Shattered Lullaby

by Rebecca York

  The boy’s voice broke into her tangled memories. “He helps a lot of people who don’t have the money to go to the doctor. Like my mother. Now he’s burning with fever. He needs you.”

  Her breath caught in her throat “He asked for me?”

  Luis spread his hands. Again he spoke too quickly in Spanish for her to follow. Maybe this time it was on purpose. He ended with, “I think he will die if you don’t come quick.”

  “He won’t want my help,” she said, almost to herself.

  “There is no one else.”

  “But I’m not a doctor,” she insisted.

  “You studied emergency medicine.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard you tell Rosita’s mother, when she came to pick her up from the sickroom The nurse wasn’t there that day, and you were doing her job.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “That’s fine. He knows what to do. You just have to get him the right medicine.”

  Right. Sure. Against her better judgment, she let the boy’s urgent voice persuade her. Probably she was making her biggest mistake of the evening, worse than leaving the door unlocked, she thought as she opened the bottom left-hand drawer of her desk and retrieved her purse. Yet the pinched look on Luis’s face told her that there was no time to waste.

  “You are coming?” he asked in a relieved voice.

  “Yes,” she answered, silently promising herself that if things were as bad as Luis said, she was going to call an ambulance. Miguel might not like the decision, but in her judgment, it was better to be deported than dead.

  After turning off her computer, she spotted the gun still sitting on the edge of the desk. With a shrug she slipped it into her purse.

  THE MIDDAY SUN WAS HOT, burning his skin, burning through his body and into the center of his brain with a relentless heat that sapped his strength and made every step he took a new agony.

  Madre de Dios. He needed a drink. Cold water to wet his cracked lips and cool his mouth. He would stand in an icy shower, let the water sluice over his body, and open his mouth to the blessed wetness. He shivered in anticipation, yet part of his mind knew there was no water in this place; only the heat and the sound of insects buzzing in his ears.

  He’d run from the killers into the back country, where a man could lose himself—if he kept moving, if he kept his wits. Because they were back there, tramping through the underbrush, the men with the automatic weapons, following him. They would catch up, and they would gun him down the way they had murdered the others—Margarita, Anna, Tony, Paco. And it was his fault

  A smothered sound of protest and sorrow bubbled in his throat. He wanted to scream, but he kept the agony locked inside. If he screamed, the sound would bring them to him.

  He had to get away. And not just for himself. He had to bring the killers to justice. To do that, he had to stay alive....

  His body shuddered, then his eyes opened. For a moment he had no idea where he was as he stared at the dark, bare room where he lay on a narrow, lumpy bed. Then a moment of clarity came to his fevered mind. He wasn’t in the jungle. He was in his basement apartment in Baltimore. Sick as hell.

  The pounding headache, the heat burning up his body, and the terrible thirst came from fever.

  Agua. He needed water. And he needed to remember to speak English, he cautioned himself. This was the United States, where even the poorest house had a kitchen sink with hot and cold running water.

  He just had to turn on the tap. It was only twelve feet away, on the other side of the small room. But when he tried to push himself up, his arms shook and he fell back on the thin mattress. The best he could do was kick at the covers, push them away from his hot skin. The effort made his heart pound. With a groan of frustration, he lay back, and the thought flitted into his head that he was going to die in this miserable basement room in a city far from home where nobody knew his real name.

  LUIS STUCK CLOSE TO Jessie as she led the way to the elevator and then out the back door to the garage across the alley, where she’d parked one of the vans that belonged to the Light Street Foundation.

  Pulling out of the garage, she headed down Light Street and turned onto Pratt, taking a familiar route. For the past eighteen months she’d been dividing her time between the Light Street office and their outreach center in Baltimore’s growing Hispanic community. Erin Stone, the foundation director, had wanted someone fluent in Spanish. Jessie had thought she was fluent enough, but she hadn’t been prepared for the countless idioms and dialects she was now expected to understand. But she was doing her best. And Erin seemed happy with her work.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they turned onto Princess Street

  Luis reeled off an address above Fells Point, in the neighborhood where many Mexican and Central American immigrants—both legal and illegal—lived.

  Jessie’s hands tightened on the wheel as she drove under burned-out lights that turned the streets into dark canyons looming on either side of them. She passed more than one boarded-up building, and several times she saw figures slip hastily into the shadows as the van’s headlights knifed through the dark.

  Casting a glance at the boy hunched in his seat beside her, she casually asked, “Do you know Miguel’s last name?”

  “Diego.”

  “How did you find out he was sick?” she asked.

  The boy hesitated.

  “If I’m going to help, you have to give me information,” she said softly. “You have to trust me.”

  He knit his fingers together in his lap, the pressure building until the skin was white. Then he said in a choked voice, “He was sitting on the sidewalk around the corner from his house, leaning against a building. I thought he was... drunk...or stoned.” He gave her a sideways look that made her throat tighten.

  She nodded, wishing she didn’t live in a world where children tossed off such observations.

  “I was going to walk past him, pretend I didn’t see his shame. Then he said my name. When I stopped, he pushed himself up. He had to stand with his back against the wall, and he asked me to help him get home.”

  “And you knew he was sick?”

  “When I touched him, I could feel his skin was as hot as a radiator,” the boy said.

  “Did he say what was wrong with him?”

  “I...I don’t know for sure. But it’s bad,” Luis answered in a low, evasive tone.

  “It sounds like Miguel should be in the hospital.”

  “No!”

  “He’s illegal?” she asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.

  “He’s hiding out from bad men who want to kill him! That’s why he doesn’t go to the center now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard it on the street.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Everyone knows,” he insisted vehemently in Spanish.

  Everyone but her. After eighteen months of community social work, she was still an outsider—trusted only so far by people who were afraid of getting chewed up and spat out by the system. Since nobody in the barrio had revealed Miguel Diego’s secret to her, she was left with only the bittersweet memory of their one vivid encounter, and the image of his face—of high cheekbones, masculine angles, expressive eyes, and lips that had softened into sensual lines when he’d talked to her.

  Don’t be a fool, she scolded. To remind herself of reality, she deliberately changed his features back to those of the hard-edged man who had kept her at a distance for the past two months. That was the way he wanted it, she told herself. It had been his choice. Yet the features wavered, and she had the sudden conviction that he was a man at war with himself, a man who couldn’t afford the luxury of comfortable choices.

  Beside her, Luis sat up straighter as he carefully eyed a line of narrow row-houses. “It’s the third one. Right there.”

  Jessie peered at the dwelling, seeing window frames with peeling paint and front steps listing dangerously to one side. Slowing
down, she tried to make out any signs of life behind the grimy front window. All she could see were darkened rooms. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  “Sí. Dr. Miguel’s apartment is in the back. Downstairs. Through there.” He pointed to a dark, narrow passageway between two buildings.

  “Great.”

  She didn’t like the looks of the house, or the street For one frantic moment she wondered if this was all an elaborate scheme. Had some adult persuaded Luis to lure her down here tonight? For what?

  As she pulled into a parking space several yards down the block, she shook off the suspicion. The gun told her the boy had acted out of desperation. Their conversation had persuaded her he was trying to help a man he liked and respected.

  “Cross the yard and go down the steps,” the boy called over his shoulder as he jumped from the van and lunged into the passageway between the buildings, the blackness swallowing him whole.

  “Wait.” Scrambling to keep up, she followed him into the unlit tunnel, then had to stop abruptly when she realized she couldn’t see well enough to keep from bashing into a wall.

  Finally, she emerged into a small courtyard enclosed on three sides by a sagging wooden fence.

  “Luis?” she called.

  He didn’t answer.

  Then a metal trash can clattered to the ground somewhere nearby, and she almost jumped out of her skin as the ringing noise reverberated along her nerve endings.

  Rats, she told herself, when the can continued to rattle as if being rocked by spectral hands. Or maybe a stray cat scavenging for dinner.

  “Luis?” she called once more with a mixture of exasperation and fear.

  Nobody answered.

  After long seconds of silence, she was forced to concede that her young escort had vanished into the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  On a surge of panic, Jessie flattened her back against the wall as her gaze darted around the enclosure. The only other exit seemed to be a set of concrete steps to her right, descending into a well of blackness.

  Luis had brought her to this place—and now he had vanished. The smart thing would be to cut her losses and make a hasty retreat—maybe call 911 and let them take care of the medical emergency, if there was one.

  Yet she felt torn between prudence and concern. Again in her mind, she saw Miguel’s face. This time, the mixture of diffidence and vulnerability in his eyes had a kind of transcendental effect on her, as if the feelings he evoked were more important than anything else.

  Almost as if her feet had made a decision without consulting her brain, she moved away from the wall. When she reached the stairwell, she took a step downward. The worn concrete surface was uneven, causing her to lose her footing in the blackness. She thrust out a hand to catch herself against the rough brick wall.

  The misstep knocked her out of her trance. No outside force was compelling her to stay in this place. She had a choice. She could turn around and leave if she wanted. Instead, she went forward.

  Only by feel did she know when she’d reached the bottom of the stairs. Then she turned a corner and found herself facing a beat-up metal door with a tiny, high window that glowed dimly with interior light.

  Was this run-down place really where Dr. Miguel lived?

  With a little sigh, she knocked. When there was no answer, she tried the knob. It turned, and she boldly pushed open the door and stepped into the small room beyond.

  A host of impressions assaulted her as she stood on the threshold of discovery. The air was damp and musty. The only light came from a small lamp on an old wooden table that shared a far wall with an iron bed. The lone occupant of the room was a man with a broad chest and narrow hips who lay stretched out on the bed. One arm was slung over his eyes, hiding his face. He was saved from total nudity by a pair of white cotton briefs that stood out like a beacon against the dark tones of his skin.

  There was no way of knowing who he was. God, this could be any of a thousand men—and angel of mercy Jessie Douglas had blundered into his bedroom uninvited.

  Hesitating in the doorway, she took in more details. It was obvious he had kicked away the covers, which hung over the bottom of the mattress and pooled on the gray tile floor, revealing his well-muscled body in all its particulars. When she realized which “particular” she was staring at, she felt heat rise in her cheeks.

  She should be worrying about his health, not observing the way the cotton briefs molded to his impressive masculinity. Her gaze was pulled abruptly upward as his hair-roughened chest suddenly rose and fell in a series of shuddering breaths.

  “Miguel?” she called in a hoarse voice, hardly aware that she had taken several quick steps forward. She wasn’t sure whether he heard her call his name, but his arm moved, revealing his face for the first time.

  It was him—although the sharp contrast between his previous appearance and his present state shocked her. A fine sheen of perspiration covered his brow. Dark smudges almost like bruises marred the skin under his closed eyes. Black stubble covered his sunken cheeks. And although he seemed to be asleep, the tautness of his features told her he was in pain.

  “Miguel,” she called again, her own features contorting as she watched his face.

  His eyes were closed, and he moaned in frustration as he tried and failed to push himself into a sitting position.

  The sound tore at her. She’d been frightened of coming here; frightened of a man she hardly knew, if she were honest with herself. Yet tonight, she knew she was seeing him at his most defenseless, and the realization caused a tide of protective instinct to swell inside her. He needed her help, although she was pretty sure—judging from his past behavior with her—that he wouldn’t want to accept that help.

  Still, she had made her own decision. Turning, she closed the door, shutting them in the room together. Then she knelt beside the bed and with a hand that wasn’t quite steady, she softly touched his cheek.

  For several heartbeats he lay without responding, and she was vividly aware of his stillness, except for the rise and fall of his broad chest and the rapid pounding of his heart. His skin was damp and hot to the touch. Luis was right about one thing, at least. He was very sick. But with what?

  “Miguel? Miguel Diego?” she said, staring into his face. His lashes were incredibly long and dark—squandered on a man, really. In sleep they heightened his appearance of vulnerability.

  She said his name again, and he stirred, as if he’d just realized she was speaking to him. The dark lashes fluttered open, and his expressive eyes found her in the dim room. The last time she’d seen him, they’d been clear and bright and lit with the fierce inner light that spoke of pride and determination. Now they were dull and glazed over by his illness.

  “Anna. Oh, God. I thought they killed you,” he said in Spanish, his hand coming up to grip her arm, pulling himself toward her.

  The raspy sound of his voice was a shock—but not as much as the words. Who was Anna? Had somebody really killed her? Or was he speaking from the depths of a nightmare? All at once she remembered what Luis had told her: Bad men were after him.

  “I’m not Anna,” she said, answering in English to help him orient himself in time and space.

  He blinked, pulled himself toward her, and she saw him making an effort to focus on her face, to anchor himself to present reality. His features contorted with what looked like crushing disappointment. “I thought...” Even as he spoke, he fell back against the pillow as if defeated.

  She brushed aside her own disappointment. What had she expected, exactly? That everything would change because she had undertaken this rescue mission?

  “I... It’s Jessie. Jessie Douglas. From the rec center,” she whispered, her breath catching. When he didn’t reply, she added, “You remember me?”

  “We had dinner. I wanted—” He stopped abruptly, and she saw the color in his cheeks deepen.

  His gaze shifted away from her, and he tipped his head downward, taking in his state of undress.
“You should not see me like this,” he said in a thick voice as his hand began to search blindly for the sheet that had slipped below his grasp.

  Modesty was the least of their worries, she thought. Yet she helped him tug the covering over his muscular body, up to chest level. When her hand landed on top of his, she kept it there, her fingers feeling cool against his burning skin. “Everything’s okay,” she said softly, conscious of the lie, conscious of the need to ask him some important questions—like about Anna.

  Turning his head a fraction, he studied her. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a barely audible voice.

  “Luis brought me,” she replied, then felt compelled to add, “He insisted.”

  “He should not have bothered you.”

  “He was very worried.”

  “I will be fine.”

  Right, and the moon is made of Cheddar cheese, she thought as she watched him lick his cracked lips.

  “Do you want me to get you a drink of water?” she asked, half expecting him to refuse even that small service. But his need was too great.

  “Sí.”

  She stood, glad that there was something she could do for him, glad to break the intensity of the contact. Turning, she surveyed the little room. It was sparsely furnished with the iron bed, a chest, an old Formica table, two chairs, and several sturdy wooden boxes stacked against one wall. A tiny kitchen unit was strung out along the adjoining wall. Crossing to it, she opened a battered metal cabinet and took out one of the jelly jars she found on the shelf. As she filled it with water from the sink, she noted that his dwelling might be old and shabby, but everything was orderly and clean. The only thing out of place was the clothing he’d discarded in a heap near the end of the bed.

  Returning to his side, she knelt once more. Although his eyes were closed, he must have been listening to her move about the room. As soon as he sensed her presence, his dark lashes flickered open and he extended a shaky hand toward the jar.

  “Let me help you.”

  “I can do it.”