“She made some bad choices … just like my adopted father.”
Tears ravaged the old woman’s eyes again. “But you did not forbid him to come home. And for that, I will pay before God’s throne someday. I, in my pride and righteousness, refused her a second chance.”
So that is why Violeta had been so adamant about giving Mark a chance … about not making the same mistake that she made with a loved one—Corinne’s mother.
“I never had the chance to ask her forgiveness.” Folding her arms on the table, Violeta buried her face in them, drained.
Corinne rose to get a fresh cloth from the utility-bath. After wetting it with cold water and wringing the excess out, she returned to wipe her grandmother’s face. “Now there, abuelita, you mustn’t punish yourself any further. Guilt is something that we carry on our own. God is waiting to take it from us, if we’ll give it up.”
“I have asked His forgiveness seventy-times-seven, but still I cannot forgive myself. She was my daughter, my only child.”
“And she died in her Father’s arms,” Corinne said gently. “Did you think about that? That perhaps her last words were with Him?”
Violeta raised her head. Corinne caught a glimmer of hope swimming in her grandmother’s bereaved gaze.
“And if María was right with God, then she had to have forgiven you.” Kneeling at Violeta’s knee, Corinne lifted the woman’s trembling hands to her lips and kissed each one. “And I know that God has forgiven you, because in His way He brought us together.” Framing her face with her grandmother’s hands, she added in a voice filled with affection. “Perhaps I am your second chance, abuelita.”
A twinkle kindled in Violeta’s tear-swollen gaze. The lines around her mouth tightened, drawing it into a tentative smile. “So much wisdom from someone so young.” She cradled Corinne’s face with her hands and leaned over, planting a light kiss on her forehead. “And such a blessing for this undeserving soul.”
Corinne rose, the void of her lost heritage suddenly filled to the brim. “Now, as soon as we refresh our faces from all this boo-hooing, I want to share my wonderful news with Soledad and Mark. It isn’t every day a girl finds a grandmother as wonderful as you.”
Doña Violeta’s face brightened. “We could have a party. I love parties.”
“My parents would love to attend,” Corinne blurted out without thinking. “Unless it would make you feel awkward.”
“Querida mia, I would like to thank them personally for raising such a fine granddaughter as yourself.”
“I thought the world of you before,” Corinne said, giving in to another hug. “And now I do that and love you to bits.”
“We will have such—”
A child’s scream cut her grandmother off in midsentence. As Violeta groped at her chest with a start, Corinne glanced in the direction of the hall.
Antonio!
CHAPTER 26
The scream jerked Mark from a drift of sleep, bringing him upright on the bed. Antonio was no longer perched beside him reading, although the book was still there. Instead, the boy stood at the side of the bed, staring, blanched and wide-eyed, at something on the floor.
“What is it?” Mark shouted, vaulting to his feet. Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the baseball bat that Corinne had left propped in the corner next to her nightstand.
“The c-caracol,” the boy cried, pointing to the floor where the gift box from Diego Quintana lay open, its content spilled and shining in the light from the window.
Corinne burst into the room. “Antonio, what’s wrong?”
“The caracol,” Mark told her, pointing to the jewelry. “Is that the caracol that killed your family?”
“It does not look like that at first. Papá showed me a picture of this kind,” Antonio explained, his voice edged with fear. “Papá said that it is very expensive like this and that people will pay us much money to show them where such caracoles are … that we would be rich.” He turned his luminous gaze toward Mark. “But instead, all of my family is dead but me.”
A mental lightbulb flashed in Mark’s mind. Was it possible?
“Do you know where the caracoles are?” he asked the boy.
Instead of answering, Antonio looked away. “To know that is to die. I do not wish to die.”
“It’s in the caves or mine shafts under Hacienda Ortiz, isn’t it?”
Antonio said nothing, but his thinned, bloodless lips spoke volumes.
“But I do not understand,” Doña Violeta said from the doorway. “What is this about a snail and Diego’s gift?”
“This is made from no ordinary snail, Doña Violeta.” Mark noticed the woman’s red, swollen eyes. “What’s wrong?”
In fact, Corinne didn’t look so hot either.
Corinne put her arm around Doña Violeta and smiled widely. “Ask us what is right.”
Mark was incredulous. Here they were on the verge of finding the reason behind the ghost and its spells, and she wanted to play word games. “What’s right, then?”
He regretted the bite of his tone the moment the question was out, as it summoned reinforcements to the tears that had already assaulted her face.
“I found my grandmother, Mark. Or rather, she found me.” She gave an equally emotional Violeta a squeeze.
“I claimed her,” the latter told him, with a regal lift of her gray head. “She is Corina Diaz Quintana de la Vega.”
“I’d hate to have to fill out forms with that name.” Laying the bat on the bed, he approached the two women and embraced both of them. “But I couldn’t be happier for you both. Looks to me like you got a prize in each other.”
“And when Corina marries you, I will have two grand prizes, no?”
Mark’s thoughts braked at the new twist in the road. But instead of his usual turn and run, he approached with caution. “Aren’t you putting the cart before the donkey?” He asked Violeta, but his attention shifted to Corinne’s reaction.
He’d grown fond of that shade of rose, but he’d just declared his feelings for Corinne earlier that day. He hadn’t gotten far enough to declare his intentions yet … mainly because he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no,” Violeta replied, “but they are both in my stable. How I love both of you.”
“I suggest that we celebrate my family reunion and talk about … about,” Corinne stammered, then seized upon one of Violeta’s expressions … “such silliness later.” She stooped to pick up the jewelry, replacing it in the box. “Now I’m really worried.”
Silliness? Marriage was dead serious … which was why Mark avoided it. Women didn’t. He wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong with this picture, but there was a slap hidden in here somewhere.
“If what you suggest is correct, then I will insist that my nephew call the authorities in on this matter.”
If Don Rafael and Diego weren’t already “in on it,” Mark thought. Maybe he was a cynic, but it was awfully convenient for the jeweler to be using the same stuff that led to so many deaths. But if they were in on it, he might as well pull the snake’s tail.
“That would be wonderful, señora.” Meanwhile, Mark was going to call Blaine pronto.
“We are going to die.”
All eyes returned to Antonio, all but forgotten in the excitement. Mark dragged the despondent boy under his arm. “Nonsense, Antonio. I fought off a ghost the other night and a sickness caused by a witch’s spell.”
“You really saw the ghost?” If it were possible, the boy’s eyes grew wider, not with fear, but wonder.
Mark nodded. “And I chased it out of my room.” There was no need to mention the falling-over-the-pig bit. “The evil spirits can’t stand up against an enchanted pig and a mad Madison. And this Madison is starting to get very mad.”
Not to mention tired. Mark hadn’t meant to fall asleep while the boy read to him. Left to his own devices, the kid did what kids did—explored. But maybe this was the answer to the prayer Mark had sent up, aski
ng to get to the bottom of this hocus-pocus.
“May I stay here in the hacienda with you, Señor Mark?”
Corinne knelt before the unsettled child. “Antonio, as long as you do not leave the orphanage like your brother, you are safe. And no one here will let on that you know anything about the caracoles.”
Unconvinced, the boy glanced around the room. “But what if the ghost has heard us?” He grimaced in despair. “I wish my new parents were already here.”
“Your mother promised me that you will start school in Devon this fall, so they should be here within the next couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?” Mark repeated, surprised at how much the boy had gotten under his skin. Almost as much as one feisty señorita. “Father Menasco told me Sunday,” Corinne said. “But with all that was going on, it slipped my mind.”
Doña Violeta coaxed Antonio away from Mark. “Come, little man. I need someone with a firm hand to drive Chiquita to the orphanage.”
The boy recovered in instant delight. “I can drive the cart?”
Violeta nodded. “Perhaps by the time Chiquita reaches the orphanage, she will be ready for this old woman to take over.”
“I have never driven a cart,” he warned her with a second thought of doubt.
The old woman waved away his fear. “With my experience and your strength, I think we will be just fine.”
Mark sank onto the edge of the mattress, wet with perspiration. It took nothing to knock his knees out. “If you two don’t mind, I’ll let Corinne show you out.”
“I know my way,” Violeta insisted. She cast an affectionate glance Corinne’s way. “Although I would not object to any time spent with my granddaughter.”
If a heart could smile, Mark’s did as he watched the two women leave with Antonio tucked between them. But smiling within did not negate more serious matters. He reached for the cell phone Corinne had placed in the drawer of the nightstand for his benefit and dialed Madison Engineering.
The stench of mold, urine, and cheap cigar smoke permeated the back room of the Cantina Roja. Ordinarily Don Rafael did not notice it, but this afternoon, it nearly choked him. Or perhaps it was the noose of fear tightening about his throat.
“You must kill Madison and anyone else in the hacienda,” Dr. Krump said, as though ordering a mug of the special German lager the owner of the cantina imported for him each season. “I am finished with your incompetence.”
Lorenzo Pozas scowled at the wheezing little German. “The ways of my peoples take time—”
“Which we do not have.” Krump cracked each syllable like a whip.
With wet palms Don Rafael clutched the rosary that Tía Violeta had given him. When would it end? At first the German geologist was a jovial little man in love with Mexicalli, but upon the discovery of the valuable fossils, he’d changed. In a delusion of grandeur, he called himself El Caracol, though Dr. Death was closer to the truth.
This man and Pozas had to be stopped. But how, without incriminating his own involvement in this dark pursuit?
“Perhaps just burning the hacienda to the ground will suffice.” And it would burn to the ground, with the manual pump engine housed in the town hall’s garage the only available firefighting equipment.
Krump shifted a weasel-like gaze to Rafael. “If not for your son’s foolishness, this would not be necessary … at least not at this point.”
If only Krump had not been in Rafael’s office when Tía Violeta came in to insist that he call in police from a larger town to protect the hacienda. In a terrible state of distress, she’d told them of Madison’s suspicions—that valuable fossils might be the reason behind the haunting of Hacienda Ortiz, and how upset Antonio had been to see Diego’s jewelry.
At least the child was not in danger. Violeta assured Rafael that the boy, unlike his brother, knew only enough to be frightened.
“I will take care of Madison tonight,” Pozas answered. “The burning viper’s vine may spare him the torture of the flames.”
“What is that, some kind of poison?” Rafael asked with unveiled contempt. The German ordered the grisly deeds, but Pozas seemed to enjoy performing them.
“To breathe the smoke of the viper’s vine is to die.” Pozas’s tobacco-stained smile caused a ripple of cold beneath the skin on Rafael’s arm.
“To the devil with viper’s vine,” Krump wheezed. “You will carry enough petrol to accomplish your task this time?”
“Por supuesto,” the Indio replied.
“Of course?” Krump sneered. “The last time you were to finish a job, you used a crayon.” He turned to Don Rafael. “And you will arrange so that Corina is not to be there?”
Rafael nodded. “My aunt is having her and Diego over for supper.”
Krump waved him away. “Then we are finished. Go and be quiet.”
Taken back at being dismissed before and not with Lorenzo Pozas, Rafael cast one last glance at the Indio. In the dim light it was hard to see his face. A chill raked the back of Rafael’s spine. What did Krump have to tell Pozas that he could not say in Rafael’s presence?
Was he about to be witched as well?
CHAPTER 27
Sunset painted a fiery backdrop for the mountains surrounding Mexicalli by the time Mark was settled back in his room. Soledad fussed to make him eat the arroz con pollo that she’d prepared for the two of them.
Freshly showered and changed into a skirt and blouse, Corinne applied a bit of orange blossom after-shower spray and headed for the salon to check on her patient one last time before heading to Doña … to her grandmother’s house for supper.
Mark whistled when she walked into the room. “Wow, I’m starting to feel better already. Besides, I don’t like the idea of you walking to the village alone.” He started to toss back the coverlet, but Soledad caught it and glared at him, her mouth set like iron.
Mark rolled his gaze toward the ceiling. “I slept all afternoon.”
“You no eat my arroz con pollo,” the housekeeper declared, “you not well enough to walk down to the village.”
“Much less back up to the hacienda,” Corinne pointed out. Much as she’d love for Mark to go with her, she knew the high fevers had given way to cold sweats from weakness.
“Then you go,” Mark said to Soledad. “Corinne shouldn’t go alone … especially at night.”
Ample chin to chest, Soledad peered at him from under the thick shrub of her brow. “The ghost was here.”
“It wasn’t a real ghost. It was a jerk pretending to be a ghost.”
“A jerk who was here.” The housekeeper tapped the side of the bed for effect.
Corinne couldn’t help but grin. “Give it up, Mark. I’ll be fine.”
Shifting on the bed, Mark met Soledad’s stubborn look with one of his own. “Will you go with Corinne if I eat all the delicious food that you worked so hard to cook for me?”
Boy, he knew the right strings to pull. Corinne could see the determination on Soledad’s face waver.
“Pues …” Calculation whirred behind her dark eyes. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly until she had everyone’s full attention for her announcement. “No.”
“Soledad,” Mark moaned.
“I do not belong at Doña Violeta’s table. I belong here with you and our precious Toto.” She took up the untouched plate and scooped some of the cut-up chicken and rice. “And you will eat; I will not leave this spot until you do.”
“Well,” Corinne said, stepping up to the side of the bed. “You two take care.” She pressed a chaste kiss on Mark’s forehead, but memory of a more passionate one sent a frisson of heat through her.
“Like I’ve got a choice with Nurse Vengeance,” he grumbled.
“I wish you could go,” Corinne commiserated, “but we’re just going to look at family pictures.” Excitement surged at the idea of seeing her mother for the first time. “It’s not really a guy thing.”
“Diego is going to be there.”
M
ark was pouting … and jealous, she realized with a twickle of delight. Corinne felt compelled to assuage him with a quick kiss. “He’s my cousin,” she said.
“Yeah, well, just remember that when he walks you home.”
Corinne winked. “I will, I promise.”
Soledad’s votives on the mantel cast a soft glow on the ceiling as Mark checked the clock there for the umpteenth time. Ten o’clock, and Corinne still hadn’t returned. Granted, it had only been three hours, but it was a long three. Tossing the covers off, he got out of bed and made his way to the front door. In the dim light of the electric lantern outside, he padded in his bare feet out onto the cool flat stone surface. Beyond the gape in the courtyard wall where the gate had been, the moon bathed the still landscape with a silence interrupted only by the sound of nocturnal insects.
With no sign of Corinne’s approach, Mark let his gaze wander over the stacks of supplies brought in by the Indios. They were dwindling, evidence that the project progressed. Mark rubbed his arms against the chill of the night air.
Lord, I just thank You for taking over, because I’ve been in way over my head.
Juan Pablo, who’d proved to be a competent site boss, had roughed in plumbing to the two rooms assigned as the new baths and showers. They now awaited Juan Miguel to lay the tile. But Juan Pedro kept Juan Miguel busy repairing the walls as the old wiring was replaced with new. All day long, someone called for another, although how they knew which Juan was to answer was anyone’s guess.
“And just what do you think you are doing?” Soledad demanded behind him. She still wore her on-duty black and yellow, instead of the floral housecoat she usually had donned by now.
“Wondering where Corinne is.”
The housekeeper glanced at her watch. “Where she was forty-two minutes ago … at the hacienda of Doña Violeta.” Her stern features softened. “But it makes much longer for a man in love, no?”
“It makes much longer when a man is waiting and worrying.” Was that what love was? He couldn’t recall feeling like this about any other woman … but then he’d not been marooned in the Twilight Zone with any other woman.
Fiesta Moon Page 24
