“It was just a kiss ’cause I wanted one.”
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Well. That’s…interesting. But here’s the deal. As much as I want to go back in there and, you know, get hopeless, I need to tell you something.”
He frowned, waiting, catching the serious tone.
“There’s something strange about the Ramos farm. They didn’t want to tell me, but I got the feeling it’s not a normal farm. The little girl, Caralita? She whispered a word in my ear, and I think it might be a password.”
“A password?” Now she was going overboard. “What did she say?”
“Maestra. Like ‘maestro’ with an a.”
“Teacher,” he translated. “Maybe not a password, but a clue.”
“A clue?”
“About where we’re going.” Taking her hand, he guided her back to the hotel. “Gabe made a good choice for this team.”
She gave his hand a squeeze, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Hopeless, he reminded himself, but mutual.
* * *
“Tell me more about what they said about this farm,” Mal said as he drove them through the roughest roads they’d come across yet.
“It was what they didn’t say,” Chessie recalled. “They were evasive, especially the older one. I thought maybe they figured we were with the government.”
“They’re taught from a young age to be extremely careful who they talk to, but generally that means men in uniform,” Mal said. “Tourists and visitors, especially in these parts, are so rare that they are more likely to open up.”
“These two had been to the farm,” she said. “The little girl was pretty specific about the orange tree. Like a giant orange umbrella, she told me. Turn right on the road just after it.”
“A royal Poinciana,” Mal said. “They’re all over Cuba. They call them flame trees.”
“Hopefully, we don’t take a wrong tree turn.”
He threw her a smile, certainly not the first since they’d arrived in this town. His obvious approval of her field skills? Or…his obvious approval of her. It wasn’t smart that she wanted both, but she did. Remember, Chess…forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years. One a prison.
“I think it could be a culture school,” he mused, pulling her back to the mission at hand.
“What is that?”
“Other than illegal? All over Cuba, in private homes and in rural areas, the people try to teach their children the ways of the country before Castro, so customs, culture, and truth don’t die with each generation. If they get caught running something like that, the adults on the property would go to prison for life. The children?” He gave a deep, long sigh as the car rumbled down the road.
That wasn’t a sigh of exhaustion, Chessie mused. It was a sigh of pain. “What happens to the children?” she asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
She inched closer. “I do.”
“They get overlooked, ignored, wasted, lost, and, ultimately, indoctrinated into a system that shows no mercy and gives no hope.” He threw her a look. “Take it from me, that’s no way to live.”
His voice was low and dark and honest. “And you know that because of those forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years?”
“What happened to me was different, but yeah,” he said. “These kids who have a whole political system to fight.”
“But the result is the same, a life of constant upheaval and uncertainty.”
He nodded. “Makes for a good spy.”
“But you’re not a spy anymore.”
He tossed her a quick look, a warning in his dark eyes. “Don’t we have a rule against intimate revelations about our past?”
She sighed. “I can’t help wanting to know about you,” she admitted. “I mean, that’s how people get to be good partners in the field, right?” And in life, she added silently.
“You’re good,” he said. “Very good.” The compliment warmed her, but then he nodded and pointed ahead. “There’s a huge Poinciana and a dirt road. I think we’ve found the farm.”
The tree, true to its nickname, flamed bright orange with blooms twenty feet in the air.
“Wow, that’s a pretty tree. Like a great big explosion of hope.” She put her hand on her chest, feeling it. “And I hope my nephew is at the end of this road.”
“Yeah,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he turned onto the road. “But let’s lose the documentary cover on this call.”
“What?” She whipped around to face him. “How can we do that? We don’t have another cover. Who do we say we are or why we’re here?”
He put a hand on her arm. “Contingency, Francesca. They’ll never let us bring cameras in here if this place is what I think it is. We’re…teachers. Just like the little girl said. American teachers doing research or looking for a chance to help them. They should respond to that. We’ll offer cash. And gifts. And…”
“Hope,” she supplied.
“That’s your department.”
The Prefect sputtered over the rocky path—there was no way it could be technically called a road—taking them through more lush foliage. Luscious, sweet scents of pineapple and mango floated through the open window, hanging on still, tropical air.
They followed the dirt road until it turned and ended at a cluster of four or five structures, a mix of wood and stucco, surrounded by a few goats, at least ten chickens, and one mangy-looking dog.
As Mal drove closer to the buildings, Chessie checked her bag again. She’d brought money, of course, and candy. Some children’s books in Spanish, pens and pencils, a few bars of soap and shampoo, and hair brushes. All gifts that she hoped would gain her access and the trust of the whole Ramos family.
“Whoa.”
Chessie looked up at the note in Mal’s voice, following his gaze to see four men—well, three teenagers and a grown man—emerge from what looked like a barn, standing side by side like a human wall. The man held a rifle pointed directly at the car.
“Whoa is right,” Chessie murmured, shifting in her seat. “Quite the welcoming committee.”
The older man made no effort to lower his rifle when Mal brought the car to a stop about forty feet away. “Stay here until I call to you,” he said, opening the door. “Keys are in the ignition if you have to take off.”
If she had to take off? She felt her eyes pop, but he reached over and touched her cheek in a lightning-flash move of reassurance. “If I point my finger straight in the air, that’s your signal. Don’t question it, just leave.”
“O-okay.” Although, deep inside, she doubted she’d have the nerve to just leave him here. So she watched him get out of the car and prayed she wouldn’t have to make that choice.
Her throat went dry and her fingers curled around the cracked leather edge of the front seat, her heart beating fast. The windows were open, but the only sounds she heard were the distant cry of a child and the bleat of a goat.
Mal held his hands up, moved slowly, and spoke in Spanish.
She didn’t understand the words, but she understood body language. Mal’s open and friendly. The men? Not so much.
The fight-or-flight flutters collided in her, leaving chills in their wake and a sudden itching to grab her computer and find a solution.
But there was no database that could get them out of this. Just words, gifts, actions, and hope. No wonder Gabe hadn’t wanted her to come here and do this alone.
The man with the rifle spoke the most, unintelligible Spanish. Mal replied, his voice low and steady. She picked up very few words, but did hear maestra. Teacher. And he pointed to Chessie, making all eyes zero in on her.
Rifle Man came closer to Mal and said something under his breath. Mal replied. And Rifle Man’s entire body language changed as he put a hand on Mal’s back and both of them started walking toward her.
“You can get out now, Elizabeth,” Mal said, reminding her that they should use their fake names. “And bring your computer. And the bag of gifts.”
; Chessie gathered what she needed, and suddenly the passenger door was opened for her by one of the boys, who grabbed everything she had in her hands and started running.
“Hey!” she called, looking to Mal for help, but he just shook his head hard.
“Let it go,” he said.
Let it go? “But my computer and my—”
“Good faith,” he said quietly. “We’re showing good faith.”
She got out of the car slowly, automatically holding out her hands to show how empty they were. And full of good faith.
Rifle Man fired off some Spanish.
One of the teenage boys came around and started patting down Mal for a weapon. He didn’t move, but held his hands out, allowing them to inspect him.
Mal nodded to her. “Let them do the same to you,” he ordered.
She did, extending her hands, letting him pat lightly over her waist, hips, and legs, and the man with the rifle signaled to the other boy and shouted an order. The kid—who couldn’t have been fourteen and was grossly underweight—gestured for them to follow him.
Surrounded by Rifle Man and his boys, Chessie and Mal were taken to the back of the building, then toward another barn-like structure. Chessie’s blood thumped wildly as she looked at Mal, but he didn’t give away anything. Not fear, not worry, not a plan for what to do if these people were taking them into the barn to shoot them.
She didn’t speak, but gave him a pleading look and got nothing but a nearly imperceptible headshake in response. Basically, just shut up and do what they want you to do. Like she had a choice at this point.
She followed the youngest boy, who stopped at a huge padlock on the barn door. He turned to their leader, Rifle Man, who gave a gruff order.
The boy disappeared around the back, and they all stood in the merciless sun for five minutes until he returned with a key, which he slipped into the lock.
Rifle Man stepped up to the door and glowered at Mal, speaking in hushed Spanish.
Mal replied in Spanish, then he glanced at Chessie. “I’ve just promised on the lives of our own families that we will never reveal what we’re about to see. Tell him the same thing.”
She blinked, then looked at Rifle Man. “I promise,” she whispered.
“In Spanish,” Mal urged. “Say ‘le prometo.’”
She repeated the words exactly as they sounded.
Finally, the man ripped off the padlock and slowly opened the barn doors.
Excerpt, it was no barn. It was a massive warehouse full of desks, chalkboards, maps, and at least twenty children ranging in age from toddler to teen.
“Esta es la Escuela Ramos,” the man announced with pride.
“The Ramos School,” Mal translated.
Chessie took a breath and let her gaze slide over all the little faces full of surprise and curiosity. Was one of these her nephew? Her throat tightened with hope so tangible she could taste it.
Chapter Seventeen
It didn’t take long for Chessie to figure out where she wanted to go in the little schoolhouse. There were several small “sections” that were loosely divided into age groupings. The older kids in the back, the midsize ones along the sides, and up front, the very youngest.
Chessie gravitated to these kids, maybe age five and under, scanning their little faces, looking for any sign, anything at all, that she might be staring at her brother’s son. There wasn’t a blue eye in the bunch, so that ruled out her most obvious clue. The little Cuban faces were a sea of beautiful and expressive dark eyes, delicate but deeply tanned features, and constantly moving mouths that smiled easily and laughed heartily, despite the fact that they were in hiding, obviously hungry, and living on the hairy edge of real poverty.
Nestor Ramos, their rifle-carrying host, relaxed more with each passing moment, obviously deciding that some prayer had been answered as he walked from one side of the warehouse to the other, observing the guests carefully.
The lessons were in full swing within an hour or two. Reading from new books. Writing with colored pens. Even some math, counting out wrapped candies to learn addition and subtraction.
Chessie tucked herself in a corner with the toddler-age little ones, a boy and a girl on her lap, introducing them to Winnie the Pooh, with pages in both English and Spanish.
She divided her attention between the book and the precious little faces, who beamed heartfelt, gap-toothed smiles as she stumbled through the Spanish, their slender fingers wrapped around her arms as if to keep her there.
Every time she looked up to scan the room and drink in what was going on, her gaze fell on Mal, who was on his knees in front of a few teenage boys, getting a purely marvelous reaction while he used Chessie’s laptop to show them a video game, which apparently held universal appeal for boys in any country, under any political regime.
“Otra vez! Otra vez!” one of the children on her lap cried, pulling Chessie’s attention back to her own circle of students. She didn’t have to know Spanish to understand the plea of a child who wanted a story read a second—well, a fourth time. And she didn’t mind, except this wasn’t getting her any closer to finding the child she’d come here for.
“I have an idea!” she said brightly, lifting the two from her lap and waving over several others. “Let’s play the…” How could she find out which child was Gabriel? What did she know about him other than his name and… “The birthday name game!”
They all stared at her, utterly confused.
“Cumpleaños,” a woman behind her said. “Un juego de su cumpleaños.”
Chessie turned around to find a pair of warm, dark eyes on her. The young woman looked to be about twenty, as thin and ragged as everyone else, with an infant wrapped in a carrier hanging from her neck. “A birthday game?” the woman asked. “That’s what I told them.”
“Yes, si,” Chessie said. “I could use the help. I’m…” Not Chessie, she remembered before her real name slipped out. “Elizabeth. And you?”
“Rosalia.” She took the hand Chessie offered. “Rosalia Ramos.”
“Señor Ramos is your father?” Chessie guessed.
She nodded. “Si. Papa. And…” She pointed to the original line of teenage boys who’d greeted them, now engrossed in Mal’s video game. “My…brothers.”
All of them? And practically the same age?
But she was grateful to find someone who could help her identify the children. “And who is this little angel?” Chessie gave the infant a gentle touch on thick black curls.
“Miguel.” She smiled and lifted him a little higher. “My son.”
“He’s precious.” Chessie stroked the curls again and turned to the half-dozen young ones who’d gathered round. “So here’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to know all of their names and their birthdays so we can learn months and days,” Chessie said, speaking slowly and hoping the idea worked. “Do they know their birthdays?”
Rosalia’s smile wavered. “Maybe. Mostly. Birthdays mean presents.”
“And I’m going to give presents,” Chessie assured her, reaching for her bag and the little container of chewing gum she’d brought.
Chessie sat on the floor and helped Rosalia gather eight children around her in a semicircle, listening to the other woman explain the game in rapid-fire Spanish. There was some squirming and giggling, some jockeying for a position closer to Chessie, but finally they settled and stared at her.
“I want each one to tell me their name and their birthday.” Was one of these children Gabriel, born in the right year? Would they know the year they were born? They might know their age.
She glanced up and caught Mal looking at her, and she held his gaze. Her heart ratcheted up as the eye contact lasted long enough for her to get his silent message of approval. And they shared a smile that was as sweet as the candy she’d been giving away all day.
Rosalia pointed to the first child, a little girl with a heartbreakingly beautiful face, and gave the instructions in Spanish.
The girl’s
eyes opened, and she held up four fingers. “Cuatro.”
“She’s four,” Rosalia supplied. “And your name?” she urged the child. “Y su nombre?”
Not that it mattered, Chessie thought. She wasn’t Gabe’s son, so she’d just move—
“Gabriella.”
Chessie startled. “Did she say…Gabriella?”
“We call her Gabrielita.”
Chessie’s heart clutched. “What’s her last name?”
“Ramos,” Rosalia said quickly.
“She’s your sister or cousin?”
Rosalia shook her head and leaned closer to whisper so softly no one but Chessie could hear. “She doesn’t have a last name yet.”
An orphan? And Chessie’s heart stopped just before it cracked into a million pieces.
Could the database have been wrong about the gender of the child? Could she have misread it? Was Gabriel really Gabriella?
She searched the child’s arresting face and big brown eyes, more the color of Mal’s than Gabe’s. “Gabrielita?”
The little girl suddenly shot up and lunged toward Chessie, wrapping eager, hungry arms around Chessie’s neck and squeezing all the love out of her heart.
Oh dear God in heaven, was this her niece?
Working for calm, she inched the little body back. “When is your birthday, Gabrielita?”
Rosalia leaned closer again. “We don’t know her birthday, really.”
Of course not. She was an orphan. Because her mother was dead, and her father was…waiting in Barefoot Bay. She tried to tamp down hope, but failed.
“Could it be in the summer?” Chessie asked, a little too anxiously.
Rosalia shrugged and touched the head of the boy next to her. “Let’s give the others a turn,” she said.
So Chessie had to back off and continue the game. There was no Gabriel among the rest, and only two who knew their birthdays, and those were in winter months.
If the child was here, like Gabe believed, wouldn’t he—or she—have to be among this group?
“Is anyone missing today?” Chessie asked the woman next to her as she liberally handed out sticks of gum to eager little kids.
Barefoot With A Stranger Page 16