Fiesta Moon (32 page)

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, asking 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.”

Mark 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.

“Pues,
if you ask . . .” Soledad broke off, cocking her head to one side. “Did you hear that?”

Mark came in from the patio. “What?”

“I heard something . . . like someone moving bricks,” the wide-eyed housekeeper whispered. She pointed to the salon.

Or sliding tile?
Recalling the sound from the night the ghost appeared, Mark took Soledad by the arm and guided her out to the patio. “Go to the orphanage and call the police.”

“But what will you do?”

“I'm going to sneak inside, wait, and watch.” And if he caught the so-and-so, he was going to give the man a headache like he wouldn't believe.

Soledad hesitated, clearly torn between abandoning Mark to the ghost and remaining with him to confront it.

“I'm just going to watch,” Mark insisted, giving her a little prod. “Go get help.”

“I can build on that?” she asked.

Mark nodded. “You can build on it. Now, hurry . . . and keep in the cover of the lumber and stone stacks.”

Reaching inside the door, Mark turned the outside lantern off. The moon provided all the illumination Soledad would need to reach the gate and beyond while he clung to the shadows.

Heart pounding against his chest at the prospect of catching their ghost in action, he grabbed up a scrap of two-by-four and backed against the front of the house, listening. He hadn't actually heard Soledad's noise, but he trusted her ears above the CIA's best high-tech listening device.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, mind racing. Dare he slip inside and make for Corinne's room? From there he could keep an eye on the house from the front to the back through the utility-bath. But that meant slipping through the glow of candlelight from his room—the only room with brick or tile, not to mention the place where their ghost had vanished into thin air.

Something clattered to the floor. It sounded as though it came from the far end of the house. Peering around the front doorjamb, Mark scanned the empty hallway. Nothing there, but a flash of light from the upstairs ballroom balcony entrance. Someone was in the house—in the ballroom.