Stalemate

by Iris Johansen

  “Miguel. He told Soldono and me last night after he searched your room. He thought we should check out our own rooms in case you weren’t the only target.”

  “Does Joe know?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to drive him nuts. I searched his room myself after he went to sleep. He’s having enough problems getting himself in shape without having that to goad him on.”

  “How is he?”

  “Why don’t you go and see for yourself?”

  “So that we could argue? No thanks. I’m having enough trouble concentrating.”

  “I wonder why. I don’t imagine it’s every day you have a black mamba popping out of one of your reconstructions.”

  And he didn’t even know about Diaz’s threat to Jane, she remembered. “No, it’s not a common occurrence.”

  “Have you had breakfast? I thought I’d grab a bite before I took a tray up to Quinn.”

  “Miguel brought a tray to my room.” She smiled faintly. “He said that it seemed the only way he was sure I’d eat something.”

  Galen gazed at her appraisingly. “You do look a little fine-drawn. Are you sleeping enough?”

  She’d gotten three hours last night. She’d been on edge and excited and her mind wouldn’t stop functioning. “Enough. I can sleep later.” She started down the hall toward the library. “She won’t let me sleep right now. I’m getting too close.”

  “‘She’?”

  “The work. The reconstruction.”

  “It sounded much more intimate.”

  “I feel intimate when I’m working on a skull. It’s a human being, for God’s sake.”

  “How close are you?”

  “I should start the finish work either tonight or tomorrow.” She stopped at the door of the library. “Can you keep Joe from making a move until then?”

  “I’ll try. No promises.”

  “It’s only one more day.”

  “But you never can tell when you’re going to run into another pesky reptile. That could cause a delay.”

  “Montalvo says that there won’t be any more problems. He promised that he’d find out which one of his men took a bribe to bring the snake to the library.”

  “I’m sure he’s doing everything he can. Miguel said Montalvo was going to work all night going over the personnel records and trying to discern the weak links. Everything will be fine if he can isolate the snake he took to his bosom.” He smiled. “Did you ever realize how many phrases there are that pertain to snakes? Our culture seems to be obsessed with them.”

  And she wasn’t sure she’d ever hear one of those phrases without remembering that moment when the mamba had lunged toward her. “I’d just as soon ignore them from now on.”

  “I can understand that.” Galen turned and headed for the breakfast room. “But Montalvo won’t be ignoring what happened and neither will Quinn if he finds out.”

  She didn’t want Montalvo to ignore the incident, she thought as she opened the door. She wanted protection from interruption during this critical stage in the reconstruction and it was his job to give it to her. But she hoped to God that Joe wasn’t told about what had happened. Joe was the—

  She stopped.

  Montalvo was sitting in the desk chair, staring at the reconstruction. “Good morning, Eve.” He didn’t take his gaze from the skull. “It’s exceptionally gruesome, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. But I suppose it appears that way to most people.”

  His lips twisted. “But I’m not most people, am I? I loved her. I’ve spent years trying to avenge her. Yet I look at…this and I can’t muster any tenderness. It looks like the cover of a horror DVD.”

  “If she were alive and horribly scarred, would you feel like that?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the same. She’s not with us any longer but your memory of her is here. A reconstruction isn’t pretty during the initial stages. That’s why I didn’t want you to see it until the end. I didn’t have a drop cloth or I would have covered it last night.”

  “I told Miguel not to give you another one.”

  “Why would you—” Then she understood. “The snake. You thought that every time I took it off her that I’d remember the snake.”

  “A natural reaction. You didn’t need the drop cloth. I did. So I thought I’d come in and meet her face-to-face again.”

  “You’re not meeting her. You don’t understand her. This isn’t who she is.” She sat down on the edge of the desk and stared at Nalia. “Let me explain her to you. Those little sticks that make her look like a voodoo doll are tissue-depth markers. There are more than twenty points on the skull for which there are known tissue depths. There are anthropological charts that give a specific measurement for each point of a Caucasian woman of average weight. After I have the tissue depths right, I take strips of plasticine and apply them between the markers, then build up to all the tissue-depth points.” She delicately touched the nasal cavity. “The nose is always very difficult. I have to make sure the measurements are precise on the nasal spine and the opening. They dictate everything, the length, the angle of the nose. But it’s all there if you work hard enough. The bones tell us what we need to know if we listen. She’s telling us, Montalvo. There’s nothing horrible about her. She’s the woman you loved. We just have to strip away the veil.”

  “And then what happens after you finish measuring?”

  Her gaze shifted to see that his intent stare was no longer on the skull but on her own face.

  “Then I start the final phase, the actual sculpting. That’s when instinct takes over from intellect.”

  He was silent a moment. “I’d like to be here when you reach that point. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. I probably wouldn’t know if you were in the room. But don’t expect me to let you know. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way.”

  “You just go with the flow?”

  “That sounds very pleasant and lazy. This particular flow is more like a lava flow after a volcano eruption.”

  He stood up. “I’ll let you get to work.” He smiled. “I’ll check in on you periodically and gauge your lava output.” He headed for the door. “Thank you, Eve.”

  “For a lecture on forensic sculpting?”

  “No, for trying to make what she’s become easier for me.”

  “And did I do it?”

  “Yes. I’m not big on spirituality. I’ve always lived in the physical world and I had to come to terms with this.” He said quietly, “You’re a very special woman, Eve.”

  “Damn right.” She got up to stand before the reconstruction and checked the mid-therum marker. “But you’re better at snake demolition.”

  “It’s amazing she’s able to continue working,” Miguel said as he met Montalvo in the hall. “Nerves of steel.”

  “No. She’s frightened but she has a purpose,” Montalvo said. “And that will keep her going no matter what happens.” He strode down the hall. “But I’m not going to have her contend with anything more than finishing that reconstruction. That snake incident shouldn’t have happened.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll make no excuses.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not blaming you. You’re not responsible for everything that goes wrong in the compound.”

  “What a relief. Not even the stopped-up toilet in the armory?”

  “Miguel.”

  He smiled. “A little humor.”

  “Very little. Have you gathered the names of any of the possibles who might have been bought by Diaz?”

  “Fascquelo, Ramierez, Gomez, and Destando. All of them are comparatively new men with you. They seemed all right when we took them on and I’ve no proof they’re not.” He paused. “I’m leaning toward Destando. He plays a lot of poker in the barracks and he owes money. He’s never talked against you but he’s surly.”

  “I can’t shoot him for that. Find me proof.”

  “I’ll work very hard on doing that.” He looked back at th
e closed door of the library. “I, too, believe in the power of purpose, Colonel.”

  “Sendak’s mamba didn’t kill her,” Nekmon said. “She still managed to work last night. Our man in his camp says she may be getting close.”

  “If he managed to get close enough to plant the serpent, then he should be close enough to kill the bitch. I paid him enough.”

  “You didn’t pay him enough to stop him from being frightened.”

  “He wasn’t too frightened to slip the snake into the library.” Diaz added sarcastically, “You wouldn’t even look in the cage when Sendak had it here.”

  “I don’t like snakes,” Nekmon said. “And taking overt action is different. Montalvo has her guarded every moment of the day. No one is going to be able to walk up and shoot her.”

  “Poison?”

  “Miguel Vicente prepares her meals.”

  Diaz muttered a curse. “If Duarte hadn’t blundered, she would have been dead and we wouldn’t be having this problem. Luck has been on Montalvo’s side since this began.”

  “Luck can change. All we need is an opening,” Nekmon said. “I’ve called Phoenix and they say that they’re questioning the local hotel people. Jane MacGuire can’t have just disappeared into the sunset. Someone must have seen the car. Perhaps gotten a license number. All I need is a number and we can call that senator you have in your pocket and ask him to send a tracer through the highway patrol and try to locate the car.”

  “In the meantime Eve Duncan finishes the reconstruction.”

  “Not necessarily. The parking garage has video cameras. If they used the garage, we may have her. I have someone working on that angle right now.” His lips tightened. “It’s much cleaner and more efficient than using that African snake shaman. I knew it wouldn’t work.”

  “It could have worked.” Diaz scowled. “And I dislike people who tell me ‘I told you so.’ You might remember that, Nekmon.”

  “No offense. Shall I continue hunting for Jane MacGuire?”

  “Of course. Do everything you can,” Diaz said. “I’m getting very tired of being bested by that son of a bitch. I think I’ll have to make an example of Jane MacGuire to show the Duncan woman who has the power here.”

  “An excellent idea. As you wish.”

  “You’re damned right. Everything is as I wish. That’s as it should be.” He went to the window and gazed down at the cemetery in the village. The moonlight was glimmering on the tomb where his mother was buried. What a fool she had been. She had never understood how special he was. From the time he was a small child she had told him to listen to the priests, to be humble and he would grow in stature and glory. She didn’t understand a man had to grab both for himself. He would have made a queen of her if she’d realized that his destiny was not to be trifled with. Instead, she had betrayed and tried to destroy him.

  And he’d had to destroy her.

  You see, Mother? I’m a king now and I take whatever I wish. I kill who I wish. I’m above the priests, above your God.

  And I’m alive and you’re dead and moldering in the earth.

  “You’re smiling,” Nekmon said. “Did I miss something?”

  “I was just wondering when I get my hands on Eve Duncan if I should make her do a reconstruction of my dear mother. Do you think my sweet madre’s skull would be a nice decoration for my desk?”

  12

  She heard the door of the library open and then close but she didn’t look up from the reconstruction. “I’m still doing the basic work, Montalvo. I won’t be ready for the final for another few hours. You’re wasting your time.”

  “I have time to waste.”

  Joe.

  She whirled to see Joe carefully seating himself in the chair next to the door. He was fully dressed in khakis and a dark shirt. He appeared thinner and he was pale but other than that he looked almost normal. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  “It was time.” His jaw tightened. “Past time. It was my first journey and I made it. Though those stairs were a bitch.”

  “They’ll be worse going up.”

  “Then I’ll have your guard dog outside give me a hand. All I needed to know was that I could make it.”

  “You should be in bed.”

  “And you should be at home doing reconstructions for local police departments. Neither of us are doing what we’re supposed to do. So we’re canceling each other out.” His gaze fastened on the reconstruction. “It’s going fast. She’s not difficult?”

  “Not so far.”

  “And you believe she’s Montalvo’s wife?”

  “You know I don’t allow myself to believe anything. She could be Nalia.”

  “What if she’s not? Are you going to stay here until he finds another skull, and then another?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Because you want her to be Nalia Armandariz. She’s the key to all your dreams.” He pushed himself forward and then with difficulty started to pull himself up out of the chair.

  She instinctively moved forward to help him but was stopped by his sharp “No!”

  She kept coming but halted in shock at the icy glance he gave her. “Let me help, Joe.”

  “I have to do it myself.” He pulled himself to his feet. “This afternoon will be better. Tomorrow I’ll be almost well.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Your confidence is inspiring.”

  “You’re a stubborn asshole and you’re scaring me to death.”

  “Not enough to get you out of here.”

  “I need to finish this—”

  “Is everything okay?” Montalvo had come into the library and was staring warily at Joe. “Miguel was concerned when he saw you come into the library, Quinn. You didn’t look well.”

  “But he didn’t try to stop me. I understand from Galen that he’s the guardian at the gates.”

  “Naturally he wouldn’t attempt to do anything that would hurt you.”

  “Because I’m not able to defend myself?”

  Montalvo smiled. “He wouldn’t make that mistake. As I said, he was just concerned.” He turned to Eve. “You look worried. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll leave.” He met and held her gaze. “But you know that you only have to tell me and it will be done.”

  She nodded jerkily. “I know that.” Her glance shifted back to Joe and she found his narrowed eyes going from her to Montalvo and back again. “Joe and I will work out our own problems.”

  “Certainly. I only thought I’d offer.” Montalvo turned and headed for the door. “Call me if you change your mind.”

  “Yes, I’m sure she will,” Joe murmured as the door closed behind Montalvo. He moved toward the door. “I’ll let you get back to work. I wouldn’t want to disturb you.”

  “You did disturb me. How could I help but be disturbed? You scare me, Joe.”

  “Good. At least, you don’t pity me. That would drive me nuts.”

  She flinched as the door slammed behind him. His response had been every bit as volatile as she’d known it would be. He was walking on the edge and might fall off at any step. She had ached to help him, soothe him, but the price was too high. She would have had to give up her chance for Bonnie.

  She turned and went back to the dais. The only way she could help either one of them was to finish the reconstruction and move on. If she worked fast enough, she might be able to save them both before their relationship became tattered beyond repair.

  “We’re going to go for the big prize soon, Nalia,” she whispered. “I’m getting ready for it and I hope you are. I’m going to need your help….”

  “Need a shoulder to lean on?” Galen was standing at the bottom of the staircase when Joe came out of the library. “That’s a lot of stairs for a crotchety bloke like—” He broke off and gave a low whistle. “Just joking, man.”

  “It wasn’t funny,” Joe said through his teeth. “I won’t be helpless. I won�
�t be weak.” He started up the staircase, clinging to the banister with one hand. “And I can make it up by myself.”

  “Whatever.” Galen was slowly climbing the stairs beside him. “But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll come along to pick up the pieces if your legs give out.”

  “They won’t give out.”

  “I believe you. Whatever happened in that library gave you a massive shot of adrenaline.”

  “You bet it did.”

  “I saw Montalvo come out before you. Did you argue with him?”

  “Hell, no. He’s too clever to quarrel with an injured man.” He didn’t look at Galen as he said between his teeth, “Why didn’t you tell me he was trying to get Eve into bed?”

  “Is he?”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You notice everything. There’s something going on between them that a blind man could see.”

  “I haven’t seen them together very much.”

  And Joe wished he hadn’t seen that last interchange of glances between Montalvo and Eve. It had not only been full of understanding but also intimacy. No, it was good that he had seen what was happening even if it hurt. Eve would never be unfaithful to him because of a sexual attraction. With Eve it would have to involve all the emotions and it hadn’t reached that point with Montalvo yet.

  But, my God, they were on their way.

  She might not even realize that she was circling toward Montalvo like a moth to a flame. They shared a common tragedy and the desire to find a way to bring closure to their lives. It was a strong bond and would open other facets, other doors of a relationship. Christ, he thought with disgust, he had it all figured out. Except how to stop it.

  He had reached the top of the stairs. As Galen had said, the adrenaline had been coursing and he’d scarcely paid attention to the weakness and pain. That’s how he had to function from now on. Ignore the weakness. Ignore the pain. Montalvo was strong and well and Joe had to be on equal ground. Pity might temporarily hold Eve, but that wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t be able to go on patching a relationship with that kind of Band-Aid.

  “Do you need help to get to bed?” Galen asked.

  “No, I’ll do it myself.” He paused at the door. “But I might need help from you later. Can I count on you?”