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      BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY WILLIAM MALTESE

      Amaz’n Murder: A Cozy Mystery Novel

      Amen’s Boy: A Fictionalized Autobiography (with Jacob Campbell)

      Anal Cousins: Case Studies in Variant Sexual Practices

      Back of the Boat Gourmet Cooking (with Bonnie Clark)

      Blood-Red Resolution: An Adventure Novel

      Catalytic Quotes (Some Heard Through a Time Warp)

      Dinner with Cecile and William (with Cecile Charles)

      Draqualian Silk: A Collector’s & Bibliographical Guide to the Books of William Maltese, 1969-2010

      Emerald-Silk Intrigue: A Romance

      Even Gourmands Have to Diet (with Bonnie Clark)

      The Fag Is Not for Burning: A Mystery Novel

      From This Beloved Hour: A Romance

      Fyrea’s Cauldron: A Romance Novel

      Gerun, the Heretic: A Science Fiction Novel

      Get-Real Vegan Desserts (with Christina-Marie Wright)

      The Gluten-Free Way: My Way (with Adrienne Z. Milligan)

      The Gomorrha Conjurations: An Adventure Novel

      The “Happy” Hustler

      Heart on Fire: A Romance

      In Search of the Perfect Pinot G! (with A. B. Gayle)

      Incident at Aberlene: An Espionage Novel (Spies & Lies #1)

      Incident at Brimzinsky: An Espionage Novel (Spies & Lies #2)

      Jungle Quest Intrigue: A Romance

      Love’s Emerald Flame: A Romance

      Love’s Golden Spell: A Romance

      Matador, Mi Amor: A Novel of Romance

      Moon-Stone Intrigue: A Romance

      Moonstone Murders: The Movie Script

      Schism on Antheer-D: Science Fiction (Gods & Frauds #1)

      Schism on Bnth: Science Fiction (Gods & Frauds #2)

      Slaves

      A Slip to Die for: A Stud Draqual Mystery

      Summer Sweat: An Erotic Anthology

      SS & M: Being Excerpts from the Nazi Death-Head Files

      Total Meltdown: An Adventure Novel (with Raymond Gaynor)

      When Summer Comes

      William Maltese’s Wine Taster Diary: Spokane & Pullman, WA

      Young Cruisers

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2013 by William Maltese

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      For My Dear Old Mum,

      who would have loved this one.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Pleasurably frightened, as a child, by the contents of her father’s journals, Melanie Ditherson expected (hoped for?) a reality of bloodthirsty natives, or at least a slavering jaguar; she got neither.

      “Sorry if I gave you a start.” It was her Uncle Charles who looked romantically dashing in his bush outfit that included the brim-upturned hat he removed to wipe sweat from his forehead. His hair was stunningly silver; Melanie had always suspected he used some kind of rinse, but, unless he brought his own supply, his two weeks in the Amazon had produced no telltale roots of less magnificent color. “Haven’t seen our guide, have you?”

      “Gordon?” She made it you have to be kidding.

      “Said he was off to use ‘the facilities’ and didn’t bother to return. As he was headed this way.…”

      “Teddy is within hailing distance.” Melanie waved her arm in a southwestern direction. “He said to call any time that Gordon might again decide to be a bother.”

      “Rather unpleasant business—that.” Charles didn’t refer to Gordon’s more immediate disappearance, although that was unpleasant enough, but to what had happened the night before. “I hope you don’t hold it against your dear uncle that he didn’t vote in favor of our trotting back to civilization in retaliation for Gordon’s unseemly behavior.”

      Melanie took a handkerchief from the front pocket of her pants and freed her face of as much perspiration as she could manage. “I’m the one who insisted we stay, remember?”

      “Yes, but if I’d been a little more insistent.…”

      “We all made too much of it,” Melanie rationalized. She left it at that, because she’d never assumed Gordon anymore immune to her harmless flirtations than any other man. Last night had merely proven her right.

      “Having missionaries for parents doesn’t make any child one.” Charles’ tone insinuated an access to more information than was at Melanie’s disposal. “Especially it doesn’t make Gordon one.”

      Melanie was curious for any specifics but she was detoured.

      “Ah, I thought I heard voices.” Carolyne Santire said, sweeping aside a large frond to join them. “Any luck, you two?”

      “Plenty of rubias, myrtles, leguminosse, epiphytic orchids, bromeliad, and fern.…” Melanie ran down the list.

      “Don’t I know it,” Carolyne consoled. Unlike Charles’ hair, hers, a henna-rinse red, was definitely coming in a different color—grey—at the scalp. She ran her fingers through the variegated results in an automatic exploration for whatever creepies or crawlies had hitched rides since her last search and seizure.

      “Not only have I not found anything even vaguely resembling Lygodium cornelius, but I seem to have lost our guide in the process,” admitted Charles.

      “Surely, that young man learned from his mistake of last night and isn’t up to any new mischief,” Carolyne criticized Gordon-in-absentia.

      “He didn’t come this way.” Melanie had no desire to get him into any more trouble.

      “Left me on the other side of the gully,” Charles lamented. “I could have broken my neck in my balancing act to get back across.”

      For not the first time, Carolyne knew Charles Ditherson was no way as decrepit as he was always letting on. After so many years of traversing gullies, chasms, sink holes, and an occasional abyss, he had a lot of expertise upon which to draw.

      “I’m not a kid any more,” he insisted.

      Carolyne wasn’t about to take any of his bullshit. “Were you as near to pasture as you insist, I doubt you’d have joined this little expedition.”

      “This is hardly the place to which an uncle willingly sends his niece without a chaperone?”

      “Seems Teddy is bodyguard enough.”

      Charles snorted. “Teddy might protect her from Gordon Wentlock, but who, besides me, protects her from Teddy Rhingold? You?”

      “Is anyone hungry but me?” Melanie changed the subject.

      “You’re hungry, even knowing as you do that Felix is in charge of the chow?” Carolyne’s insinuation was that their cook-of-the-day wasn’t likely to relieve any pangs of starvation: an anomaly when hours of traipsing the tangles left everyone famished at meal times.

      “He’s promised to follow package instructions, this time: ‘put plastic bag in boiling water,’” Melanie reminded. It had been a promise forced from him after his last ill-fated Julia Child in the wild improvisation.

      Not from Missouri, but California, Carolyne had to see

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