In the east, the moon, faint but stubborn, pushed its way into its rightful heavenly position in the face of the brighter, bigger sunset. Funny, that was all Blaine and Caroline could talk about, that Mexican moon. And the weird thing was that Mark, like the cows and the chickens, hadn't been up and out long enough to even notice or appreciate it.
Beside him, Corinne drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, eyes closed as if drawing on an inner strength. At a loss as to what else to say or do, Mark followed her lead of silence, when snorting and pawing from the direction of the old compost bin gave him the answer.
“Want to go check on my pig before he knocks down the pen?”
A welcome chuckle bubbled up through her distress. “Sure.”
Since Toto hadn't been in residence long, the air was still scented with the sweet orange of his surroundings.
Orange blossoms, a beautiful señorita, and a pig. What was wrong with this picture?
“You know, this is embarrassing,” Mark admitted as Toto became more excited. He gave Corinne a sheepish look. Corinne smiled, and something inside Mark lit up like a new day.
“I tell you, that pig isn't normal . . . even by pig standards.”
Her laugh was worth being the brunt of her humor. Suddenly she sobered. “I know I've been testy of late, but . . .” She exhaled a shaky breath. “They haven't even investigated Enrique's disappearance, short of a brief search. Now there's to be no investigation of his death. Everyone I've spoken to says that he wouldn't have run off. He was happy at the orphanage . . . as much as an orphan could be. He didn't care for his relatives.”
She pulled up some weeds and offered them to Toto. Momentarily distracted from Mark, the pig tugged them out of her hand.
“Kids run off to explore,” Mark ventured in explanation. “He could have become lost.”
“Enrique was not lost.”
Corinne spun around, as startled as Mark by Antonio's appearance, the CD that she sent him for in hand. “How do you know, 'Tonio?”
The child looked around as if he expected to be overheard. “The
caracol
got him,” he whispered.
Mark looked to Corinne for a translation. “Some kind of native superstition?”
“A snail?” she said, skepticism knitting her brow.
“SÃ,
the
caracol
. It puts to lose all who touch it. I told Capitán Nolla that I feared the
caracol
that kill my
mamá y papá
kill Enrique, too.”
No matter how ridiculous it sounded, the boy obviously believed touching a snail led to his relatives' demise. His chin began to quiver.
“The
caracol
, he is bad luck.”
Corinne shrugged. “It's a new one on me.” She turned to Antonio, who was spinning the CD on his finger. “Where is this
caracol
, Antonio?”
“In the mountain, but I have never seen it. So I said to Capitán Nolla.”
“So the police captain knows of this snail?” Corinne was just as confused as Mark.
“He says that I make it up for the bad luck of my parents and brother.” Standing on one foot, he dragged the other against the inside of his leg, scratching. “Can I play the CD inside?” he asked, ending the subject as quickly as he'd started it.
Corinne waved him away, watching as he retreated past an overgrown herb garden into the house. “Maybe next week we can head for Cuernavaca and get you some decent furniture . . . as long as it will fit in my vehicle.”
Antonio wasn't the only one adept at changing tracks. Mark straightened from leaning against the top ledge of the pen. “That'd be great,” he said, pulling a half-cocked grin. “Of course, I'll have to check my calendar.”
“Do that.” Her knowing look all but pulled his socks up. She knew he was teasing and more. And judging from that sexy curl of her lip, she liked what she saw.
Just as Mark leaned in to see if orange lollipop was the flavor of the day, she turned her face away, staring at the hacienda as if it held the answer to the question that distracted her from the pleasant tension building between them.
“I know it's not a snail,” she said, neutralizing the chemistry the same way her despair had shot down his earlier annoyance. “But I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't more to that family's tragedy than we know.”
“Why don't we finish up here and head down to the Cantina Roja to unwind a bit? Maybe someone there knowsâ”
Corinne drew away from him as if he'd grown a second head. “I don't think so. Contrary to popular belief, barhopping solves nothing. If anything, it contributes to one's problems.”
“
Barhopping
? It's the only one in this one-bar town.”
“I don't drink.”
“They don't serve soda?”
“If I wanted a soda, I wouldn't go to a bar for it.”
“Do you schmooze?” Mark raised his hand before she could reply. “Wait, no need to answer that. I can see there's no schmoozing up there on that tuffet of yours. What is it with you?” He spun away, facing the downward slope to the village where a few lights were beginning to show. “Are you afraid you'll fall off or something?”
Under other circumstances, this could have been, pig aside, a romantic postcard moment. “I mean, what do you consider a good time?”
“Anything or anywhere without you and your booze.” Chin struck in an airy pose, she marched away.
“Well, if I didn't need a drink before, I sure could use one now,” he called after her, dizzied by her personality seesaw and determined to get off.
He needed to go somewhere where the girls weren't wrapped up in anything but guys. Somewhere where a come-hither look didn't mean
follow me to the next subject
, which wasn't closely related to what a man and woman should be thinking about on a night like this. He needed . . . Blaine's disapproving face flashed in his mind. Well, the devil with his brother and Corinne. He needed a drink.
A small boat coasted toward the sandy beach of the sleeping village of Mexicalli, its engine puttering to a halt. All along the waterfront, fishing boats had been pulled up beyond the waterline for the night, the sand gutted by their hulls.
After finishing off a bottle of Corona, the older of the two men aboard hopped out of the craft and landed on unsteady feet, going to his knees in the shallow water. Swearing under his breath, he wrung out the fringe of the serape that held the cool night air at bay.
His companion, no more sober, bent over double laughing.
“Hey, amigo, only Jesucristo Himself can walk on water.”
“If you talk any louder, I will send you to see Him with my own two hands,
chico.
And don't forget the paint.”
Sergio, his wife's dimwitted cousin, made up in agility what he lacked in brains. He could climb the wall to the Hacienda Ortiz like a monkey and gain them entrance. Their boss, who fancied to call himself
El Caracol,
had said that the gringos would be moving in any day now. A handsome reward awaited anyone who might dissuade them.
Lorenzo felt inside his shirt to see if the magic doll that his mother-in-law had made for him had gotten wet. This would put the proverbial fear of Dios in the do-gooders, and much worse among any Indios they might hire to work for them. Lorenzo's mother-in-law was a
bruja,
and he had seen the results of Malinche's spells. She had cursed her sister's only son, Sergio, before he was born, out of spite for the affair her sister had with Malinche's husband. Her sister died in childbirth, and Malinche, who had no sons, took her nephew to raise as her own. But black magic was hard to reverse, and so Sergio remained a boy in a man's body.
Sergio perched on the side of the small craft, waving his arms beneath his serape for balance, like a heron flapping its wings. Lorenzo grabbed his side of the boat before it tipped over, spilling his companion belly first into the water.
“Jump, you idiot! We need to pull the boat up on the beach.”
Lorenzo listened with impatience as the drunken Sergio floundered in the water. Perhaps he should just let the fool drown, overcome by a wet serape. After a few grunts and a belch that could have shaken the leaves in the trees along the lakefront, he showed his face over the opposite side of the boat.
Lorenzo glared at him. “Now grab the side of the boat and push it up on the beach like the others.”
“My arm hurts, I think.” Sergio always had some excuse.
“I should know better than to expect you to be able to do a man's work after a few beers,” Lorenzo taunted.
Sergio would do anything to show his manliness. Sure enough, the young man drew himself up for the task.
“On three.
Uno, dos, tres!”
The vessel's bottom sliding over the damp sand made a shushing sound, as though to remind them that their mission was one of secrecy.
“Do you have the paint?”
Sergio dug inside his water-heavy cloak. After much more poking and flapping, he produced a can of spray paint with a big smile.
Lorenzo exhaled through his nostrils. At least the man's job at the hardware store in Flores gave him access to numerous useful items at no cost . . . and Sergio had no conscience with regard to taking what he wanted.
“Good. Let's get it over with.”
Accustomed to the hilly terrain, they reached the Hacienda Ortiz with no trouble. To Lorenzo's surprise, the gate wasn't even locked. Luck was surely with them, he thought, slipping through the wrought-iron entrance into the moonlit courtyard. All he had to do was open a few windows to see his way around inside.
A clang behind him nearly caused Lorenzo to jump out of his skin. He turned to see Sergio wrestling with his soaked serape, which had caught on one of the elaborate curves in the gate. With an oath, he returned to untangle his companion before he awakened the village.
As Sergio came loose, the can of paint he'd brought from the hardware store fell from his disheveled cloak. Lorenzo reached down and picked it up. It was empty. In disbelief, he shook it, the balls inside rattling with little resistance from side to side.
“You idiot,” he hissed through his teeth at the clueless young man watching him. “It's empty!”
“No problem, jefe,” Sergio replied. After a lengthy search inside his cloak, he smiled and drew out a small plastic box.
Lorenzo had seen one like it beforeâamong his children's toys. “Crayons? You brought
crayons?”
“So you said, something to write with,” Sergio declared in his defense. “These will write as well as the paint, no?”
In a mix of exasperation and desperation, Lorenzo tried the button on the paint can. To his surprise, paint came out. He let up on the valve immediately. He'd need every drop in the can to finish what he came to do. If it was enough, he might not drown his companion on the way home.
Mexican music stirred his blood. Or maybe it was the pretty señorita who'd set the margarita down on the table in front of him with a seductive flutter of dark lashes that could melt the frosted ice on the side of the salt-encrusted glass. Like a rose unfolding, her lush, full lips spread into a smile. She was dressed in a red embroidered skirt and off-the-shoulder blouse, and she smelled exotic, hints of citrus and flowers in her perfume. It made his head as light as the smoke that wafted up from the burning candle in the center of the table. Her long black hair brushed his face as she leaned in and put her arm around his shoulder.
He was in heaven or on his way there, he thought, catching the oval curve of her chin and turning her face to his. With a conjured look of innocence, her blue eyes widened as though she had no clue that he was about to kiss her.
“Ah, Corina,” he chided, his voice growing huskier by the heartbeat as he contemplated her lips. Red . . . ripe . . . orange-flavored as the lollipop she'd eaten earlier?
He had to know. Covering her mouth with his, he heard her catch her breath with a snort . . .
Snort?
Jerked from the arms of his seductress, Mark opened one eye to see two small, dark ones staring back at him over a pink snout.
“Whoa!” Shot with shock, he rolled away from his floppy-eared companion and out of the strange bed in which he'd evidently been sleeping. The thud of hitting the floor knocked the last thoughts of sleep out of him. He recognized the soft peach color of Corinne's bedroom walls and groaned. Pulling himself up on the bed he'd assembled the day before, he was backtracking through the pained daze of his memory when a door opened somewhere in the hacienda.
“Señor Mark, Señor Mark, come quick!” It was Soledad at her operatic best. “Our pig, it is missing.”
At the same time Toto, who'd trotted around from the opposite side of the bed, gave him a hungry nudge.
Before Mark could assemble enough wit to answer, the housekeeper shrieked, “
¡Caramba!
What are
you
doing
here?”
A man grunted, at least he thought it was a man, in the salon . . . where Mark should have been.
Mark shoved his fingers through his disheveled hair and concentrated on clearing his mind as he started for the door. What was he doing in Corinne's room? The last thing he remembered was winning a good-sized poker pot from some little German who bought rounds for everyone.
“Where is Señor Mark?” Soledad said, and from the escalating timbre of her demand, she was building steam.
Reluctantly Mark moved toward the commotion at the speed of his sluggish thoughts. He remembered now. He'd met Juan the Electrician. Juan Pedro couldn't go home because of an angry wife, and Mark was afraid of waking up Father Menasco and Annamaria, so together they had come here. Juan took the air bed.
That
was why Mark was in Corinne's bed . . . dreaming of her.
Nah, must have been a look-alike.
The señorita in his dream had a sultry, summer blue gazeâas opposed to one icy enough to sink the
Titanic.