She pushed her bottom back, ready for him and his grip tightened as he slid into her. Excitement made her clench around him and his breathless gasp told her his nerves were as abused and sensitive as her own. But he did not drive into her. His hands touched her shoulders and lifted her torso. She straightened up and found herself resting against his chest as it rose and fell. She closed her eyes, drinking in the moment, savoring the feel of his cock inside her and the feel of his heart against her shoulder. His arms wrapped around her waist and for an endless moment they remained in that position, unmoving.
Until his hands separated and one captured her breast and the other her clitoris, and both began to stroke. She fell forward onto her hands and let him take her again in a hard, fast flurry of movement that against ended with a tangle of limbs and the heat of him against her.
She knew she could not get enough of that moment and reached for him time and time again, nudging nerves back on-line, teasing needs back to life.
Until, with their limbs entwined and his chest at her back, sleep slipped over her and she dreamed....
* * * * *
The dream was both a memory and a fantasy spun from the illusion in which she had willfully taken part that night. The memory was of her father complaining about watching one more movie with her. “As long as you don’t tell me the rest of the plot fifteen minutes in, Minerva Benning,” he said as he loaded the DVD into the player.
Duardo, whose lap she sat in, with her shoulder against his warm chest, kissed her cheek. “She can tell me. I need to know what they will do. I have to outflank everyone, you know.”
As it was possible to read minds in dreamworlds, she knew that Duardo was thinking of Serrano and Zalaya.
The reminder of Serrano and Zalaya fractured the dream and she knew she was waking. She reached frantically for Duardo, for a last touch, before the real world intruded....
* * * * *
Minnie woke with a jerk. Adrenaline surged within her as if she had just managed to survive a close call. She lay awake and fully alert in the darkness. She was facing the window and saw the night was about to end. There were angry red streaks in the sky as there had been yesterday. These were bigger and seemed to pulse with menace.
Duardo lay behind her, one arm over her waist, the hand tucked under her breast, his chest against her shoulder.
She tried to calm herself, but the dream was vividly clear in her mind and impossible to dismiss. As the sky lightened, she grappled with the dream, trying to dredge up ancient lessons from college about dream images and symbols. Finally she pushed all the dry, formal terms aside and listened to her gut and her heart.
Was this a prophetic dream? She had never really believed in them but could intellectually accept that dreams were the way her subconscious might choose to communicate with her conscious mind. What was it trying to tell her? If she was right, she already knew the answers and merely had to acknowledge them.
She had been a precocious thirteen when her father had called a family ban on watching movies with Minnie in the room. That had lasted a year, until they had hit upon a way for Minnie to have both the first and the last say. When she had figured out the twists and turns of the plot, she could write them down, along with the elapsed time. Once the movie was over, they would all read her notes and tabulate her score.
Her score had risen higher as she had matured.
Her father had scratched his head once. “I don’t know, Minnie—it’s like you’ve got a divining rod in that brain of yours.”
Calli, who had been visiting on that occasion, had disagreed. “That’s not it at all, Uncle Josh. She’s just really good at people.”
“At people?”
“Yes, like I’m good at economics. People are Minnie’s gift.”
If people were her gift, if she was so good at reading them, shouldn’t she be using that gift now? She was right next to Serrano. She could do something for Nick, for Calli, her father and the others in the big house.
But if she stayed, then Serrano would use her as a bargaining chip, fending Nick away from Vistaria forever.
There was the answer, the reply Duardo had given her in the dream—she had to escape from here. She had to get away somehow and she must read Zalaya and Serrano and everyone around her to do it. She must get it right first time, too. There would be no second chances. Not with Serrano.
She had to outflank everyone.
Duardo stirred against her shoulder and the hand beneath her breast was very slowly extracted. He was trying to avoid waking her. She held still, pretending she was asleep. She could feel his movements through the bed then heard the hateful rattle of the chain.
The cold cuff slid around her wrist and ratcheted shut, and she suppressed her sigh.
Duardo grew still. “Then you are awake,” he murmured.
There was no point in hiding it. She couldn’t look at him though. “I was watching the sunrise,” she said, keeping her voice down. “There is much more red this morning than yesterday, and yesterday was very bad, just as you said it would be.”
His hand on her shoulder made her lie back, looking up at him. The long fingers caressed her cheek. Her breath caught, for the hard lines had dropped from his expression. She could not see enough in the weak light, but it seemed he looked at her with almost open warmth.
Then he leaned down and kissed her. His lips were gentle against hers and her heart seemed to stop in its tracks. The kiss grew. His lips firmed and she became lost in the luxury of it, incapable of protesting. His tongue thrust inside her mouth and she moaned against his lips, reverting to a creature of wants.
When he lifted himself away from her, she gave a shuddering gasp, reaching for him again and he caught her hands to his chest, holding them still. He moved his head to look over his shoulder.
The camera.
Then he nodded toward the window, to the angry welts scarring the dawn sky. “The storm will break today,” he said. “Be warned.”
He pushed her hands from him, slid from the bed and went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Minnie curled herself into a tight ball, shivers racking her. She closed her eyes as patterns, ideas and behaviors pummeled at her. The last of the dream elements locked into place, their message revealed. Her subconscious had finally found its voice.
Chapter Nineteen
Carmen eyed the pitiful condition of the mountain encampment while trying to look as if she wasn’t looking around. But she didn’t need to look far to read the true state of affairs for this fledging loyalist army. The children with the big eyes and silent stares, the women doing the work of men, with submachine guns slung over their shoulders and babes clutching their skirts.
There were too few men here and not nearly enough activity. They had suffered serious setbacks and were reeling with the impact.
She was taken to the hospital because of the deep scratch on her forearm from a barbed wire fence she had scaled on the edges of the city. The hospital was nothing more than a dozen dirty plastic and canvas tarpaulins stretched out over the top of two rows of camp beds to protect the occupants from the rain and sun. All the beds were full. At the end of the row, a woman in a white coat sat behind a folding table, writing. A battered folding chair stood in front of the table.
The boy who had led her this far pointed to the woman. “She will be able to fix your arm,” he told her.
“Thank you,” Carmen told him. She ducked under the low roof and made her way to the table.
The woman looked up as she approached. She had dark bruises under her eyes, which spoke of long-term sleep deprivation. Her face was drawn, the cheeks sunken. “You need medical attention?” she asked, her voice graveled with weariness. Her accent was odd and unplaceable, but her Spanish was perfect.
“My arm—it is just a scratch. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Not at all.” The woman stepped around the table and examined her arm, turning it gently. “How did you get it?”
Carm
en told her.
“I will give you a tetanus shot too,” the woman told her. “Sit down, please.”
“Do you know who she is, Madra?” came another voice, a male one, from behind Carmen.
Carmen swiveled in the chair to face the voice. She found herself looking at a man in army fatigue pants and a white cotton shirt that had seen too many washings. He had unkempt long hair that curled around his shoulders and at least a three-day growth of black beard. There was a scar running from the corner of his eye down almost to the beginning of his mouth. The eyes were startlingly blue and sharp with intelligence.
Carmen straightened her shoulders. “Are you this outfit’s leader?” she asked.
“This one right here?” he asked, pointing to the mud at his feet. “Yes, I am that.”
“You’re American,” she accused.
“Guilty as charged. I know who you are, too.”
She could feel the old wariness rise in her. “I don’t think that’s possible,” she countered. “We’ve never met.”
The woman, Madra, appeared again, carrying a kidney tray with medical supplies. “Do you want to take care of this, doctor?” she asked.
Carmen blinked when she realized that Madra was speaking to the man.
“Yes,” he said, coming forward and taking the tray from her. “You go and get some sleep.”
“I just have to do one last round—”
“I’ll do it,” he said sharply. “Go. That’s an order.”
Madra nodded, relenting. “All right.” She walked back down the corridor of camp beds and ducked under the overhang.
The man was fitting a needle to a syringe and filling it with swift, sure movements.
“You let me think you were the rebel leader,” Carmen said.
“You asked if I were the leader of this outfit. I am.”
“You’re the camp doctor and the cell leader?” The needle stung and she hissed.
“I am the doctor here,” he said stiffly.
“Then who is the cell leader? That is the man I need to speak to.”
“Then you’d better speak to me,” he said, dropping the needle back into the kidney tray.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“The leader of this cell was killed a month ago. Now they look to me.” He smiled, but it was a mirthless, hard expression. “God knows why.”
“But, you’re a doctor!”
“And you’re the daughter of the president of Vistaria.” Again, the hard smile. “Yet here we are in this island paradise. Ironic, isn’t it?”
* * * * *
Minnie didn’t doze. She was too alert, her mind working overtime as she put more and more of her plan together, twisting details into the skein. She feigned sleep while she listened to Duardo moving around the room. Now, more than ever, she was mortally aware of the camera in the corner.
She also worked out exactly what she was going to do when he left. When Duardo did leave he did not speak to her, which was what she had been expecting. Zalaya would not have acknowledged her in any way.
She listened to the bedroom door open and then the outer door into the corridor open and shut. He had left the suite altogether.
Her heart was thudding again, but this time her fear mixed with heady excitement. She climbed from the high bed, trying to make it look unstudied, and went into the bathroom. She didn’t bother shutting the door because the camera could not see that far anyway. First, she used the toilet and let the noise of it flushing cover the sounds she made as she removed the lid from the tank.
Inside, rocking with the swirling water, the knife was propped up in the corner. Hanging from the button that popped the blade was a small key ring with the tiny key to the cuff on her wrist swinging from it.
Still naked, she moved back into the bedroom and opened the tall closet. She selected a fresh shirt and a pair of trousers and took them back to the bathroom. Away from the camera, she measured the trousers against the length of her legs and used the knife to hack away the bottom six inches of each trouser leg. She cut a long spiral out of one of the tubes of cut-off fabric. It would serve as a make-shift belt. Then she carefully folded the clothes up into a small square pile and hid the knife and key between them.
She carried the pile through the bedroom into the office and dropped them onto the desk there, the chain stretched almost taut. She undid the cuff, slid it from her wrist and fastened it about the handle of the desk drawer. It kept the chain taut, so the watchers would believe she was still at the other end of it.
Thrilled to be free of the constraint, she dressed quickly. The trousers were tight in the hip and far too big in the waist, but she used the length of fabric to draw the waist in and hold the trousers up. The shirt billowed and she realized how much fluttering white material would draw the eye, so she sliced and tore off the long tails and tied the front ends into a knot at her waist, which controlled the fullness.
Dressed, she crossed to the console and turned on everything. She was familiar with the controls now and she quickly located both Serrano and Zalaya. They were in the older, sterile-looking rooms that she had learned were inside the administrative building. Serrano was in what looked like a very intense meeting of half a dozen senior officers, including the white-haired Torrez.
Zalaya was moving from room to room, speaking to the odd person, collecting files. Minnie was able to track his movements by switching from camera to camera.
Satisfied that both men were far from the palace, she left that bank of monitors on the pair of them and began tracing her route through the palace with the screens on her left. She made mental note of guards, congregations of people, busy thoroughfares. For each risk she searched for alternative routes, using the cameras to check their viability.
For forty minutes she plotted her course but could not eliminate every risk. She did not bother trying to reverse the path she and Carmen had used to enter the building. The coal chute cover was too heavy and she would never move it on her own. It meant she had to use one of the public entrances and that was where her greatest risk lay. No matter which way she worked her path, she ended up having to move through the rotunda at the center of the palace where the grand staircase and foyer lay.
She recalled Duardo’s voice again and the harsh instructions. Your only choice will be to use the knife or die. It does not matter what you do with it. Stab, slice, hack. You keep using it, and you get yourself out of trouble if you can.
So be it. She would have to take the risk. She smiled to herself as she finished tracking her route. It would make Calli laugh if she knew that Minnie planned to escape from the palace the same way Calli had once stolen into it, over the second floor balcony on the north wing and climbing down the sides of the decorative brick wall at the end, screened by the ancient and massive old banyan tree there.
Her route decided, she glanced at the main bank of screens again. Serrano was still in his meeting, though it looked like the meeting was on the verge of breaking up. Torrez had already left the room. Zalaya was still on the move but hadn’t left the building.
Minnie picked up the folded knife and weighed it in her hand. It was time to act.
She climbed onto the desk and stepped up on the console, then onto the high section at the back of it. It gave her slightly less than six inches to stand but provided the necessary height. She took a deep breath and rammed the butt of the folded knife into the closest screen.
They were flat panel monitors. She felt the soft screen give under the impact, then there was a satisfying crunch and an electronic pop. The screen went blank and when she lifted her hand away, she discovered that the flexible screen showed barely any sign of her blow. That was a bonus. Moving quickly, she bashed each monitor into blank oblivion. For the last of them, on the left, she was forced to use the paper punch for extra reach. Balancing on her toes at the very edge of the desk, grasping the bottom of the metal frame that held the monitors, she swung it over her head.
Finally
, she climbed beneath the console and battered her way through the wood paneling there with the base of the paper punch. She used the knife to slice through any and all wiring she could find. There was a lot of it, and she kept at it until bare, shiny wire ends were all she could see.
About ten minutes had passed.
She dropped the knife into her pocket and eased open the door to the corridor. There were no posted guards in sight. The second floor of this wing was primarily used as bedroom suites for the more senior officers, so traffic at this time of day would be light.
The corridor was empty.
She stepped out, her heart leaping. There was a lightheaded relief at being able to finally leave Zalaya’s suite, but she ignored it because the relief was premature and inaccurate. She still had the rest of the palace to negotiate.
She moved down the middle of the corridor, walking normally, as if she had every right to be there. There was no other way to do it. If she tried to run and flitter by unobserved she would draw attention to herself. The cameras were no longer able to track her and alert suspicious watchers, and no one else in the palace had seen her before and might possibly mind their own business as she passed them.
Her clothes would draw attention but if she kept her nose in the air and looked like she belonged here, it might deflect questions. If it didn’t, then she always had the knife.
At the end of the corridor, the passage opened onto the rotunda—an elegant stone balcony swept around the full circle, broken only by the big sweeping staircase down to the first floor and the two wings of stairs that curved up to the third. From the ceiling skylights muted light bathed the area, making the white stone of the balustrades glow.
This was the risky part. She had to circle the rotunda to reach the foyer that gave her access to the outdoor balcony overlooking the front grounds and the administrative building. Even though she badly wanted to stop and take stock, Minnie forced herself to keep walking. It would look odd if she paused to look around.
Black Heart Page 24