“Neither. I’m a police inspector from Northern Portugal, and although we have our prince’s permission to pursue this, it’s not an official inquiry.”
He pointed at Marina then. “And who is she?”
Marina glanced at Joaquim.
“My wife,” Joaquim said, choosing the path of least information. For some reason, Pinter hadn’t handed over that detail to Adler, hinting at a lack of trust.
“You brought your wife along?” Adler started to laugh, but coughed instead. He grasped his side with his free hand and grimaced. “Cracked ribs,” he choked out after a moment. “Send her home, man. These people don’t hesitate to hit women.”
Joaquim didn’t intend to let that happen to Marina. “Which people?”
“They were Mossos,” Adler said, “but this wasn’t any normal police matter, not about her being sereia. Leandra wouldn’t tell me why they came for her.”
Joaquim drew over a chair for Marina and one for himself. “Why don’t we start at the beginning? Why did you come here in the first place?”
“My aunt contacted me to ask some questions about Leandra—about whether she had stripes on her legs, of all things—and then told me she was alive,” Adler said.
Yet another thing the ambassador hadn’t mentioned—that she was Adler’s aunt. She’d contacted the man in Paris, and he’d rushed here to find Leandra. “Your aunt is Madam Norton?” he asked to be sure. “The American ambassador?”
“Yes,” Adler said.
“But she didn’t send you here?”
Adler flushed. “No, but how could I have stayed away?”
Had the man abandoned his post to come to Barcelona? “Let’s go back further,” Joaquim said. “How do you know Leandra in the first place?”
“I met her when I visited my aunt on the islands, about ten years ago.”
“And?”
“And the day before we were to take ship to America, she was arrested by their government. A few days later we heard she’d been sentenced to execution.”
That was not what Ambassador Norton had claimed. “Why was Leandra going to America with you?”
Adler gave him a bloody-eyed stare. “Because she was in love with me, you dolt.”
They’d suspected the American ambassador was holding back information. She should have told them that Adler and Leandra had been planning to run away together. “For all I know she was going to go to work for your American navy,” Joaquim pointed out. “You didn’t specify, so I needed to hear you say it.”
Adler looked away. “Now I believe you’re a policeman.”
Joaquim ignored the dry comment. “After you heard she was to be executed, what did you do?”
“We were scrambling to figure out exactly what happened. My aunt didn’t have grounds to file any protest, and to be frank, the sereia government wouldn’t have cared if she had. They have such a tight grip on their people that no one would interfere, and the press there wouldn’t dare print a word about such things.”
Joaquim glanced at Marina again. She nodded, confirming Adler’s guesses. Joaquim turned back to the American. “When you knew Leandra back on the islands,” Joaquim asked, “did she tell you whether she was working for the Ministry of Intelligence?”
“She was,” Adler said. “But she wanted to get away from them.”
“Why?”
“They were asking her to do things she didn’t want to do. They wanted her to cut her hands.”
Cut her hands meant having the webbing between her fingers removed. Joaquim resisted the urge to glance at Marina’s gloved hands. “And she was refusing?”
“Yes,” Adler said, an ugly expression flitting across his features. The anger in the man’s tone was unmistakable. “It’s been done since, and not particularly well.”
“So she wasn’t cooperating with the ministry’s demands?”
“No.” Adler sighed. “That wasn’t why they arrested her, though. They must have learned she was planning on running away with me.”
Madam Norton had claimed Leandra was picked up for being overly friendly with her. “Did your aunt know about your relationship with Leandra?”
“No. Not until afterward.”
That could explain the disparity between their statements. It was possible both Americans believed they were responsible for Leandra’s arrest. It was also possible neither actually was. “And you heard nothing about Leandra in the time following her execution?”
“Nothing. My aunt sent me home after that. I was stationed in Lisboa for a couple of years, and then I was shipped to the Paris office,” Adler said. “But when I saw her on the street Sunday, I had no doubt. It was my Leandra.”
The time he’d spent on the islands and Lisboa explained his excellent Portuguese. But now they’d gotten back to the topic of Barcelona. “And you decided to approach her?”
“I had to know,” Adler said, shaking his head. “The office here was told to monitor her, but I had to know if she needed help. She looked so tired and worn. I had to do something.”
Joaquim kept his eyes on Adler’s face. Every instinct told him that the man was sincere in wanting to help Leandra, but he wasn’t a Truthsayer. “What did she tell you?”
Adler spread his hands wide. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. She said the Mossos were coming for her, and if I interfered, they would kill me.”
CHAPTER 27
Marina kept her mouth closed while Joaquim asked question after question. The man on the bed answered dutifully, although he became agitated at times. She would bet money that the man had been in love with Leandra. Not just infatuation, but as much in love as she and Joaquim were. That would explain his rushing to Barcelona, even ten years later.
According to Adler, Leandra had refused to tell him why she’d been arrested, what had become of her afterward, or what she was doing in Barcelona. Instead, she’d tried to get Adler to leave her.
But then Mossos arrived. Two of them took her away without a fight while two others asked Adler questions, beating him to determine his veracity. That was the source of his current injuries. “They threw her into a carriage and left me there,” Adler finished.
Marina rubbed her hands together. They had to have taken Leandra back to the prison at Lleida. That was the only thing that made sense.
“Very well,” Joaquim said. “Did you see the boy at all?”
“The boy who was supposed to be with her? No.”
Marina held her temper in check. Adler sounded dismissive, as if Alejandro’s fate held no importance. How dare he?
“What about a book?” Joaquim pressed. “Did she have the book with her, the one she stole on the islands?”
Adler paused for a long moment. “She didn’t say anything about the book,” he finally said. “The Mossos searched her clothing and emptied out her handbag. That must be what they were looking for.”
Joaquim’s lips pursed, as if he were holding in some comment.
Marina leaned closer. By that morning, Leandra no longer had the journal. She’d told Adler that the Mossos were coming, yet she hadn’t had the item they so clearly wanted. They’d assumed this was about the journal, that Leandra was taking it back to whoever had hired her. The fact that Leandra had done something with the journal, hidden it perhaps, suggested a completely different explanation. “When she said the Mossos were coming, did she mean they had a planned meeting?”
Adler turned an affronted expression on her. “What are you suggesting?”
Joaquim’s dark eyes slid toward hers and he nodded slightly, so Marina pressed the issue. “When you found her, Alejandro was already separated from her, as was the book, apparently. I think she stashed the boy and the book somewhere, contacted the people she was working for, and then waited in that park until they came for her. So she’s protecting Alejandro and holding back the book. She must
be using it for blackmail.”
Adler’s brow rumpled, but Marina didn’t see surprise on his face. Had he already guessed that?
“The next logical question,” Joaquim inserted, “is what she wants in return for the book.”
“Money?” Marina supplied, already knowing that wasn’t the answer.
“I don’t think so.” Joaquim turned toward her as if they were alone in the room. “She would have sold the journal back to the Portuguese if that were the case. Or to the Ministry of Intelligence on the islands.”
Marina nodded. Whatever it was that Leandra wanted, none of them had it. What was this about?
“So your job is just to find this book?” Adler asked. “Is Leandra’s safety incidental?”
“Not at all,” Joaquim said, turning back to him. “While we want the journal back, what we actually need to know is who arranged for it to be stolen, and why. That’s something I don’t think we can answer without finding Leandra.”
“Then I’ll do my best to help you get her back,” Adler promised.
Marina had her doubts. Adler had already defied his own orders. She thought he was too blinded by either his feelings for Leandra or his perceived guilt over her fate to be completely honest with them.
Apparently Pinter recognized that as well. “Mr. Adler, I must remind you that your superiors have ordered you to return to the embassy in Paris as soon as you’re out of that bed.”
Joaquim rose from his chair and extended a hand to help Marina up. “We’ll be heading back to the Colón,” he said to Pinter.
“I’ll send a message for you if I hear anything further,” Pinter promised.
“Thank you, then, for your cooperation. I’ll be sure to tell Prince Raimundo of your people’s help in this matter.”
With that Joaquim led her from the room. The guard outside the door pointed to where Alejandro now stood next to a window, watching pigeons squabbling on the balcony. Marina went to him. “We’re ready to leave now, Alejandro.”
He nodded solemnly and held up his hand for her to take. “Did the man know where my mother is?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
Alejandro took one last look at the pigeons, the corners of his mouth turned down, and then followed Marina from the embassy.
* * *
“Nothing?” Marina sat curled in a chair next to the balcony windows of their hotel room, arms wrapped around her tucked-up knees.
Joaquim didn’t know how long she’d been watching him. Outside, the sky had gone dark. She’d passed much of the time after dinner reading to Alejandro from the novel Ana had packed for her. It wasn’t the best choice of book for a young boy, but it was the only one she had with her. She’d also written out the letters of the alphabet for him. He recognized most of them, so Joaquim suspected Alejandro would have an easy time learning to read.
While they’d been so industrious, Joaquim had been lying on the bed, trying to get a feel in his mind for where Leandra’s captors had taken her, but his gift refused to supply an answer. Although the Mossos who’d taken her must work for the Canaries, he couldn’t be sure whether they would have taken Leandra to the prison in Lleida or held her in Barcelona in the hope that she’d tell them where the journal was. His gift wasn’t helping with that. He just didn’t have much grasp of who Leandra was. “How long have I been lying here?”
“Long enough,” Marina said. “I finished my book. Did you learn anything?”
He pushed himself into a sitting position. He could still hear traffic in the plaza below and music from a café nearby. “No. If I knew more about her I might be able to find her, but . . . I don’t know what she wants. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can latch on to.”
Marina came to sit next to him on the bed, her back against the headboard. “You know what I think? Adler’s still in love with her.”
“After ten years?” Joaquim said doubtfully. “I don’t know. Does a man stay in love that long with a woman he believes dead? With her memory?”
She touched his cheek with her scarred fingers, her hand bearing the scent of rosewater. “You said you waited for me for ten years, and you didn’t even know I was real.”
“But you were in my future, not my past,” he pointed out.
“It’s hard to let go of the past. And . . .” She contemplated the closed door to the sitting room.
“And?”
She met his eyes. “She might have her hand about his heart.”
“I assume you mean that figuratively,” he said, recalling his discussion with Duilio that last night on the islands. Was she finally going to confess that she’d used her magic on him?
“A sereia can . . .” Marina licked her lips. “She can call a specific male, if he’s human, and bind his heart to hers. It supposedly lasts a long time.”
Joaquim pressed his lips together. Think before you speak. “And what effect does that have on him?”
“Mainly that he won’t be susceptible to another sereia’s call.” Her eyes were wide in her pale face, her eyebrows drawn tight.
“Is that why the sereia at the blockade didn’t affect me? Because you did that to me?”
“On the boat,” she whispered ruefully. “I didn’t want one of the women on the islands to steal you away from me.” She toyed with one of the buttons on his shirt. “Are you angry?”
From her hesitant tone, she feared that. “I know you didn’t mean any harm.”
She let go a breath she’d been holding, and her shoulders relaxed. “I shouldn’t have done it without asking,” she admitted. “But I was worried.”
He tangled his fingers into her hair, seeking the pins that held her braid tight. “Does it feel the same as hearing a call?”
She reached up to pull out the pins herself. “No. It’s more . . . subtle. My talent is weak, but this is the sort of thing I’m particularly good at. I can affect men if I’m close, although touching is better. I never do it, though. You run the risk of them figuring it out and becoming angry.” When her braid tumbled free, she began to unravel it.
His fingers itched to touch her hair. “Angry?”
“It’s a suggestion, that’s all. If a man is strong-minded, he can shrug it off, and then you’re within arm’s reach of a man who suspects you’ve toyed with him, even if he doesn’t know how.”
“Suggesting what?” he whispered.
She shrugged. “When I wanted to go to Portugal, I could have convinced the captain of the English ship that he needed to help me. I didn’t, but I could have.”
“Could you make Adler talk?”
She considered for a moment. “If I was desperate I might try. But otherwise it’s risky.”
“Will you show me?” he asked.
She blushed. “You want me to do that?”
The previous night they’d lain in this bed, only talking, afraid to touch each other for fear Alejandro would overhear them. He’d heard men at the police station gripe that once they had children, privacy was hard to come by. Joaquim hadn’t expected that problem less than a week into their marriage. “Would Alejandro notice if you were very, very quiet?”
Marina shook her head. “It’s not that. If I’m calling you, he shouldn’t hear it. It’s just no one ever asks me to use my talent. Because I don’t have much, I mean.”
He found himself gazing at her lips. “Didn’t we have the same discussion about your breasts on the train?”
That must be the right thing to say. She threw back her head and laughed softly. Joaquim shifted to lift her onto his lap, and she cupped her hands about his cheeks and kissed him. He tangled his fingers into her loosened hair, drawing her curls forward to frame her face, catching the scent of roses again, and her skin. But he pulled back. “You never needed to worry about losing me, darling. Never.”
She smiled, her nimble fingers on his shirt’s bu
ttons. “Help me take this off.”
He could do that. He dropped his suspenders, tackled his cuffs, and then slipped off his shirt while she tugged at his undershirt. When he sat bare-chested before her, she laid one hand over his heart and began to hum, eyes demurely lowered.
Joaquim closed his eyes, concentrating on her voice. There was a tune buried in her humming but not one he knew. It sounded strange, foreign. He was breathing in time with it. Or she was humming in time with his breathing. He wasn’t sure which. It was as if she was becoming a part of him, sinking into his mind, his psyche. Or perhaps it was the other way around, and he was becoming part of her. He felt her magic wrapping around him like smoke, just as he had felt the sereia’s call at the blockade, but this didn’t slip away. It cradled him in its grip.
He opened his eyes, gazing down at her lowered features as if he were seeing her for the first time. There were still things about her he didn’t know, so many secrets they’d not explored. None of that mattered. They had chosen this, both of them, chosen to belong together, choosing each other above all others who might come between them. And it didn’t matter that he was human and she wasn’t, or that he was a bastard and she wasn’t. They’d chosen each other despite all that. Or perhaps even because of it.
He touched her cheek with the back of one finger. “I love you.”
Her eyes lifted. “Do you trust me?”
It wasn’t lost on him that he didn’t feel the need to ask her the same. She demonstrated her trust in him on a regular basis. He was larger than she was, easily able to overpower her if he felt threatened. The only advantage she had over him was her call. “Yes. You may do whatever you want to me. Ask whatever you want.”
She slid her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Make love with me, then.”
Joaquim wrapped his arms about her and bore her back to the bed. “Just be very quiet.”
CHAPTER 28
WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL 1903; BELONA
The Shores of Spain Page 23
