I was a stranger here. I didn’t belong.
All the faces around the table seemed masklike in the dim candlelight. Señor Ortega, his eyebrows bunched in a frown, sat at the head of the table. He stared down at a plate I knew he didn’t see. Gerda’s face was smooth, lovely, and empty of expression. The twins had said scarcely a word the entire meal and those only in subdued whispers. Tony watched his brother grimly.
Only Juan seemed alive. There was an aura of excitement and, yes, even of danger. It was so strong that I almost felt I could reach out and touch it. His face was long and narrow, his nose aquiline. His thick black mustache curved with his mouth. All the while he smiled; as he ate, as he talked, as he watched us all with those quick, darting black eyes, he smiled.
He smiled at me.
Tony raised his head and watched him carefully.
Gerda broke off a sentence in mid-phrase, stumbling over a word.
The twins’ eyes fastened on Juan.
Only Señor Ortega was oblivious, his thoughts turned inward.
Juan smiled at me and caught and held and exploited the sudden pause. His teeth flashed as he laughed, a soft happy laugh.
“Miss Ramsay, do you know that death is always near in Mexico?”
I must have looked utterly puzzled because he laughed again in great good humor.
I began uncertainly, “I don’t think I—”
Gerda interrupted, her voice sharp and hard. “Don’t be absurd, Juan. Don’t try to frighten our guest.”
“Frighten?” His voice was all innocence. His bony shoulders lifted and fell in an exaggerated shrug. Then he leaned across the table. “You’ll see, Miss Ramsay.” And he was smiling again, and I knew it was the same smile a buccaneer would have worn when the white sails of his prey lifted in view over the horizon, a smile of anticipation and excitement. The kind of smile that would light the face of a highwayman as he urged his horse on faster and faster and felt the straining muscles between his legs and knew that in only a moment he would thunder beside the carriage and force it toward the ditch, gambling all the while that he would live and others die. “Death is a bony lady in Mexico, Miss Ramsay. She is certain and faithful. All others will betray you. But not Death.”
I watched him spellbound. The shadowy corners of the room seemed suddenly cold and threatening. He was looking deep into my eyes now and his voice was high and soft and hypnotic. “Do you know the best way to die, Miss Ramsay?”
“Juan, we all must help Miss Ramsay plan her excursion for tomorrow,” Gerda said firmly. She turned toward me. “Have you thought what you might like to see?”
Tony and the twins all spoke at once.
“Xochimilco,” Rita suggested.
“The Bellas Artes,” Francesca said.
“It would be a good day to visit the pyramids,” Tony said decisively. “We’ll pack a picnic lunch and spend the day. Did you know, Sheila, that the Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world?”
“Aren’t these pyramids shaped differently from those in Egypt?” I asked.
“Yes,” Tony agreed. “These have flat tops instead of rising to a point. You see, a temple always sat atop the pyramid, but over the centuries the temples have not survived.”
“It’s all dusty and ugly,” Rita said.
“I’ll bet you won’t climb all the way to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun,” Francesca teased.
The rest of dinner passed pleasantly and everyone was cheerful and talkative as we finished dessert, an apricot sherbet. But I knew all the while that it was a surface calm, and I was aware that I avoided looking directly at Juan.
After dinner, Tony asked if I would like to go dancing. I was tempted but I also knew I was tired. If I was going to clamber up the sides of a pyramid the next day, I knew I’d better get some rest. I thanked him, said no, and excused myself from the family.
I was to wonder later if it made any difference that I did not go dancing with Tony. We would have come in late, I know, and if we had, I would have stumbled directly into the shock that I was to face that night.
Chapter 7
The stealthy opening of the door woke me.
One moment I was sleeping. The next I was wide awake, aware of the cool feel of the silk sheets, the impenetrable deepwater darkness of the room and, more strongly every second, conscious of something alien near me.
I learned more about myself in the next five seconds than I ever wanted to know, learned that when I am terrified to the core my mind can twist and turn frantically, seeking safety, but that my body goes as limp and flaccid.
Something frightful was near me. I knew with sick certainty. Stiffly, I turned my head toward the door and tried to see through murky shadows. My throat closed with fear, my heart thumped, my chest ached. All the while, I strained to see and couldn’t. Something was there.
Was it coming toward me?
Scream, scream, Sheila, scream, my mind implored. I tried. I opened my mouth and tried to scream. I couldn’t make a sound.
Turn on a light. Run. Hide. My mind scrambled frantically, but I felt as though my body were pinned to the bed, caught and held, unable to move. It was too dark to see but I heard the unmistakable creak of the door opening ever wider.
That homely sound steadied me, gave me strength to translate thought into action. That creak was the seal of reality. The door was opening. Unless I meant to lie there spinelessly, accepting whatever came, I must move now.
I still could not find breath enough to scream, but my hand obeyed my brain and slipped from beneath the cover and reached out to the bedside lamp and yanked at the little chain.
Nothing happened.
I yanked again and the sound seemed explosively loud as the chain pulled the switch. Nothing. I was half sitting up in bed now. I grabbed the lamp by its neck and raised it above my head, ready to strike.
I heard a light rustle, clattering sounds, a flurry of movement, a piercing scream. The cry rose, abruptly cut off.
I listened over the thudding of my heart, thought I heard running steps, but quickly the sound was gone. As suddenly as I had sensed the presence of danger, I felt equally certain no one was near. The threat was gone, but an intruder had come and opened my door and flung something on the floor, and a scream had scarred the night’s silence.
In a rush, I slammed the lamp onto the bedside table and rolled from the bed. By the time I was on my feet, light flooded the hallway. I reached for my robe and slipped into it.
The hall light confirmed the fact that the intruder was gone. The doorway was empty. I moved around the end of the bed.
Everything happened at once. Calls and shouts echoed in the hallway. Juan was the first to come. Barefooted, in shorts, he ran to the open doorway, skidding to a halt to look down at the strange display on my floor.
I, too, stared in puzzlement at the remnants of a Barbie doll that had been ripped apart, the head chopped free to lie by itself, the arms and legs broken from the torso. A bunched serape lay a foot away.
Juan reached out and flicked a switch. The overhead light came on. I turned to look toward the bedside lamp and saw the cord lying loose on the floor. Someone had pulled the plug from the socket so that I would have no light when I awoke.
More running steps. Tony came around Juan and hurried toward me. “What’s wrong? Why did you scream?” Tony, too, wore boxer shorts. He was muscular and looked powerful and very attractive.
Juan was now leaning against the doorframe, dark eyebrows raised. “Some kind of ritual, maybe? Do you always scream when you kill a doll?”
Kill a doll . . . The words lodged in my mind and I felt an inward lurch of sickness. That’s what it looked like. Someone had killed a doll. A blond doll. I was blond. Gerda was blond.
“Don’t be absurd.” My voice was crisp. I knew my anger was evident. “I did not scream. I had nothing to do with the destruction of the doll. I was asleep. A noise woke me, the creak of the door opening. Someone stood there, threw things o
n the floor, screamed, and ran away.”
“Really.” Juan’s tone was silky, his disbelief evident. “Well, funny how things happen when there’s a stranger in the house.”
“Suficiente, Juan.” Tony’s voice had a hard edge.
Juan gave an elaborate shrug. He reached down to pick up the serape. As he shook it out, something clanked to the floor. Juan stepped over the doll remnants, reached down, and picked up something dark. He held it cupped in his hand. He came upright and spoke rapidly in Spanish.
Tony moved toward him, held out his hand, and spoke sharply.
Juan frowned, shrugged again, and handed the dark object to Tony.
Tony looked down, slowly turning toward me.
His demeanor changed as if from light to dark. When he had hurried from the hall, holding out his hands to me, he was all sympathy and concern. Now that he held that dark object, his face turned secretive, speculative.
“What’s wrong?” I took a step toward him.
“Have you seen this before?” On his palm rested a blade of rock—hand-formed obsidian. His eyes were dark with worry.
I didn’t doubt for a moment that the sharp edge had efficiently dismembered the doll. The blond doll. Again I felt a wash of sickness. “I know nothing about it.”
“What”—it seemed to take effort for him to push out the words—“did you see in the doorway?” He waited too tensely for my answer.
I looked at him in dismay. “I didn’t see anything. It was too dark.”
It was as if he’d been handed a reprieve. “Well, then, let’s pick these things up. Come downstairs and we’ll have a drink.”
“What about the doll? What about that knife? Someone came in my room tonight. Shouldn’t you call the police?”
“Police?” A deep voice sounded dismayed.
We turned to see Señor Ortega. He was fully dressed. Perhaps he saw the surprise in our faces and possibly a question in my eyes. He said pleasantly, “I was in the garden taking a walk and saw the lights. Is there some difficulty?”
Tony took a deep breath. “Someone was playing a joke on our guest.” He nodded at the floor.
Señor Ortega’s face changed from polite inquiry to inscrutable blankness.
“What’s going on?” The throaty voice was demanding.
Tony’s father swung around to face his wife. He moved to intercept her, but she had stopped short, gazing down at the dismembered doll. Her lovely face looked stricken. And frightened.
“Who did that?” Her voice shook.
I spoke up. “Someone opened my door and threw in the pieces of the doll and screamed. Did you hear the scream?”
She shook her head.
I turned again to Tony. “It seems clear someone gained entrance to the house tonight. Surely you want the police to come.”
Tony shook his head. “That wouldn’t be helpful.”
I wanted to demand why an investigation wasn’t going to be made. I knew he wouldn’t answer. And, after all, I was a guest. This was not my house. But it was my room that had been entered.
“I’ll pick up the doll.” There was an avid gleam in Juan’s eyes.
Tony reached the pieces first and scooped them up.
The housekeeper came, pulling a robe around her.
Tony questioned her sharply in Spanish. I had no idea what he asked, but she made a vigorous denial, her voice firm.
Señor Ortega chimed in, his face anxious.
Maria looked from Tony to his father and replied vehemently.
Whatever the conversation between Maria, Tony, and Señor Ortega, it appeared to reassure Gerda. She watched her husband and stepson, her gaze swinging from one to the other. Some color seeped back into her face.
Obviously everyone knew something that I didn’t know, and closed me out.
Juan finally said something to me. “You are very lucky,” he said softly. His brown eyes glistened with excitement and something more, a kind of expectancy.
“Lucky?”
Everyone turned to watch Juan and me.
He liked being the center of attention. But there was more than a bad boy’s tendency to show off, to shock. It was more frightening than that. “You were in the same room with Death tonight, death of a doll,” Juan said softly, so softly. “You were so close, you might have reached out and touched him.”
They all came down on him at once, his father, Tony, Gerda. Don Ortega’s command was abrupt. “Bastante.” Tony’s eyes blazed. “Stop the nonsense, Juan.”
Gerda’s voice was high. “Don’t talk about death.”
Juan fell silent with a little shrug, but the smile and the eagerness never left his eyes.
Juan’s response wasn’t normal, but were his words any stranger than the way the rest of the family was acting? No one had reacted as I would have expected.
Why weren’t the police called? Who would throw a dismembered doll onto the floor and scream? Why had it happened in my room? Who had unplugged my lamp? Why had Tony’s face suddenly become secretive, inward, withdrawn?
As suddenly as everyone had gathered, they dispersed. Tony did have the decency to pause a moment after the exodus and ask, “Sheila, would you like to move to another room? I can have Maria see to it quite easily.”
I said briskly, “No, it’s all right, Tony.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Yes.”
He turned to leave.
I said quickly, “Tony, please, who would do a thing like that? Why?”
I could not have felt more shut away if he had physically closed the door between us. His face was utterly expressionless. “I have no idea, Sheila, none at all.”
He was lying.
When he was gone and I was alone in the room, I wedged a straight chair beneath the door handle. I plugged the lamp in and this time light shone when I pulled the chain. I was glad to know light was near. As for the chair at the door, I don’t suppose it would have stopped anyone who really wanted in, but the barrier gave me a sense of security.
Was it any wonder that I couldn’t sleep? I lay rigid on that comfortable mattress and stared sightlessly into darkness.
Tony Ortega had reached out to me until he saw that sharp-edged obsidian ax.
I turned restlessly.
What difference should it make how the doll was cut apart? Whether it was a kitchen knife or a machete or a hand-shaped stone weapon? What possible difference?
I bunched up my pillow and buried my face in it. I couldn’t bury my thoughts.
Finally I gave up trying to sleep and got up and crossed the room to the window. I rested my head against the cool glass and stared down into the garden, which lay, cold and stark, in the pale moonlight. It looked just as it had last night, the wrought-iron benches sharply black, the paths smooth ribbons of swept gravel, the upthrust cliff of volcanic stone oppressive. Nothing marred the utter stillness.
A shadow moved.
I tried hard to distinguish one patch of shadow from another. I was sure, almost sure, that something had moved near the entrance to the poolroom.
As quietly as possible, I slid up the window and leaned out to press against the iron grille that barred my window. I heard the scrape of gravel beneath a shoe. I strained harder to see.
At the same time, I wondered frantically how best to rouse the household, how to call Tony, without warning the intruder. For whoever it was, whoever walked so softly across the patio, must be an intruder, or he would not be so careful to stay in the shadows.
My breath expelled in a sigh.
There was only an arm’s length of space that lay bare in the moonlight that the figure had to cross to reach the darkness of the colonnade.
I saw him for that instant, for the fraction of time it took him to move in the pale hard light of the moon until he reached the sanctuary of the colonnade. I didn’t see his face. I didn’t need to see it. I knew the shape of his head, the set of his shoulders.
Why should Tony Ortega move as quietly as a thief
in the garden of his own home?
And, if he did, why should I care?
But I did care. I liked him. I liked the way he smiled and the way he moved. I liked the good humor in his eyes and the gentleness of his hands when he touched me. I stared down into the dark garden, puzzled and disappointed.
A door opened. In a brief flash of light. I saw Tony step inside the room and softly shut the door behind him.
That was the same door that had opened last night after the cry woke me. I had watched the patio and that door had opened, and I had heard a murmur of Spanish and the muted sound of sobbing.
I turned away from the window, crossed to the chair beside my bed, and found my dressing gown and slipped into it.
There was something both sinister and frightening happening at the Casa Ortega, and somehow, it involved me.
I was going to find out what it was.
Chapter 8
I slipped like a ghost past the living room where embers glowed in the fireplace and tiptoed down the stone stairs and paused beside the splashing fountain to listen. Knowing myself to be an intruder now, I crept to the door of the poolroom and watched a long moment to be sure the glimmering green water was empty, that the tables and chairs waited silently for players who would not come this night.
My soft slippers slapped against the tile floor. I stopped twice more to listen. The night seemed full of movement and sound, but each time there was nothing but the soft ripple of water, distant barking of dogs, and, once, the faint trill of a whistle.
I reached the sliding door and cautiously stepped out onto volcanic flagstones. The colonnaded wing loomed darkly to my left.
It must have taken me some few minutes to make that journey, to slip on a dressing gown and move uncertainly down the dark hall, to pass the living room and then to step quietly down the stairs, pausing to make sure no one was about.
It was only when I was outside, shivering in the chill air, that I realized I was not alone in the garden. First I strained to see into the shadows beneath the colonnade, where Tony had entered a room. The faint murmur of voices wasn’t coming from that direction. No, somewhere deep in the garden voices whispered as lightly as leaves rustling in a gentle breeze.
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