Still, Ana was unable to shake the feeling her mother was wrong to stay there. Something was going to happen in that house, something so horrible it woke her from her sleep in panicked screams.
Up until now she’d dismissed it as irrational fear. The worries of a pent-up day. Concern over her mother’s mushrooming illness. But now she saw it had been none of that. None of that at all.
Ana felt the sobs welling in the raw center of her throat. Her worst nightmares were coming true.
CHAPTER THREE
Isabel stood on the highest rung of the ladder checking the tiny pear-shaped bulbs. Last night there’d been an unexpected frost but, from the looks of things, her crop had survived. It was a glorious spring day in Delaware, the sunlight warming the slight stoop of her shoulders. She knew she was shrinking in her old age. Shriveling like a prune, she laughed, adjusting the brim on her wide straw bonnet.
Isabel wiped a hand on her denim trousers, bringing her fingers to her cheek for reassurance. No, still as smooth as silk. Her mother’s lesson to avoid the sun had preserved her well. It was the Spanish way, at least for her generation.
She smiled up at the sun, squinting her eyes against the glare making its way through the swelling branches. She’d have quite a harvest this year. More than enough for preserves.
At one time, she’d found the hot and tedious work satisfying. But that was when she’d had Emi and Ana at home to help her. After they’d gone, and after Albert – especially after Albert – she’d found less and less joy in the ritual. Though he’d never really helped to begin with, Albert at least had been quick to offer a compliment on her tasty preserves.
He was such a hard-working man. All those hours at the University, so much travel. Of course, the new language lab never would have gotten off the ground without him and she was proud of the fact that it now bore his name.
The wind kicked up with a hefty gust that shook her footing on the ladder and sent her hat whirling to the ground. 'Oh, I suppose you’ll live,' she said, glancing up at the fruit and climbing down. She judged from the position of the sun that it was almost six o’clock.
Isabel folded the ladder and leaned its metal frame against the tree. She scooped her hat off the ground, feeling the stiffness in her back and wondered how she’d ever lug those brimming baskets into the house.
'Mama, here, let me help!' A seven-year-old girl came bounding toward her across the years. Isabel set her hands on her hips, savoring the memory...
Ana’s thick hair was braided neatly in pigtails, her striped polyester shirt matching the new lime green shorts her mother had bought her. She was smiling broadly, her missing two front teeth forming a charming window to the cavern of her mouth.
'Anita, I think this one’s too heavy for you.' 'Oh no, Mama, I can carry it. I’m a very strong girl!' Yes, you are, thought Isabel. She had been lucky with her children; both were tough, independent women. Emalita a little less so perhaps. But she was married now, so that lifted some of Isabel’s burden.
Ana, on the other hand, was still adrift in Washington. She had Scott, of course. But from Isabel’s perspective, that whole relationship was a waste of time. Nine years together and still no marriage proposal. It was a bad sign.
Ana was a beautiful, intelligent woman. Dozens of men would snap her up at a moment’s notice. And yet Scott had waited almost ten years. Isabel was glad Albert had never met him. It would have been uncomfortable. The young man was simply too anti-establishment.
Isabel sighed, gazing up at the big screened porch that had housed many a tea party when Ana and Emi were young. She and Albert had waited many years for those girls. It was ironic how at first they’d put it off. Waiting for him to get his degree and her to finish school. Waiting for Albert to get established, earn tenure, give them the security they needed to begin a family. And then when they were finally ready, the real waiting began. Isabel did not have her first child until she was thirty-eight. Not unusual by today’s standards, but a rarity then.
Anita was born five years later. It was just after they moved into this house. Now Emi had children of her own. It wouldn’t be long before the twins would be old enough to enjoy some of Abuela’s homemade lemonade and some nice shortbread cookies at the same sun-dappled table where her girls once shared tea.
Isabel turned and smiled out over her garden. Stout boxwoods hugged flowerbeds, laid fresh for spring. She and Albert had built this place. Brick by brick, rose by rose. Together they had tilled the early barren soil until it had yielded life. Together they had walked the back garden path, dodging but not avoiding all of its thorns. But even for those she was grateful. Those less than perfect times had shown her she was alive, made her heed the wealth of her fortune. And Albert had been at the very center. He lingered here still – beyond the frame of every door, in the honest smell of new grass. This house was every bit his as it was hers, and she would never leave him. Despite what Ana said.
She would die first.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mark jogged the leaf-strewn Alexandria bike path, his thighs swinging into steady, early morning rhythm. A clinging mist rose off the water and spread itself thinly against the purple horizon. He really didn’t have time for a run, but he had to go – to clear his head.
Camille had been waiting, as promised. But this time, their lovemaking, as good as it was, hadn't seemed good enough. Every time Mark had shut his eyes there had been three of them in the room. Ana haunted him.
He broke a sweat at the five-mile mark, remembering the pulsing beat that had engaged him and Camille the night before, her long legs wrapping around him, drawing him into a world that was safe and recognizable.
He’d first met her at the Kennedy Center. She was standing at the bar abutting the enormous glass wall, the curve of her back dipping low in the V of her red sequined dress, yellow hair spun tightly above that swan-like neck.
Mark introduced himself, offering to buy the second round of drinks. Later, just when the party was heating up, he took a chance and asked her back to his place.
The attraction between them was immediate, the intimacy of that first warm night together sensational. Yet he never could get beyond the feeling something was inherently wrong with their relationship.
Camille lived in a world of glitz and spectacle. He led a quiet life, in part because his line of work demanded it, in part because it matched the reserve of his character. As chief fund-raiser for the Smithsonian, she was always on the move, constantly infiltrating new social circles, cozying up to the big wallets who could fund her cause. Mark hated being her escort on the endless cycle of society parties. It was all so superficial, so political, just so Washington, he thought, as he rounded the leafy bend to Mount Vernon.
He paced the front lawn of the alabaster house, striving to catch his wind. If only there were a way to make things right, a way to make it work. But he couldn’t change who she was any more than she could change him.
Perhaps he’d been trying too hard, trying to make what they had into something it never could be. Or perhaps he was being unrealistic, seeking that which couldn’t possibly exist. At thirty- nine, he’d seen enough of the world to know what was out there and what wasn’t. And what wasn’t was the part that was starting to bother him.
Mark settled his lanky frame into a creaking rocker and gazed out over the tumble of hills spilling toward the water. His moments at this pre-dawn perch were numbered. Before long, a security officer would drive him from the serenity of George Washington's great columned porch.
But for now Mark seized the stillness of the moment to reflect on the fiery crimson ball rising over the river, and the disconcerting illusion of Camille.
Camille looked into the mirror and adjusted the Italian scarf draped artistically across her shoulder. Things with Mark had gone reasonably well. Reasonably well, that is, despite the fact he hadn't seemed all there. But that happened when he got wrapped up in a case. Nothing to worry about, just the nature of the job. That imposs
ible job that made him at once so intriguing yet unavailable.
Usually, he liked to talk about things. Work in general. But last night there had been a wall of silence between them. Last night, he’d said nothing. Nothing as he’d sipped at his glass of Chablis, nothing as he’d looped his wrinkled clothes over the back of the chair, nothing as he’d climbed into bed and slipped his longing hands under her nightgown.
She’d been lying still, but he’d known she wasn’t sleeping.
'Mark,' she said, removing his palms from her breasts and taking them in her hands, 'is there something going on we need to talk about?'
He pushed back against the pillows and pulled her into the crook of his arm. She rested her chin against the smooth bulge of his chest, waiting.
'It’s nothing really,' he said in an odd way that didn’t sound at all convincing.
'I just thought maybe I’d –'
He squeezed her to him. 'Just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.'
'I know this new case has you really tied up.' Tied up in knots, she meant, and she wanted to know why. He seemed to be floating off somewhere. Camille had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. 'Swear it’s just business?'
He didn’t answer.
'Mark?'
'Sorry. Can you repeat that?'
But she decided against it. 'It’s not important.'
She waited a moment, listening to the sound of his steady breathing fill the room. His heart was pounding just below her ear. She didn’t have to look into his eyes to know they were Cappuccino brown. Every time he met her for lunch, her heart skipped a beat as if she’d forgotten. But she’d memorized every detail. The way his square jaw offset his handsome face, its youth only betrayed by his graying hair. He was one of those few men in Washington who had aged well. Aged well, because he’d taken care of himself.
She caught other women looking from time to time. They’d turn away, but always too late. She knew she was lucky to have him, should be grateful for what they had. But when he was like this, she worried he was slipping away.
'How long this time?' she asked, raising her head. She knew he probably couldn’t tell her, but hoped he’d at least sound anxious to come home.
Instead, he looked at her with lonely eyes, eyes that seemed to say she’d never make him whole. Then pulled her trembling body onto the smoldering stone of his own.
Camille frowned at the memory and leaned in toward the mirror to apply a burgundy swab of lipstick. She stepped into her low black pumps and checked the length of her skirt one last time. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she was getting too old to wear her hems mid-thigh, even if she did have damn good legs.
Her mother was always dishing out unsolicited advice on how to get a man. Not that she knew. Only one she’d had left her twenty years ago. Put as many miles between a nagging woman and her needy teenage daughter as he could fathom. Not that he’d ever been there for them anyway. Not that her mother would have known the difference. All men looked the same to her after a couple of dry martinis and, Camille was fairly certain, they’d all tasted the same too.
When she returned her glance to the mirror, Camille saw someone different there. Someone a bit too old trying to look young, someone whose marketable days were numbered. Someone quite possibly destined to spend the rest of her days alone. Alone like her mother, a poor excuse for an aging socialite in Washington.
And if there was anything Camille was determined to be, it was unlike her mother. If she could only get Mark’s attention long enough to show him all she had to offer, maybe he could help her chart that destiny.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ana rolled over in the dirt and worked her way into a sitting position. Damn those bastards, she thought, inching her way toward what she thought was the wall. It was difficult to manouevre with her hands still braced behind her, but at least she could use her extended fingers to feel for the cold stubble of concrete. There, she thought, pressing her weight against bound ankles. Her sore shoulders made bruising contact with the wall as she lifted herself slowly, steadily into a standing position.
That task accomplished, Ana debated her next move. There was bound to be a door. Even if it had been locked from the outside, it was worth a try. Maybe somebody had slipped up, forgotten to turn the key. She knew it was a long shot, but at the moment it was all she had.
Keeping the tips of her fingers in contact with the wall, she scooted her way along its perimeter until she came to a corner and then, maybe four empty feet later, another. At last, halfway across the third wall she found it, catching her nail on a hinge. Damn. There had to be a knob. Had to be knob somewhere. Ana felt desperately behind her as far as her awkward arms would allow, but only met with the tempered resistance of weathered wood. No knob.
Ana fell back against the door in frustration. This is what it must be like to be a prisoner of war. But whose battle was this? And why her? Why now? She felt a fleeting urge to explode, a rare animalistic instinct to kick at something or bite. She wanted to sink her teeth in, tear flesh. She wouldn’t even mind the putrid taste of it as long as she could cause them pain. Horrid, insufferable pain. But no pain could be as unbearable as the appalling emptiness she felt right now. A wicked, searing hollowness that told her, as important as she’d always thought she was, her life meant nothing.
CHAPTER SIX
Mark barely made the Miami connection that allowed him to catch the lunchtime flight to Costa Negra. He arrived in La Concha at 2:00 p.m. local time. Arrangements had been made for a taxi driver named Gustavo to meet him at the gate. Short with burlap skin, Gustavo was a simple man with important connections, not the least of which was his brother-in-law, Director of Customs. He led Mark through a separate door where his computer and pistol were briefly examined. The entire process took ten minutes.
Mark climbed into his cab, screening the endless line of passengers who had accompanied him on his flight. It would take each of them a good three to four hours to clear the baggage and document checks. As with everywhere in the world, it was a matter of who you knew.
Beyond the clean facade of the airport lay the desolate countryside. Gustavo smiled over his shoulder as he wove through the brown and green hills. 'Dis your feers time een Costa Negra?'
Mark did his best to be amiable, but he found it difficult to return the smile. Makeshift lean-tos lined the highway, a virtual shantytown of third world depression. Barefoot peasants loitered by the roadside, the more fortunate ones turning bony chickens over flaming oil drums. And when Mark looked very carefully, as his eyes were trained to do, he could detect the shimmering barrels of AK-47s peering out from the sporadic patches of green dotting the dry, dusty knolls around them.
During his more than fifteen years in Defense, Mark had traveled to many places. He was grateful now that Costa Negra hadn’t been one of them. 'No,' he lied to the cab driver, not wanting to encourage an extended conversation that might divulge his reasons for being here. 'This is a return trip.'
Though it was sometimes a necessary part of the job, Mark had never particularly liked the dishonesty. He was a computer consultant from Bethesda, he told the little man, here to gather site information. Well, it wasn’t a total untruth. And it was one with which Mark could live, in the interest of his mission.
Mark checked into the hotel as Systems Operations Manager Robert Taylor while Gustavo waited outside. He requested room seventeen, the one in which Ana had stayed. Though he was certain the room would have been swept clean by now, he still needed to be there. Like a detective scrutinizing every detail, Mark needed to survey the last place Ana had slept, had bathed, had looked into the mirror and felt certain it was going to be a normal day.
He motioned for Gustavo to wait and carried his luggage upstairs to the second floor. The old, wooden door to room seventeen whined open. Despite the mid-day tropical heat, a sweeping chill enveloped him as he entered and crossed to the rattan settee arranged opposite the window. He dropped his suitcase in a chair, then sat to
reset the combination on his booby-trapped computer before sliding it between the mattress and box spring of the bed.
Ana sat with her back to freedom’s door, nothing but darkness before her. She was tired but would never dream of sleeping. At least awake she could hear them coming. Sleep was a panacea, a false pretense she lay under when the black tranquillity lulled her into believing she was safely back in her 2nd Street bed. Safe as she could be when her rest was shattered by nightmares, violent and vivid as lightning bolts tearing through a midnight storm. Mark of a creative spirit, her psychology professor once said. Well, if the price of creativity was tumultuous nights, the poets and the painters could have it. Ana found herself thinking br iefly of Scott, then willed herself against it. No need for further punishment now. She wondered what Scott would say were he aware of her situation. On one level he’d be horrified, sure. But Ana questioned if he wouldn’t in some silent, sadistic way believe she was getting everything she deserved. Noble Princess Ana, with her book of rules and lofty expectations. The fallen elitist, her nose pushed into the earth. Wouldn’t he relish the thought?
It was very sad. Very sad indeed that he saw her that way. In nine plus years she had never known. Although perhaps she had suspected on some subconscious level.
Ana felt a dizzying sensation at the base of her skull as her head fell forward. The weak fish stew and stale bread they had given her hadn’t been enough. And when was that anyway? Yesterday? Earlier today? She’d been drugged so many times, it was impossible to recall.
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