Betrayed (18 page)

"
Do what is right. Do not give way to fear
."

Vicki’s thoughts went to Holly. To Jeff, her birth father, so like his younger daughter in his pursuit of justice and abandonment to life. To Victoria, in that old photo so strikingly like Vicki herself, but who had followed her husband beyond civilization’s safety net. To the GAM marchers who after all these years were still keeping faith with their lost loved ones. Would the remaining member of the Andrews—no, Craig—family be the only one unwilling to risk the challenge?

“I’m going to do it. At least as long as there’s one more step ahead of me to take.”

Just as the spoken words echoed against the cinder-block walls, a cloud or maybe a gust of smoke from the dump abruptly winked out the pattern beneath Vicki’s feet.

Suppressing a sudden shudder, Vicki crawled hastily back into bed.

The first angling ray of dawn through the glass allowed him to make out the concealed edging. Prying open the compartment, he felt around inside. Yes, buried under other contents, his fingers encountered a smooth rectangle, the synthetic material cool to the touch. He’d known where it was the instant they’d confirmed it was missing. Tugging the device free, he powered it up. There was still battery. Now for a log of recent activity.

A photo came onto the screen, then the text. After he read through it with chilled incredulity, he pulled up the next file and then another.

He slid the unit into his pocket. Had its owner even guessed how explosive this material was? It was no wonder the girl had needed to die.

“So . . . the sister is still here. And as I forecast, she promises to be more trouble than the other. Perhaps it is now necessary—”

“No, don’t touch her!” The loud
throp-throp
of the rotors was as exasperating as the static of outdated communications equipment. “Don’t you understand?
Los americanos
are not like your peasants. Prodding them with a stick will not make them run away. They will simply dig their heels in and choose to do the opposite. What your people did today—that was foolishness. To this point, no matter what questions the woman asks, the official tale is one more tourist in the wrong place.
La embajada
is as anxious as you that this go away. But a mishap to her too, and you cannot know how many eyes and ears will be drawn here, how many questions raised. No, let the sister ask her questions. She will find nothing, and it will not be for much longer in any case.”

“Then she is your responsibility. Keep a close eye on her.”

A low chuckle. “That will be a pleasure.”

The radio went dead. The brief amusement vanished from his face. Replacing the hand-held communicator, he lifted the glittering decoration that hung from a knob. As it dangled from his fingers, the light glinted green in the eyes of the tiny jungle cat. It had proved easy enough to repossess, and while it was a shame to waste either its value or beauty, he was not about to repeat the stupidity or greed that had already caused so much inconvenience.

Below the runners of the hovering aircraft stretched the vast wasteland with its scattered plumes of smoke, its crawling specks that at this altitude could hardly be differentiated between human and avian scavengers.

Opening a small access pane, he dangled his fingers outside, feeling the wind snatch away what they held even before he let go. A fluttering upward of black wings told him where his toss had landed.

Satisfied, he nodded. The aircraft rose, then banked away. The fury of that subterranean furnace would swiftly erase the mistake his associates had been careless enough to leave behind.

One of those black specks was no vulture but a small boy, driven by hunger and competition precariously far from the steep banks of the ravine. In the name of God and the Virgin Mary and all the saints, the child pleaded as he scrabbled through the rubble, just one salable item larger fingers missed.

The boy was blowing on blistered flesh when he heard the clink, stared with disbelief at the bright glitter and glint of green where he could have sworn was only the soot-blackened metal coils of an abandoned bedstead frame.

Reaching burned fingers for the prize, the boy thought dazedly, There really is a God who hears!

Chapter Thirteen

Resolve is easier by daylight.

In the morning, Vicki approached the task to which she’d set herself with the same cool, analytical logic with which she approached each project investigation. She deliberately set Holly to the back of her mind as though her sister were only away from her for one of the long assignments that so frequently—and temporarily—separated them.

And that’s all this is
, Vicki cried silently with sudden passion.
I believe it—I do. It’s just a little longer than it’s ever been before
.

Vicki’s first action was to call Alison at the Wildlife Rescue Center’s Guatemala City office. “Are you still looking for a translator up at the Center?”

“Are we! And just about everything else until Roger and Kathy’s replacements arrive next month up there. Why? Do you have a candidate in mind?”

“Myself,” Vicki said. “I have a few weeks’ vacation accumulated, and I’d like to spend some of it seeing why Holly was so in love with that area and the center.”

All perfectly true, as far as it went. Vicki would fly up with Joe and Bill as already planned and stay on. What the two men would think of her decision, Vicki preferred not to speculate.

Walking over to Casa de Esperanza, she found Evelyn in her living quarters.

“I’ve got to be honest,” Vicki told her. “I’m basically done here except for hearing back from the foundation on my recommendations. But if you still have the room—”

“Oh, of course you can stay as long as you need to,” Evelyn cut in. “We don’t have another team coming in for a month, and in any case there is always plenty of floor space and mattresses, if nothing else.”

An answer to be expected considering the lucrative funding these people hoped Vicki could facility for them. But the warmth of Evelyn’s response held no iota of self-interest, only genuine and fervent welcome.

The rest of the morning Vicki spent replacing her ruined possessions, including a sturdy and relatively inexpensive Korean-brand laptop, to which she began the tedious process of transferring her files from the flash drive. This wasn’t the first time she’d gone through the process. Vicki had learned to keep operational as well as work files backed up. But it was still late evening before she had the Internet up and was able to download her most recent cell-phone log. The next day Vicki was on the phone as early as local office hours began. Her immediate goals were to talk personally with the zoo administrator and minister of environment Holly had mentioned visiting. Vicki learned that the zoo administrator was out of town, treating his children to a Disney World vacation.
So what’s his local salary?
But she was able to make an appointment with the minister for the next day.

Then Vicki began calling Holly’s section of the phone log, ignoring anything further back than two weeks ago or any number outside Guatemala. The list wasn’t long. Holly’s phone hadn’t been used since the evening before her death—another stroke against the theory of street thieves, as those typically ran the bill up as high as possible, selling minutes to whoever needed them until service was cut off.

Vicki worked backward from the last day. One frequent repeat was now familiar as the local WRC office. Another proved to be the WRC hostel where Holly had checked in. The very last number Holly had called was a radio taxi service.

“Do you keep a record of pickups?” Vicki asked the dispatcher. “I’m looking for a request to pick up a gringa at the WRC hostel in Zone 4 called in six nights ago at 7:58 p.m.”

“Yes, we often supply service to that locale,” the dispatcher answered indifferently. “But we do not keep such detailed logs.”

That had been no more than Vicki expected. Keeping meticulous logs only invited a government probe into sales tax and other regulations inconvenient to taxi drivers who worked largely under the radar of the official economy.

Vicki tried a tactic more likely to succeed. “Please ask your drivers if any remember such a pickup. For information, there will be a generous remuneration for both your office and the driver.”

There was not one call, Vicki noted somberly, to her own number. The only other calls that last afternoon had been to the airport—by its timing presumably confirming her volunteer team’s arrival—and another number repeated twice earlier in the time frame. It wasn’t recognizable so she entered the number with cautious hope.

A terse baritone answered, “Michael Camden.”

Vicki was too stupefied to respond.

The DAO attache’s voice sharpened to impatience. “Who is this?
¿Habla español?
”

“Michael, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was calling your number.” Vicki scrabbled through her handbag as she spoke, coming up finally with the card Michael had given her the day of Holly’s death. Yes, the number printed there matched the one she’d just keyed in.

“Is this Vicki Andrews?” His voice warmed immediately. “Don’t apologize. It’s a pleasure to hear from you. What’s new?”

“I was just . . . Actually, I don’t understand it. I was calling through Holly’s cell-phone log to see if anything might turn up. She called this number several times, and it was the last one she called except for a radio taxi the evening she died. I . . . I thought you’d never been able to get ahold of Holly, or did I misunderstand what you said?”

“Holly’s cell-phone log,” Michael’s calm voice held none of Vicki’s surprise or discomfort. “Brilliant. That’s data I couldn’t easily access from here. If you can print me off a copy and drop it by the embassy, it would save me some time in my own investigation. As to Holly’s calls—no, you didn’t misunderstand. Holly did leave several messages here at my office after I’d asked her to get in touch. But I managed to be out in the field every time she called so all she got was my voice mail. There was a message from her logged that last day after I ran into you at the embassy. But I was out on a training op that night, and I’m afraid I didn’t even get around to my voice mail until shortly before the police called. It was the same as the others—wanting to set a time to consult with me.”

His voice turned grave. “If I didn’t bring it up, it wasn’t just because there was nothing relevant in that voice mail. Truth is, I just . . . well, I can’t help feeling if I’d been around to get that call, if I’d been able to meet her request, even if I’d checked my messages right away when I got in the next morning—”

“No, you can’t go there. What’s done is done. And even if you’d listened earlier to the messages, it couldn’t have made any difference since Holly was already—” Vicki’s throat closed up, and she forced the images her mind insisted on conjuring up back to the cold discipline of her investigation. “But would you mind if I listened to the message myself? Just to get a sense of her tone, how she was feeling. I know Holly. I might pick up something someone else would miss.”

“That I can’t do,” Michael said regretfully. “I get such a backlog of calls that I don’t save messages unless there’s data I need to file. I’d have certainly saved it if I’d known then . . . but in any case, I don’t remember any urgency in what she said.”

As Vicki swallowed her disappointment, Michael added, “Actually I’m glad you called. I’ve been successful in tracking down the perps responsible for that little escapade with your room the other day.”

Vicki’s disappointment vanished immediately. “You’re kidding! Who did it?”

“Well, under conditions that no charges were being filed and totally off the record, I was able to squeeze out an admission that some local uniforms who’d been at the scene decided to take exception to the TV coverage. I’m afraid they figured your commentary made them look bad, and much as your handyman friend suggested—” Michael’s tone grew drier—“decided to do something to recover their honor.”

“But—how did they get in and out so easily without anyone even seeing them?”

“Well, it would appear one of the neighborhood patrol knows your project well enough to play tour guide.”

“Roberto Alvarez, the sergeant who used to attend one of the Casa de Esperanza school projects. What a lowlife!”

“There’s no way you could prove it,” Michael cautioned. “But I thought you’d like to know it was at least in no way connected to your sister’s death. Or at least only indirectly.”

Making it one more dead end
. At least it showed Michael was keeping his word not to let the investigation drop.

“Thank you for telling me,” Vicki said warmly, then filled Michael in on her travel plans.

He responded slowly, “Well, at least it’s probably safer than Guatemala City. I’m assuming it would do no good to try to talk you out of it.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I don’t know how long I’ll be up there. There’s no cell phone access, but in an emergency, I can be contacted through the center radio phone. I would be grateful if you could let me know when anything else comes up on Holly.”

“That you can count on. The UPN is still running its ops out of the army base up there so you might see me. Assuming the welcome mat is still out for extraneous humanoids over at the center.”

Vicki could hear the smile in his voice, see in her mind’s eye the curve of his mouth and the softening of his handsome features. She felt warmth rise to her face before catching herself sharply.
He’s just thinking of his investigation and trying to be nice about it
.  “I don’t know about the center, but you’re certainly welcome anytime as far as I’m concerned. I’ll definitely keep you informed if anything turns up on my end.”

A prospect that was attractive only because of what it signified to her investigation, Vicki assured herself.

She chose not to tell Evelyn about Sergeant Roberto’s duplicity. The attack had been on Vicki, not Evelyn, and as Michael had said, nothing could be proven now. It would only distress Evelyn that one of her former protégés had stooped to such juvenile spite.

The rest of the call log was little more fruitful. Most numbers were related to Holly’s work, including suppliers and a veterinary clinic under which Holly was officially interning.

There were also a few personal calls, all within the tree-hugger camp. Lynn was one of them but not Dieter. None had anything to add. Whatever Holly was up to, she hadn’t confided in them.

Because she was waiting to confide in me. I’m wasting my time
.

Not unexpectedly, another of the numbers proved to be Joe’s cell.