Alarm shook Mark from his troubled reverie at the sight of Violeta dropping in Diego’s chair, patting her chest. What had she done, raced across the park? Not wanting to alarm the others until he was certain there was reason for it—the old woman might just be trying to catch her breath—he excused himself.
“I think I’ll mosey over to the cantina for some of those cinnamon crisps … churros,” he remembered. It wasn’t exactly a lie. The tempting smell of hot cinnamon had made up his mind to go for some. “So if I don’t see you folks before the end of the festivities, I’ll catch you later.”
With that, Mark zigzagged across the shaded park in the light of the paper lanterns that had been strung from tree to tree by Juan Pedro. Halfway there, he met Corinne.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m looking for Gaspar,” she said, looking around him at the crowd.
“Why? Is Violeta ill? There’s a doctor right here.”
Corinne shook her head. “I think she forgot to take her angina pill. She insisted that Diego take her home and I fetch Gaspar, and she’ll be fine.”
“She does like to give orders.”
Corinne met his gaze, affection shining through her eyes in the lantern light. “She didn’t want anyone else to know of her ‘silliness.’ But just in case …” She sobered. “Will you help me find Gaspar?”
Prompted by heaven only knew what, Mark seized her hand, making a bow. “Your wish is my command. You take the cantina side of the plaza, and I’ll take the market side.”
Mark hardly recognized Gaspar when he found him. Clad in the traditional loose white trousers and shirt, the man was sharing a picnic of homemade delicacies wrapped in tortillas with his family near the right of the stage. The moment he heard of Doña Violeta’s distress, Gaspar hugged his wife and said good-bye to the others in his party. Mark assumed they were his children and grandchildren.
“She should be well,” the manservant assured Mark. “Usually she takes her pill, rests, and is fine, but, still, I will make haste.”
Spying Corinne across the plaza, Mark waved to catch her attention. When she finally saw him, she heaved a visible sigh of relief and indicated through gestures that she was going on ahead to Violeta’s home.
“Gaspar,” he told his companion, “you go ahead with Corinne, but don’t rush too fast or we’ll have both of you to care for.” Mark wasn’t sure of the man’s age, but the iron gray of his hair implied he was no spring chicken capable of running uphill. “I’ll get the lawn chair and catch up with you both.”
“Bueno. Gracias, Señor Madison.”
By the time Mark fetched the folding lawn chair and explained to Father Menasco and Dr. Flynn what was going on, perspiration cloaked his skin, making his cotton polo and trousers cling to his body. Thankfully, they understood the lady’s embarrassment and wishes, but he assured them that he would send for them if there was the slightest chance that Doña Violeta needed the doctor’s help.
At the moment, Gaspar was probably in the better shape, Mark thought, as he trotted up the hill. Maybe he was getting a cold. He couldn’t seem to draw enough air into his lungs to fuel his energy. His legs burned with each uphill pull, while his heart beat itself against his breastbone. And as deserted as the street was from the celebration, if he collapsed, no one would be the wiser until the fireworks display was over.
The courtyard gate to Doña Violeta’s home was open. Once inside, Mark dropped on the bench to catch his breath. After all, the people Violeta needed were there. He was just bringing up the rear with a lawn chair and a head filled with a complete section of timpani. And he’d left his bag of medicine at the square, he moaned inwardly.
Once the burning in his legs abated, and he determined that neither his heart nor head was going to explode, he got up and walked to the open door of the salon. Inside, a bright-eyed, pink-cheeked Doña Violeta held court with Gaspar and Corinne in attendance. Now, what is wrong with this picture?
Aha, he thought, stepping inside. Don Juan Diego is missing.
The burning rushed back, taking sheer effort to override it. He felt as if he’d inhaled helium, making both his head and his stomach light. What on earth was wrong with him?
Violeta, Gaspar, and Corinne, even the furniture in the room, started to circle around to his right.
“Mark, are you all right?” Corinne’s question joined the whirl of sensation inside his head.
“Just … a …” His voice was distorted, too deep and slow for his malady to be caused by helium. “… little … winded.” It sounded to him as though someone had turned on the haunted hacienda sound effects. Haunted hacienda!
Mark fell down with laughter at his private joke. Or at least he thought he fell. The rest faded into blackness.
“Estúpido!” Don Rafael paced back and forth in his aunt’s courtyard after Mark Madison had been carried out by Gaspar and Capitán Nolla to the police car for transport to Hacienda Ortiz.
Don Rafael had come with the police captain, who was summoned by Corinne via cell phone to bring Father Menasco and his sister to Violeta’s house after the engineer’s collapse.
After a warm toddy to calm her nerves, his aunt retired, although it was clear that she was more upset about Mark Madison’s malady than her own. If she had truly suffered any manner of heart problem at all, Don Rafael thought, recalling the sly wink she’d given him as he and Diego retired to the courtyard.
Perhaps she’d succeeded in separating her nephew from Corinne Diaz when he could not. Regardless, he was at last alone with Diego. “I risk everything for you, and you let your fancy for a woman get the better of you,” he fumed at his son.
“No one will be able to present a collection before mine, Father,” Diego replied, his tone nothing short of condescending. “The necklace was just a small example.”
“You know nothing.” And Don Rafael hoped to keep it that way with regard to Tía Violeta’s confidence and the real source of the ammonite. But if his colleague even suspected that a sampling of the valuable commodity had surfaced before it was secured …
Don Rafael stopped short and drew a handkerchief from the inside of his jacket. He was sweating as if he’d been witched instead of Mark Madison.
“And what is wrong with giving a beautiful friend a beautiful gift?” Rafael snorted. “Then you do not see that her heart is already taken by the gringo?”
Diego pretended to study one of his greataunt’s prize roses. “You take life too seriously, Father,” he said, changing the topic. “You could not stop to appreciate the beauty of life if you were king of the world, instead of mayor of this pitiful town.”
“You are what you are because I took life so seriously.”
“There is no reasoning with you,” Diego exclaimed, raising his hands in exasperation. “I do not know why I try. I should let you fret yourself into an early grave and inherit what sent you there … although I have all the income I need from my jewelry. Someday my name will be known beyond a few Mexican states.”
Don Rafael had given Diego the best of everything, including Spain’s finest schooling. What had it done? Erased the young man’s common sense and replaced it with dreams. Granted, his son’s jewelry was showcased in a few fine Mexican stores, but life had made Rafael skeptical. The days of the wealth that his family had garnered from the land had passed. Sheer guts and ambition were what replaced what was lost—not a fancy education or artistic whimsy. Not that Don Rafael was bordering on poverty. But a few poor investments had tightened his purse strings and pressed him to take greater risks.
Gaspar appeared at the salon door. “La señora is settled in bed, Don Rafael, Don Diego.”
“She is well?” Diego asked.
His son adored Violeta, but then so did Rafael. His aunt was a reminder of better days, even if he sometimes tired of her stories.
“Very tired, I suspect … and disappointed to have missed the fireworks.” From Gaspar’s sigh, Tía Violeta was not the only one.
&nb
sp; “Gracias, Gaspar. You are dependable as always,” Don Rafael told the servant. “Lock the door behind us, por favor.”
Gaspar inclined his head slightly. “Como siempre, Don Rafael.”
“Diego, will you join me for a drink at the Cantina Roja?” Rafael asked, taking the lead toward the street entrance.
“Gracias, no. I hear the mariachis playing again. I think that I will return for the dancing.”
Diego’s refusal came as no surprise, but to hear it was a relief. It would make it easier for Rafael to report to his partner. After bidding Gaspar good night, Diego walked as far as the plaza with Rafael in silence.
Rafael followed Diego’s progress toward the stage, noting how everyone received the young man with handshakes and waves— genuine ones, not the shallow reception that Rafael had grown accustomed to. Another cost of power, Rafael reflected with a foreign twinge of envy.
“Did I not tell you that my mother-in-law was a powerful witch?” Lorenzo Pozas materialized from the shadows, giving Don Rafael a start.
“Do not sneak up on me like so again,” Rafael snapped, “or I will pay her to witch you.”
“My apologies, Don Rafael. I thought that you could see me,” Pozas answered, precious little apology in his voice. “But Señor Madison, he has the fever, no?”
Rafael cast an astonished look at the man. “How did you know?”
When Capitán Nolla asked the doctor and priest to accompany him, nothing had been said as to the identity of the patient, only that they were needed.
“I saw him purchasing medicine for his cough and headache at the farmacia.” Pozas’s tobacco-stained grin faded. “And he asked me about caracoles in the mountains.”
The word shot Rafael’s heart with fear, starting a mental landslide of questions. What would an engineer know of the caracoles? Had he found something? Did he suspect Diego because of that blasted necklace?
“Have you told him?” Rafael jerked his head toward the Cantina Roja, where the man who’d put this entire nightmare into motion wheezed between sips of Corona.
“Oh no, Don Rafael,” Pozas exclaimed. “It is best that I not be seen with El Caracol in public.”
El Caracol. If Rafael weren’t afraid of the man, he’d laugh. The conniver took the name for himself, as if it somehow increased his stature to match his girth.
Perhaps his foolish son had mentioned to Madison that the ammonite was the fossil of a prehistoric snail.
“But it is very strange that this Madison should ask me about the caracoles,” Lorenzo said, nixing Rafael’s hope. “Pues, I hardly know him. But he asks me.”
Other than Lorenzo, his late brother, and the boy Enrique, no one knew that the fossils had been found. El Caracol wanted to keep it that way until the hacienda and its property were his, so that he could file for a concession from the federal government.
“I am only thankful that my Atlahua’s mamá is so powerful. She is from Sierra de Pueblo,” he added, referring to the northeastern mountains above Mexico City, an area noted for witchcraft in days past and present, despite the laws against it. “The sooner Malinche’s magic works, the sooner the orphanage will sell the hacienda.”
The Indios and their magic. Despite his disdain, the idea lay like a cold stone in the pit of Rafael’s stomach. He’d seen things he could not explain … like a healthy young man like Mark Madison coughing and breathing as though someone sat upon his chest.
“Yes,” Pozas went on, his beady black eyes glowing as though he himself was possessed—most likely by the refino made from corn. “The caracoles will be ours soon.”
A chill swept over Rafael. It was Lorenzo’s brother and his eldest son who’d found the ammonite in the rough. Three suspicious deaths later, Lorenzo had the look of a shark in a feeding frenzy— a shark that had done and would do anything for the caracoles.
Rafael wished he’d never heard of it. But with what he knew, he either had to join the frenzy or become another victim of it.
CHAPTER 23
Corinne shifted in the plush leather chair next to Mark’s bed, studying the pale man lying against the pillows with sleep-dogged eyes. Despite the even, reassuring rise and fall of his chest, she leaned forward and tested his forehead with the palm of her hand. Thank God the fever had finally broken, after a full day and night of sapping his strength.
When Mark collapsed in the doorway of Violeta’s home, Corinne felt as though the life had been knocked out of her. She and Gaspar broke free of the shock at the same time and rushed to his side.
He was burning up with fever. Disoriented, he’d struggled as though drunk, vowing that he was fine. Once he determined that Doña Violeta was in no danger, he had insisted on returning to the plaza to see the fireworks, but his knees would not support him. Since there was no ambulance in Mexicalli, much less a medical facility, Corinne called Capitán Nolla and asked him to bring Father Menasco’s sister and his car. A half hour later they arrived, and with them Don Rafael.
Suspecting a bronchial infection, Dr. Flynn sent Father Menasco to find the owner of the farmacia to get antibiotics while Mark was transported to Hacienda Ortiz. For the last thirty-six hours or so, Corinne and Soledad spelled each other in nursing him.
With each labored breath Mark took, Corinne struggled as if it was her own. Somewhere in the midst of their verbal sparring, he’d become a part of her, and it scared her. Yet she knew beyond a doubt that her heart belonged to the man lying on the bed before her.
It had to be a God thing, she reasoned. Mark Madison was not the kind of man she wanted to fall in love with. She’d asked God to help her resist, and instead, God changed Mark. Not by leaps and bounds, granted, but Mark was not the same man he’d been when he climbed down from that pig truck.
A banging at the front of the house startled the wistful smile from Corinne’s lips.
“Hola, is there anyone in habitation?”
Recognizing Juan Pablo’s voice, Corinne shook away the remnants of sleep and hurried to the entrance as Soledad stumbled into the hall, still in her nightdress.
“Ay de mí, I sleep too late and—” She broke off, her dark gaze narrowing as Corinne opened the door. “Oh, and look who is here from the mountains.” In a dither, she ducked back through her bedroom door.
“Juan Pablo, you’re visiting early today.”
Bewildered by Soledad’s declaration, Corinne peered around him to see the plumber’s brothers taking tools out of his truck. Since she knew Juan Pedro, she assumed that the third man—the source of Soledad’s strange behavior—was none other than Juan Miguel.
The mason Juan looked nothing like Juan Pedro and Juan Pablo, who were short, stocky, and sported thick mustaches to match their bushy brows. This Juan was tall, willow thin, and clean-shaven, with salt and pepper hair pulled into a ponytail.
“Los Tres Juanes are ready to work, señorita,” the plumber announced, puffed with pride.
It was Monday! Corinne backtracked. She’d missed church yesterday to care for Mark. Weariness had blurred her sense of time.
“And this is my eldest brother, Juan Miguel.”
From the truck, Juan Miguel nodded.
“Mucho gusto, Juan Miguel.” She waved and then backed inside. “Please, come in … all of you.”
“And how is Señor Mark?” the plumber asked, taking note of the candles and flowers laid on the patio. “It was a grandiose fireworks display.”
By now everyone in Mexicalli knew of El Señor del Cerdito’s malady. The candles and flowers, as well as some curious bags of native healing balms, began appearing yesterday morning. If the villagers appreciated his work for the orphanage, he was even more dear to them now for the unexpected treat of fireworks.
“The antibiotics Dr. Flynn prescribed are finally working. His fever broke last night, but his breathing is still shallow.”
Invisible hands squeezed her heart. One moment he was a pain in the neck, and the next, a pain in her heart.
“Has he been in any
caves?”
Corinne lifted her brow in surprise. That was the same question Dr. Flynn had asked. An avid cave explorer, she explained how the mines and caves riddling the area were filled with bat dung, the spores of which sometimes infected the lungs. Usually it was only fatal for those who already had lung problems, particularly the elderly and little children.
“Mark hasn’t been anywhere, except here in the house … unless you count an occasional walk to the village.”
“Humph. Pues,” Juan Pablo said, dismissing the thought. “He need not to worry. My brothers and I will employ his blueprint according to our projectations.”
“Great. I’ll grab a quick shower first, if that’s okay?” Corinne had been so concerned about Mark that she’d only freshened up yesterday. Now she needed one to wake up.
It was okay as far as Juan Pablo was concerned, but no one consulted Juan Pedro, who cut the power to the water pump, fortunately, just as Corinne finished rinsing her hair. While she dressed, the scent of frying bacon on the gas stove in the kitchen tempted her to head straight there, but instead, she returned to check on Mark.
On entering the room, she found him struggling into a pair of shorts.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Seeing him teeter, she rushed to steady him.
“Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”
“The door was open,” she replied, ignoring the dour reminder of their first meeting at the hacienda. She pressed a hand to his forehead to confirm the heat emanating from his bare shoulders. “You still have a little fever.”
“The key word there is little.”
“How much do you remember of yesterday?”
He scowled, thinking. “I missed the fireworks … and Soledad made flan.”
“Fireworks were Saturday. Flan was yesterday. Case closed.” Corinne pushed him back against the pillows with little effort.
“You always like to take charge, don’t you? Although …” He flashed a devilish grin. “I could get used to this part.”
“I’m glad you didn’t try to stand,” she answered, making a show of ignoring the twickle his comment evoked. She grunted as she swung his legs onto the mattress. “I’d hate to have to lift you from the floor.”
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