CHAPTER SEVEN

Maddy had spent more comfortable evenings. Carlos’s pronouncement had become the accepted fact. Even Ramon no longer looked on her with quite such deference. The churchwomen kept their distance, albeit a sympathetic one, and the good doctor kept on drinking.

Jake had taken her back to the communal room in the basement of the old hacienda, leaving her there to Enrique’s reluctant attention, his glowering face at odds with the benign ET T-shirt. She could only guess that Luis had taken his place at the gates, and she couldn’t decide which one was worse. At least Luis hadn’t been partial to using his rifle barrel as a cattle prod.

So there she sat, in miserable, confused silence, thinking that she would have given ten years of her life to have someone to talk to. Someone who could help her deal with the fact that her father, the man who had once been the center of her universe, the man who had abandoned her when she was at her most vulnerable age, had once again denied her.

Not that she should be surprised. He’d made no effort to contact her in the ensuing years, no effort to respond to the few letters she’d sent him. Of course it was a matter of debate whether he’d received those letters. In the first few years of his self-imposed exile he’d moved around quite a bit. It wasn’t until the mid-seventies that he’d finally allied himself with San Pablo and all its problems.

If only one, just one of those damned, suspicious people would believe her, would even give her the benefit of the doubt, she thought. Ramon had been inclined to at first, but not since Lizard Eyes’s pronouncement, and the embarrassed, sidelong glances of the motley group were more infuriating than reassuring.

It didn’t help that Carlos the Jackal sat across from her, dividing his attention between a leering regard for El Patrón’s smugly flirtatious wife and a cold-eyed sneer at her stepdaughter. As Maddy caught the cold, lizardy gaze she felt a little frisson of horror run down her backbone. If the eyes were the window of the soul, then there was nobody home with Carlos the Jackal. She had the fanciful, horrifying feeling that he could kill without blinking that basilisk gaze, and that no one else would blink, either.

And for some reason it didn’t help that there was no sign of Jake. Of all people, he was the one who had betrayed her, he whose memory was like a sieve and whose sense of morality was limited indeed, she thought savagely. So why in heaven’s name did she wish he were there, as buffer between the ill-assorted group with their condemning expressions and her lacerated soul?

No one spoke to her through the uncomfortable meal of flour tortillas and some bland bean paste. The two churchwomen conversed quietly between themselves, Carlos and Soledad flirted, and the doctor stared into his whiskey glass and ignored his tasteless meal. Richard Feldman—El Nabo, Luis had called him—sat in the corner with Ramon and Enrique. Luis was nowhere to be seen, and that lone consolation was not enough to give Maddy any sense of comfort. One by one they drifted away, some with an apologetic glance in her direction, some with contempt, some didn’t even look her way at all. Until, praise be, she was left alone with Ramon. Even Enrique was gone.

“It’s a warm night,” she said after a long moment.

Ramon jerked nervously, managing a wary smile. “It always is, this time of year.”

Maddy pushed the sleeves of her loose cotton shirt up to her elbows, then ran a tired hand through her tangled mop of dark brown curls. “I think I would give anything for a breath of fresh air.” It wouldn’t do any harm to try it, she thought, gauging Ramon’s reaction out of the corner of her eye.

It wasn’t promising. “I’m sorry, señorita,” he muttered. “But Murphy said you were to wait here until he came for you.”

“I’ve been waiting here for hours,” she said with an attempt at reasonableness. “It must be night already.”

“It is almost ten o’clock,” Ramon agreed.

Maddy sighed. “A short walk in the garden is out of the question?”

“Completely.”

Maddy leaned back against the rough wall, closing her eyes. If she really were a San Pablan Mata Hari, sent to dispatch Samuel Eddison Lambert to his ancestors, would she be sitting there so meekly, with only a teenage boy guarding her? Granted, he did have a rather nasty-looking gun tucked in his ragged jeans. And granted, she had little doubt that even a boy of seventeen or eighteen had killed in this war-torn country. But killing another soldier was a great deal different from shooting an unarmed female.

Not that she could count on that. If she made a run for it she might very well end up with a bullet between her shoulder blades, and her father had yet to prove that he’d be worth that sacrifice. He had yet to prove he was worthy of her crossing the street for him, much less dragging herself down to San Pablo and being put through the gauntlet of everyone’s disbelief and suspicions.

If and when she got out of that mess, she promised herself grimly, if and when she ascertained that her father was in decent enough health, then she would turn her back on him and on Jake Murphy, and never again would she let the memories drift back into her consciousness. She had had enough of Sam Lambert and his ideologies.

She looked over at Ramon. His thin dark face was shadowed with exhaustion, his head dropping slightly on a narrow neck that seemed almost too frail to support it. He was sitting on the rough stone floor, leaning against the wall, his arms hanging limply by his side. Maddy watched with fascination as he struggled with a huge yawn and lost the battle. He looked up at her, smiling sheepishly.

“You’re tired, Ramon,” she said softly, feeling deliciously insidious.

“We all are, señorita. Most particularly Murphy. There are not enough of us for guard duty.” He yawned again.

“When did you last get a good night’s sleep?”

“I don’t remember.” He shrugged, then grinned up at her sleepily. “Murphy says this will all be over before long. Then I will get a chance to sleep all I want. I can only pray to God that it won’t be an eternal sleep.”

Sudden guilt assailed her. “Me too.” She leaned forward, resting her arms on the rough wood table in front of her, listening to the imperceptible sounds of the night. The distant scrape and clatter from the kitchen and the fierce-looking old woman who accepted no assistance in her kingdom. The faint echo of nightbirds out past the thick walls. No voices, no footsteps. Nothing but the unexpected, faint sound of a snore.

Slowly she turned. Ramon’s head had fallen forward, his eyes were shut, and his breathing was deep and steady. “Ramon?” she said, her voice a thin thread of sound in the stillness of the room.

No answer. She tried it slightly louder, and he responded with a snort and a minor shifting of position. The gun at his hip scraped the floor, and still he slept on, oblivious.

Why the hell did she feel guilty? Maddy demanded of herself as she slowly rose from the rough wooden bench. Why did she feel like the wicked adventuress everyone believed her to be? She was doing the only thing possible to prove her innocence. Jake refused to believe her, refused to let her anywhere near her father. And Sam Lambert himself hadn’t recognized her. Her only hope was to make her way through the smaller courtyard, up the crumbling steps to his bedside. After all, her father was almost seventy and in poor health, and the distance from that third-floor bedroom to the ground was substantial. It was probably just too far for him to see. Once he saw her up close he couldn’t fail to recognize her. She simply hadn’t changed that much in fourteen years.

Ramon didn’t stir as she tiptoed out of the room, her sandaled feet silent on the long flight of stairs that seemed cut into the rock. It was dark and eerie. The electric lights were dim and intermittently placed. Maddy breathed a sigh of relief as she made it to the first floor without encountering anyone. They must be all locked away in their rooms in this bleak fortess, and she couldn’t blame them. If she had her choice she wouldn’t be there at all, and she sympathized with their trying to avoid each other’s less than enthralling company.

The locked door to the courtyard wasn’t where she remembered it. Of course she hadn’t been paying proper attention at the time. All her thoughts and emotions had been tied up with the man taking her there. She was a complete washout as a spy, she thought miserably. She couldn’t even remember the most essential things. She might as well go back down and wake Ramon up, may as well stop trying to convince Jake of anything he didn’t want to believe.

Turning a corner, she headed back down a hall she’d already traversed twice in her search for the garden. And there, recessed into the wall where she’d passed it without seeing, was the peeling green door that led to the garden. With a padlock uniting the heavy chain that festooned it.

She let out a miserable little moan that broke the stillness of the darkened hallway, and then swallowed it as she realized that the padlock wasn’t fastened. And why should it be? The only danger in their midst had a constant guard. Never mind that that guard was a teenage boy in the advanced stages of exhaustion who’d fallen asleep and let his vicious prisoner escape.

Very carefully she slid the padlock from the links of chain, letting the heavy steel swing silently to the floor. The wide wooden bar was another barrier, and she could feel the splinters dig into her palms as she shoved it upward, straining against its stubborn tightness. The two heavy bolts were rusty and hard from disuse and shrieked in the stillness. Maddy tugged at the door, but it didn’t budge.

Maddy pulled at the door, hard, but it remained firm. She yanked at the door, throwing all her weight behind it, and with damnable perversity it flew open, out of her hands, banging against the wall with a crash that doubtless could be heard throughout the three floors and meandering ells of the old villa.

Maddy didn’t wait for pursuit. The garden was brightly lit from the almost full moon, the outer stairway hidden in the shadows. She was through the door like a shadowy wraith herself, only vaguely aware of the figure that had raced down the stairs in her direction. Her white shirt stood out like a beacon in the moonlight as she ran through the tangled growth, the stairway beckoning her. She heard a shout behind her, calling her name, and she knew it was Jake, and that he was close behind her. With a burst of speed she leaped ahead, over a low-growing bush, suddenly desperate.

It all happened at once. She heard his voice directly behind her. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, spinning her around, a heavy body slammed into hers, knocking her to the ground and flattening her beneath it, and the sudden whine of a bullet sped past her head as she fell.

She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand clamped across it, just as his heavy weight pressed her into the dusty ground. She could hear his voice in her ear, feel the moist warmth of his breath. “If you make a noise, a sound, even a tiny movement, I’ll snap your neck.”

She didn’t believe him. His hand was on her mouth, not her neck, the other arm holding her tightly against his body. She also wasn’t about to test her theory. She looked up into his eyes in the dark, moonlit night, her own mutely pleading. “Will you do as I tell you?” His voice was no more than a thread of sound. “Blink your eyes twice if you will.”

Dutifully she did so, and his hand slowly pulled away from her mouth. “That’s better,” he whispered. “Because they’re waiting to shoot again—the slightest sound, the tiniest movement, and we’ll both be Swiss cheese. And I’m not ready to die.”

There was a stone beneath her shoulder blade, but she couldn’t shift, even if she’d wanted to. Her rib was throbbing again, and she tried to concentrate on that pain, on the grinding beneath her back. But all she could think about was the feel of his hips weighing hers down, his long legs that lay on top of hers, of the warmth of his skin where it touched hers and the strength in his arms. And the smothering, enveloping weight of him, pinning her there.

She couldn’t help the words that slipped out. The whole situation was absurdly melodramatic. “Do you know what the definition of a gentleman is?” she grated in a tone barely audible. “It’s a man who takes his weight on his elbows.”

He laughed then. It made no sound, but she could feel his stomach vibrate against hers, and for a brief moment his cold, merciless eyes lit up. “Sorry, lady.” He bent down so that his mouth hovered directly above hers. “But I’ve never been a gentleman.”

His breath smelled just lightly of whiskey. It was a pleasant smell, faintly erotic, mixing with the heat of the night and the overwhelming scent of the flowers. Wild gardenias and roses and something else she didn’t quite recognize. Maddy lay beneath him, conscious of a thousand strange and maniacal longings. She wanted to bridge that gap, press her mouth against his, she wanted to wrap her long legs around his and pull him into her, she wanted to weep in his arms. She stared up at him, saying nothing.

“We’ll wait till the moon goes behind a cloud,” he continued softly, “and then we’ll run for it. I’m going to hold on to your wrist, so you’d better be prepared to be fast. I’ll break your arm before I let go.”

“I’m sure you would and probably enjoy doing it.”

He smiled down at her then, a slow, lazy smile, and the weight against her seemed to heat and expand. “Don’t tempt me, lady. I warned you about snipers.”

“So you did. You also didn’t give me any choice.”

The light dimmed slightly, and he looked upward. There were fitful clouds, none that seemed large enough to do the trick. “We may be here for a while.”

“Great,” she muttered.

“You asked for it. You can suffer the consequences. Of course, we can always try something else. I could let you continue heading toward the staircase, and while they’re busy shooting at you in your damned white shirt I can make it safely back into the villa.”

He was bluffing, she knew that full well. She’d played poker herself, played it with him years ago in that cool dusty house by her father’s swimming pool. “All right,” she said. “Get off me.”

The speed at which he began to comply took her by surprise, and she reached out to clutch his shoulders before she could think twice. He laughed, that silent, demoralizing little laugh. “Maybe next time,” he suggested.

“I wouldn’t want to make your life too easy,” she said in dulcet tones. “I’m sure I’m an added complication, and—”

His hand covered her mouth again, and she barely controlled the strong urge to bite it. “Get ready to run,” he whispered in her ear, and she could feel his muscles tense in the heavy body that still covered hers. His hand reached down and caught her wrist, just as the moon disappeared behind the clouds, plunging the garden into darkness.

They flew across the wide expanse of garden, there was no other word for it. Maddy’s sandaled feet barely touched the ground as she raced after Jake’s dark figure, her wrist felt like it was caught in a steel trap, and she held her breath throughout the headlong dash, her ears straining for the sound of gunfire, her body ready to feel the recoil from a thousand bullets.

But none came. Before she even realized it they were through the door, the heavy wood slammed shut behind them, and she had collapsed up against the wall, her breath coming in rapid, frightened pants, her eyes huge, her wrist still imprisoned in Jake’s grip.

He dropped it without looking at her, locking the door again, setting the wooden bar in place, this time fastening the redoubtable padlock. Then he turned to her, and Maddy realized with a sudden start that the danger was far from over.

“Who was watching you?” There was no room for evasion in that rough demand, no possibility of not answering.

Fortunately she wasn’t given the choice. Ramon appeared out of the shadows, his head hung in shame, guilt and despair written on his dark young face. “It was me, Murphy. I failed you.”

Murphy didn’t contradict him, didn’t say a thing. He just stood there watching him out of dark, fathomless eyes.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Maddy broke in, the oppressive silence unnerving. “You should have known he’d be no match against the Mata Hari of San Pablo.”

But Ramon would hear none of it. “I have no excuse, Murphy. I fell asleep. I know what the punishment is for falling asleep during guard duty.”

“No,” Maddy shrieked. “It wasn’t his fault. He was exhausted, he hasn’t had enough sleep—”

“None of us has,” Murphy said, and his voice was deadly. “Ramon is right, he has no excuse.”

“But you can’t—”

“Be quiet.” Jake’s voice was low, harsh, and completely quelling. She closed her mouth, glaring up at him mutinously as he turned back to the miserable boy. “Go back to the common room. I’ll be down before long.”

“Sí, Murphy.” Shoulders back, head straight, Ramon turned and disappeared back down the stairs, like a soldier marching to his doom. Maddy watched him leave with a sense of panic.

“You can’t kill him,” she said, her voice little more than a plea. “It wasn’t his fault, I took advantage of him. …”

“Then it is time you learned that others might have to pay the price for your thoughtlessness,” he said. “Come along.”

“You can’t kill him,” she said again. “I won’t let you.”

He’d turned away, but at that stubborn note he turned back to look at her. “And how do you intend to stop me?”

It was a reasonable enough question, one for which she had no answer. She stared up at him, despair and anger fighting for control. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I will.”

To her amazement a wry smile lit the dark corners of his face for a moment. “Very fierce from the Mata Hari of San Pablo,” he murmured, his voice strangely like a caress. “Have no fear, pequeña, I am not going to kill young Ramon. Nor do I eat children for breakfast. I’m not one of Ortega’s Gray Shirts.”

If he expected her to bristle at the mention of her supposed lover, he was doomed to disappointment. She returned his smile with a brilliant one of her own. So grateful was she that she didn’t fight him when he took her wrist and led her up the wide staircase.

“Where are you taking me?” she questioned after her first relief had worn off, following him docilely enough around the corner and down one dark, narrow alleyway of a hall.

He didn’t bother to turn back this time, and his voice was distantly amused. “To your quarters for the night,” he replied. “My bedroom.”