Path of the Jaguar (16 page)

Just beyond the second twin bed she found Goldie, sprawled like the broken suitcase. The tangle of long, reddish hair was bright with blood. Blood with nowhere to seep lay in a pool on the brightly-patterned tile. "Goldie!"

She must have been hit on the head by the huge, ugly statue of the jaguar Frank had given her. It lay beside Goldie's limp form, smeared with her blood.

Lennea listened fearfully for some sounds of life. Goldie's breath came faintly, shallowly. She was breathing, but with difficulty. Was she dying?

As Lennea raced to the bathroom for a wet towel, the room darkened before her. She must not faint. Se must remain calm, get Goldie the help she needed. Goldie's very life might depend on her! As she placed the cold, wet towel across Goldie's face, she heard her moan. Goldie's eyes opened and closed.

"I'm going to take you to the hospital. Can you try to get up?" Lennea talked to her while she struggled with the limp and helpless form. Her slenderness appeared now to be frailty. How could she have such unimaginable weight? Lennea got her at last to her feet and began half-dragging her toward the jeep.

Merida was so far away! Goldie might die before they got there! Lennea drove rapidly, carelessly, like the boy, Rico, had driven.

Goldie was propped upright on the seat beside her. Blood from the wicked head wound kept making trails across her face. Blood seeped through her blouse, dripped unto the seat. With dazed eyes, Goldie kept wiping at it with the towel Lennea had given her. Whimpering sounds came from her throat.

The daily rain had begun. The steady scrape of windshield wipers intensified Lenneas's sense of speed. "Goldie, do you know who hit you? Did you see anyone?"

Goldie's response did not come in words, only in a whimper that changed to a sob.

The old jeep wasn't made for speed. At every bump in the road it bounced, and Lennea felt the jar and the pain it must be causing Goldie. Goldie stared straight ahead, twisting the blood-soaked towel in her hands, her wide eyes huge and unfocused. "You must have seen something," Lennea said.

Goldie leaned her head back against the seat. It bobbed this way and that. She looked worse than she had at first, her skin growing more and more gray. Surely she wasn't going to die! If she was hearing Lennea's questions at all, it was likely she had no answer to them. Probably Goldie had entered Lennea's room thinking she had heard Lennea, and the ransacker, the hunter for the money Lennea had hidden, had struck out at her. He had hurt her to avoid being identified. Poor Goldie! Lennea had caused it all by bringing that damned money to the LaTilla house!

"Frank," Goldie spoke for the first time. "Frank, Darling" Goldie's voice was thin and frightened; Lennea could barely make out her words. "You had better call the Guerreros and tell them how bad I'm hurt, Frank."

It took her a moment to realize that Goldie had become delirious. "Of course I will," Lennea answered shakily. " Who shall I say did this to you?"

"They'll want to help me, Frank," Goldie insisted. "Call Sid."

Lennea, silent now, tried to keep the speeding jeep on the slick, narrow road. Goldie had placed the blood-soaked towel across her face and no sound except an occasional whimper came from under it. Lennea listened anxiously for the whimpers, her only assurance that Goldie was still alive.

The rain had stopped by the time they reached Merida. Relieved to have found the hospital so quickly, Lennea jumped out and was able to get Goldie quickly transported inside. Someone sent for a woman who spoke English and Lennea first asked her to call Sid Guerrero and tell him to locate Frank.

People stared curiously at Lennea as she sat shivering in the small lobby. It seemed no time had elapsed before she heard Sid's voice talking to someone at the desk. "I want a specialist flown in. Goldie LaTilla must have the best care money can buy!' He paused, sucking in his breath. "You must do something at once!" "Mr. Guerrero, you'll just have to wait until you can speak with Dr. Lopez. The nurse indicated the corner where Lennea sat, hoping this would calm him. "Mrs. LaTilla's friend is right over there. I'll tell Dr. Lopez to speak to you as soon as he can."

Sid's sharp eyes darted to Lennea. He looked very pale as he hurried toward her. "I've left word for Frank several different places, and I've tried to contact Joseph and Dr. Hern. How is she? Is Goldie going to be all right?"

"I think so." Lennea wouldn't have had the heart to tell him otherwise, even if she had known more about Goldie's condition. Lennea noted Sid's intense suffering. Was it possible Sid was in love with Goldie? More likely, he was just a man totally committed to his friendships. —Or was his reaction one of guilt?

Sid paced back and forth and agonized over what he should do. He disappeared for a short time and returned carrying a sack. "You need to change your blouse," he said.

Lennea had not even thought about how she must look. She glanced down at the fingers of blood smeared across her shoulder, glaring against the soft white cotton. No wonder people had been staring.

In the restroom she took out the shapeless, blue blouse that Sid had purchased for her and slipped it on, placing the blood-stained one in the sack. She hesitated only a moment, then tossed the sack and its contents into the garbage can. After splashing her face with cold water and combing her hair, she felt calmer, steadier. She returned to Sid.

"Surely either Joseph or Dr. Hern will show up soon. I don't want to even think about Frank." Sid rubbed a hand over his brow. "He's going to take this so hard! I wish Joseph was here. He can always keep a clear head when something like this happens. I get so confused I can't even think."

Lennea, too, found herself longing for Joseph's strength, his air of calm authority. How much easier this would all be to bear with Joseph's strong arms around her. She remembered how relieved she had felt at the airport when he had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to help her search for Delores. Lennea, like Sid, found her own thoughts spinning. Fragments of suspicion flitted through her brain, focusing upon Joseph like the eye of a hurricane. Once again, she saw the naked fear in Delores' eyes as she told Lennea how Joseph had threatened her life at the airport. She thought of Joseph holding her in the darkness, the shadow of the jaguar stone behind him, his eyes burning with the same kind of passion and blazing anger that Delores had warned her about. In her mind she pictured Joseph grasping that hideous jaguar statue and slamming it mercilessly at poor, fragile Goldie.

The image made her sick. Sickness gradually changed to uneasiness. She glanced past Sid, then covered her mouth, stifling a cry of alarm. A face, distorted and menacing, was peering at her through the tiny window of the hospital door. She recognized him immediately. It was the Maya man who had been following her since she had first arrived in Merida! Lennea jumped to her feet. Sid automatically rose to follow. The hospital door led into a long, narrow corridor, which now was empty. He must have slipped into one of the rooms, someone's sick room, crouching, hiding?

Sid, looking shocked, asked, "What's the matter, Lennea?"

"Someone has been following me! I just saw him again. I know he's spying on me, and I'm going to find out why!"

Sid looked at her as if she were hallucinating, but made no effort to stop her as she began to search the wing. People from hospital beds looked up at them curiously. Occasionally, Sid would say something to amuse or placate them. Near the south door, a nurse stopped them, speaking alarmed words in Spanish. Red-faced, Sid nodded, "Ok. OK." As soon as she was out of ear range, he demanded, "Just who do you think is following you? And why?"

"I don't know."

"What does he look like?"

"He's a Mayan. Short, stocky, middle-aged. I first saw him at the airport, then at your hotel. Even at the LaTillas. And now he's here!"

Sid turned a little pale. "Lennea, do you think this stranger might have..."

"Hurt Goldie? I don't know."

"I don't like what's going on," Sid said, in voice growing increasingly louder and more excited as they made their way back to the waiting room. "First Delores missing, and then Goldie being attacked like this. I believe you might be in some real danger, Lennea. If I were you, I'd be tempted to pack up and go back home."

Lennea sank down into the waiting room couch. The nurse from the desk, who had watched them reenter, now openly stared.

"Where is home?" Sid asked, taking his place beside Lennea. "Kansas. I'm enrolled at the University of New Mexico because of their good archaeology program."

"Mother was right, " Sid said, responding not to her answer, but to his own thoughts. "About the blood. Mother's always right about these things. Last night she told us: I must talk to Lennea alone. She needs to be warned. When I quizzed her about it, she was very vague. Impressions weren't strong enough, she said. But she knew this was going to happen. She knew!"

"You're with Goldie LaTilla?" A heavy-set man in white interrupted her. "I'm Dr. Lopez." He kept assuring Sid, as if Sid were Goldie's husband, that the outlook for Goldie's recovery was optimistic. He talked on and on in a low voice that often lapsed into Spanish. "Everything that can be done for her is being done. No need for specialists, not at this point."

Lennea was so accustomed to Goldie's flitting activity that seeing her lying so still upon the hospital bed made her feel like crying. Goldie, helpless and pathetic, like a robin shot down by some cruel child's slingshot. Her reddish hair, mercilessly clipped on one side to accommodate the bandage, fell in wet strands across the pillow. She opened heavy-lidded eyes to Sid's call and her recognition of him brought a small ghost of a smile.

"Tough little gal!" Sid winked and pulled a chair closer to her bed. Despite his bright manner, Sid seemed choked, overwhelmed by Goldie's plight, outraged by the ugly, senseless violence. And like Lennea, angry. The enemy of Goldie LaTilla—generous, innocent, childlike—became a force of evil, a personal enemy.

"Are you all right?"

"Thanks to Frank," Goldie answered Lennea's question without taking her eyes from Sid. A frown crossed her pale forehead. "Where did Frank go?"

Sid's dark eyes darted questioningly to Lennea. "Frank's on his way." He started to reach out for her, but brought his hand back to the arm of his chair. "Don't try to talk. We just want to sit here with you."

"Don't go away." Goldie's voice seemed to drift. Her skin hue, changed from gray to white, showed some improvement, but the wide eyes were still glazed and vacant.

"Goldie, do you remember going into my room?"

"Everything all torn up and broken," she said in a voice so soft that Lennea instinctively moved closer. "Ruined."

"Did you see anyone?"

"Someone hit me from behind. Hard. Like they wanted to kill me." A little moan escaped her lips. "Do you think they wanted to kill me? It hurt so bad. It hurts so bad!" Sid," her voice grew weaker, slower. "I feel so..very..weak. Tell Frank to come back in here."

Sid rose quickly and a moment later reentered the room with Dr. Lopez. After a cursory examination, the doctor spoke, a little impatiently this time, "Mr. Guerrero, she's quite all right. She's had a bad injury and you must expect her to be a little disoriented. Just leave things to us. We take care of everything." When the doctor reached the door, his voice became milder. "If you don't disturb her, I'll let you stay." Lennea left Sid in silent watch beside Goldie's bed and went into the lobby to look for the others. Surely, by now, either Frank or Wesley would have appeared. Or Joseph. Most of all, she wanted to see Joseph! She stopped herself. She mustn't let Sid's admiration of Joseph influence her own thoughts. Joseph or his colleague, the Mayan spy, had certainly been the one trying to search her room for the money, the one who had found Goldie instead.

She checked her watch. Hours had passed. Why hadn't anyone shown up yet? Surely, Sid's page had reached them by now! Impatient waiting finally took her outside. Lennea raised her face to the sky and felt the calming effect of the dark horizon, still streaked a little with orange. She had made the wrong decision from the beginning. She should never have tried to protect Delores. She should have taken the money to the police at once no matter what trouble it would have caused for Delores or for herself. But it was too late now. Too late for "shoulds" and "maybes."

She thought of the ruins behind LaTilla's house and of the jaguar stone which concealed the hidden money. The cash was still safe. If she didn't have the nerve to retrieve it alone, she would have to decide to trust someone to go with her.

From her vantage point on the steps of the rock building she could see the parking lot, vacant and dark in spite of the streetlights. Her gaze swept across the vehicles, and returned to a pick-up carelessly parked in the center of the lot. It could be that battered Ford, the same one driven by Rico and his father.

As she walked forward to investigate, she saw that someone was inside. Whoever it was didn't move or even look up as she approached. He remained slumped across the steering wheel, so motionless that she became alarmed.

Lennea recognized the heavy shoulders in khaki shirt, the large hands with the tight wedding band. Of course—the truck must belong to him! "Frank..is that you?"