present, but with an asterisk.
He takes his phone out, looks at it, puts it away, and gets it out again.
"She sent a picture?" Alex asks.
Andrew looks up, and his whole face twists into a smile that looks radiant and a little helpless, both at once. "Aubrey's got her in this tiny yellow hat." He turns the phone. A newborn baby in a hat the size of a tangerine looks back at us.
He pockets the phone. "Aubrey said I had to come. Said she'd be furious if I stayed home." He pauses, looking helpless again. "She's also—she and the baby are completely fine, and I'm—I'm fine." He picks up his paddleboard. "I'm fine. How hard is paddleboarding, anyway?"
"It is straightforward," Mateo says kindly, but I wonder how many times he's said this to people who proceeded to fall in.
"Great," Andrew says. "Great. That's great."
Ryan, who appeared at Andrew's elbow a few seconds ago, puts a hand on his shoulder once, briefly and firmly, and takes one long, measured breath. Andrew seems to instinctively mirror him, and as Ryan goes back to checking his kit, Andrew's posture settles slightly.
I pull out my notebook one last time for the day and write Ryan/Andrew – dock – shoulder. I'm starting to feel more like I am documenting wildlife than making notes for my book.
***
The launch area is busy when we arrive. Mateo's team is setting out the boards and kayaks while the lodge manager, Carmen, oversees the equipment check from the bank.
We are not alone at the launch point, it seems.
The other group arrives in a convoy of branded vehicles with matching technical gear and a pop-up gazebo already being erected by two support staff with CUMbrE VERDE EXPEDITIONS in aggressive green lettering across the canopy.
Their guide is built as large and sturdy as Mateo, but he has a very different energy. He moves through the shared launch area as if he has a prior claim to it, directing his staff, assessing the water, and acknowledging Mateo with a sharp lift of his chin.
"Yikes," I mutter.
Mateo grins at me as he ties off a kayak. "Rodrigo Vidal. Makes quite an impression, right?"
"You don't say?" The Cumbre Verde clients fan out along the bank. Most of them are focused on their equipment or their phones. But a cluster of three near the water's edge, all young, loud, and clearly feeding off each other, has started to notice our group.
One of them says a few words in Spanish while staring at Channelle in her crop top and shorts.
I catch it. Erica doesn't, and looks at me for a translation I am definitely not going to give her.
Riley catches it, too. She's two feet to my left, pulling on her kayak vest, and I watch the color come up in her face. That color is not from embarrassment; Riley Mitchell does not do embarrassment. It's more fiery than that.
She pauses for a moment, but then keeps pulling on her vest.
The next comment that comes is about Riley. They seem to really like her flame-red hair and are wondering about the color of the rest of her body hair. They say it loud enough that they must think no one in our group can speak Spanish. Either that or they don't care if we hear them.
Channelle moves to touch Riley, but then jerks her hand back as if she's been burned when Riley turns, eyes gleaming with fury.
"Okay," she says with deadly calm. "They asked for it."
She sets down the kayak vest. Her chin comes up. Her spine does the thing I have seen it do in boardrooms when she has identified a target and is about to take the shot, and she opens her mouth—
Derrick's hand closes around her wrist.
It's just his hand around her wrist, nothing hard. He steps in close behind her and whispers near her ear, too softly for me to hear.
Riley goes still.
I can tell that everyone in the group feels it. The way their dynamic tilts. The way our whole universe seems to fracture a little.
Andrew, who has been fussing with his paddleboard, glances up and then glances away with a careful tact. There is a man who has learned when not to watch.
But I watch.
Riley Mitchell does not go still. Riley Mitchell responds, redirects, escalates, wins—that is the order of operations, always.
I have worked alongside her for two years, and I have seen her in boardrooms, in crises, in the aftermath of a ransomware attack at two in the morning when she was running on cold coffee and fury and still managed to be the most controlled person in the room.
She does not stand quietly with someone's hand on her wrist, and her mouth closed, and what she was about to say put away.
Derrick doesn't move her away. He doesn't make it a thing. He simply stays close, his hand at her wrist, and after a long moment, Riley exhales very quietly through her nose and turns slightly, away from the bank.
She picks up her kayak vest. She puts it on and walks to the water.
Derrick watches her go.
I stare at him. He is already looking at the lagoon, and his expression is carefully neutral; a man managing an issue that has nothing to do with Cumbre Verde, and everything to do with the woman, his wife, who just walked away from him without looking back.
***
Santi