“That’s better. What’s bothering you?”
“I have been meditating on the situation. Does it not seem all odd to you?”
“What do you find odd?”
She shrugged. “Everything. Emilio. You. Me. O Assassino Sorridente. That it all happened the way it did? I feel as if someone is playing the puppeteer with us.”
“You surprise me at every corner. And you’re dead right. There are too many coincidences. Someone or someones is jerking our strings. We’ll figure it all out.” He knuckled her cheek.
“That is not what I wanted to ask.”
“Spit it out, Jacinta.”
“Do you think o Assassino Sorridente is the one pulling the strings?”
The muscle just below his eye twitched. “He’s pulling some strings all right, but not all of them. When we get to San Carlos, I’ll be able to find out more.”
“You will communicate with the ‘we’ that I must know nothing about?”
“Yes. Why don’t you grab a few winks? I’ll wake you up when we’re closer to San Carlos.”
“I’ll make more coffee and leave it on the stove for you.” Jacinta suppressed a smirk. He hadn’t expected her to agree to his order, and his brows rose when she spoke.
She felt him following her every move but didn’t look back, didn’t once glance at him as she sauntered into the kitchen, replenished the coffee, and then headed to the bunk room.
Her intention had been to search the duffel bag. But the code for the padlock had her stymied, and she abandoned any attempt at breaking it after a few seconds.
A search of his jacket revealed two cell phones, neither of which had been activated. There was nothing else she could do for now. Jacinta shrugged out of her jeans and lay down on the bed. It had been easy to avoid thinking about the cloister, about her mother, but now this news of her father and half brother crowded her mind. So much remained unexplained. Demon’s suggestion that her mother had sent her away so she could be safe made sense, but why had her father, this Jose Genro, not claimed her? And why had he claimed Emilio? And why did Emilio hate her so?
Too many questions and too few answers.
Even thinking of her murdering uncle hurt her head. Why had he kept his sister, her mother, a prisoner? Why had she had to give up her baby?
Maybe they were both looking in the wrong direction. Maybe this all came back to her father. Jose Genro. The governor of Roraima. Did Sister Helen know? Had she known all along? The threatening headache blossomed. She knuckled her temples.
Jacinta rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. And smiled. It smelled of him, of them. She had no idea what the future would bring. But she knew two things. Demon would capture o Assassino Sorridente and he would return to America, so she didn’t want to waste a second of time with him. If only she could persuade him not to use the condoms. He had been relentless about the plastic wrappers. Still, there was a chance.
She had always dreamed of having a home and a family.
A big, noisy family.
A modest house with a wide front porch and a swinging chair. A husband who’d sit on the chair with her, hold her hand, and watch the sun setting. Babies to cradle and spoil. Daughters to indulge, sons to encourage. A little Demon. He’d be wicked and have chubby arms and legs. He’d have that fierce frown and would be as stubborn as the cloister’s old mule.
The low drumming of the boat’s engines changed. Jacinta lifted her head and listened. Another boat approached them. She scooted to a sitting position and parted the curtains.
In the distance, she made out a riverboat decorated with strings of lights and festive lanterns; large speakers on the bow blared loud soca music. Throngs of people crowded the deck—singing, laughing, raising beer bottles, and shouting. On the bow stood a woman wearing a lacy, ruffled, white dress and a man in a black suit.
A wedding.
Jacinta frowned. The boat’s hull seemed to sit low in the water. Too low. A raucous cheer broke out when the samba drums started. Like a wave flowing from bow to stern, the partygoers began to dance, jumping and swaying to the rhythm of the pounding drums.
She held her breath. And sat there glued to the window as the boat fractured in half. Panic broke out. People scrambled over each other. The groom caught the bride when she listed. Like oil running out of a can, the individuals in the middle of the sinking ship poured into the river.
Fingers trembling, Jacinta pulled on her jeans and then raced to the engine room.
Demon’s set face told her he’d seen the whole catastrophe.
“Grab all the life vests. The bench cushions are floatable; get them ready too. Turn on all the lights. I’m going to get as close as possible. Let down the stern steps. When we’re directly opposite them, I’ll kill the engines and drop anchor. You stay here and help people as they board. I’ll get as many as I can from the water. We’ll need blankets and dry clothes.”
“Okay.”
She clicked on every available light, including the searchlight on the bow. The revealed scene made her gasp. Bodies already floated. It seemed as if only seconds had elapsed. She glimpsed the facedown figure of a tiny boy dressed in a suit, and her eyes prickled.
Keeping her head down, Jacinta followed his orders and tried to ignore the wails and screams erupting as more and more fell into the river. She glanced up every so often, and her heart sank with each glimpse of the utter chaos and fear on each face—young girls, old men, women, children, and even a couple of dogs.
The engines stuttered to a halt. She heard the splash of the anchor and turned around to find Demon stripped to his boxers. “I’m going in. When you get a chance, put on sweetened tea and coffee. Have the adults look after the kids. Keep everyone busy. We don’t want any more panic.”
“You do what you have to. I will too.” Jacinta didn’t even have time to see him dive into the water.
People had begun to swim to the boat, and the first few were on the steps. Jacinta sprinted to the bow and helped two onboard—a man and a woman. She spoke in Spanish. “There are dry clothes inside. Please change and come back to help me. Can you make tea?”
Teeth chattering, the woman nodded and grabbed a towel from the bench and headed to the engine room.
“I will stay with you.” The man shrugged off his jacket and shirt, went to the side of the boat, and began hauling people onboard.
Jacinta stayed at the steps. Everything happened in a blur. Surprised and relieved by the remarkable lack of panic, Jacinta was able to commandeer almost everyone who boarded into helping others. At first she didn’t realize that most of the men stayed in the river and helped the women, children, and the elderly onto the boat.
She tried to keep count of those who boarded and asked each person if they knew how many guests had been invited to the wedding. No one seemed able to answer until the bride finally made it to the stairs with her groom and two children in tow.
“Forty-five.”
“After you’ve dried off—can you count how many are here?” Jacinta did a quick sweep of those on deck. Maybe a little more than three dozen.
“I will ask my aunt to do that. She was the first to your boat. I cannot find my mother. I must go back in.” The bride, a young Amerindian around Jacinta’s age, bent over and ripped her wedding dress to the knee.
“Stop,
querida
. You will do no such thing. I will find your mama.” The groom carried a shivering toddler, who he handed to his bride. “Look after your niece.”
“No. I will not lose you too, Xavier.” The bride passed the toddler to another woman.
“Keep her here.” The groom fixed Jacinta with a hard stare. “She is the most stubborn girl on the planet.”
Jacinta had to wrap her arms around the bride, whose name was Maria, to prevent from her jumping back into the river. “Listen to your husband. Let him do what he has to. Help me and everyone else—find out who is missing.”
Maria shook her head, then nodded. “I will help.”
The bride trembled so hard she swayed and had to grab the railing for support.
“You’re chilled. Go change and come back.”
“No.”
“There is a jacket in there.” Jacinta jerked her head to the engine room. “Put it on. You will be no use to anyone weak and chilled.”
For a second, Maria looked about to argue, but nodded and spun around.
Jacinta lost track of Maria. More and more people streamed on board, and an hour and a half later, Jacinta estimated that forty people now occupied the sardines-in-a-can houseboat.
She hadn’t seen Demon in at least fifteen minutes. He had been bringing people to the boat in a steady flow. Her arms ached from pulling people on board, and she was soaked to the bone. But her body had reacted to the situation by flooding her veins with adrenaline, and she wasn’t in the slightest bit tired.
Minutes passed, the wind picked up, and Maria returned to Jacinta’s side. “Thirty-eight people are accounted for, fifteen men still in the river, the rest on board. Those seven missing are my mother-in-law, my husband’s little nephew, two elderly neighbors, a great aunt, the priest, and my godmother.”
Jacinta bit her lip, for the bride cried without even realizing it, tears pouring down Maria’s wet cheeks. “You found your mother?”
“Si. She is with my aunt.”
What to say? Be grateful for small mercies? No words seemed adequate. Action would help Maria now. “You need to get out of that dress. We are of the same size. In the last room there are clothes. Please go change. I need help.”
Maria nodded and turned away. Jacinta watched her sluggish steps. Such tragedy on what should have been the most joyous day of her life.
Sometime later Jacinta realized she didn’t have to squint to see the men in the water. She looked to the horizon, surprised to see the faint stirring of the sun’s rays. The men had been in the river for hours searching for the missing, but none had been found.
“It could’ve been worse.” She hadn’t even heard Demon board. He rested his hand on her shoulder. “You holding up?”
Craning her neck, she met his gaze and nodded, her emotions too raw, too querulous for words.
“I’m going to change, and then we need to hightail it to San Carlos. It’s the nearest town with a medical center. You need to change too, kitten. Then let’s get these people dry. Too bad we don’t have food.”
“We have the M&M’s and the Cheerios. I will give them to the children in a while. And after you’ve changed, I will.” Jacinta covered his hand with hers. “You saved so many.”
“Not enough.” He shook his head, and river water sprayed her shoulders. “Never enough.”
She watched him walk away with an aching heart and a refired determination to bear her half of the tragic load. And knew, in that instant, that it would never be enough for him, not unless he had rescued every single person.
It didn’t take long before they were en route to San Carlos.
The bride and groom were Maria and Xavier Bermudez. The entire party came from a small village some fifteen miles outside San Carlos on the Venezuelan side of the border. The women did what peasant women did everywhere when tragedy struck: they came together and with their collective strength soothed and calmed everyone.
Before they arrived in San Carlos, the women worked the multiplying fish miracle and made enough food from the remaining dried cod, shriveled potatoes, and every single edible morsel left in the larder to feed all onboard.
Somehow the sexes separated, the women and children occupying the kitchen and bunk room, while the men gathered on deck and in the engine room. Demon and Xavier pored over the maps, adjusted the engines, and conversed.
After they docked in San Carlos, Demon and Xavier escorted the group in bunches to the medical center. Jacinta remained on the boat, helping everyone to get ready. When the last set left, she tried to regroup. Most of their clothes had been given away. About the only thing not touched was Demon’s duffel bag.
She wore the sweats he’d given her their first morning together. Glancing at the rolled cuffs and then to the knife drawer, she couldn’t resist the sudden urge and secreted two of the sharp knives, one in each cuff.
Jacinta heard Demon’s footsteps only because there was a lull in the noises of the docks. She knew he’d be grumpy. Word had quickly swept across the town of their rescue of the wedding party, and the mayor and the police chief had paid them a visit. When the local newspaper for the region sent a fledgling reporter to interview them, Demon’d barely contained his irritation and refused to let the young man on board.
“Ready for a hot shower and some calm?” He kissed the top of her head and rested his palms on the counter on either side of her. “There’s a half-decent hotel in town, and I’ve organized a room for us. Do we have any clothes left?”
She smiled at his reflection in the kitchen window. “You will be most bereft to learn that the only white cotton panties I have left is the one I’m wearing.”
“Now that’s a tragedy of the worst proportion. Okay, that changes things. We’ll shop first and then retire to the hotel. This town’s bigger than the last one. So we’ll splurge. I have a hankering to see you in a tight dress and high heels. Maybe a red, strappy number.”
Jacinta turned and glanced up at him. “I do not like you spending money on me. Already I owe you so much.”
He fingered her spiky hair. “And I’ve taken so much from you. We’re lovers, right?”
“Yes. Most definitely.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Lovers buy things for each other. It gives them inordinate pleasure.” His dimples appeared, and his eyes had never been such a soft, mossy shade of green. He could ask the world of her right then, and she would’ve done anything to grant his desire.
“But I have no money. I cannot buy you even a toothbrush, which we need, by the way. The children used them as swords.” She lifted a shoulder. “I could not refuse them.”
“Seems to me you can’t refuse any kid. I saw you with the toddlers. Young ones like that shouldn’t be eating M&M’s.”
She cuffed him. “Everyone should eat M&M’s.”
Her strained joviality evaporated.
“What? Why that sad look?” He nudged her chin.
“Xavier’s nephew was only seven. And he knew how to swim. How will they ever remember their wedding day with any joy?” She rested her forehead on his chest.