Dawn broke, casting first light upon the smoking remains of Hacienda Ortiz. Numb with shock and exhaustion, Corinne stared beyond them at the serrated horizon—dark blue-gray peaks jutting into a summer sky. Mark was gone. No one had seen him since Soledad left the hacienda to report that the ghost had reappeared. By the time the call was routed to Cantina Roja, where Mexicalli’s police force of one hung out, the fire alarm sounded at the church. In less than an hour, the roof caved in. Still there was no sign of Mark, which led everyone—with the exception of Corinne—to one conclusion.
Wrapped in a blanket inside Capitán Nolla’s police car, she’d cried like the psalmist in the wilderness from night into day for God’s help in finding him anywhere but beneath the smoldering rubble.
God would not do that to her or Mark. God would answer the prayers that began the moment she and the others were summoned by the frantic ringing of the church bell to the street in front of her grandmother’s house as Mexicalli’s old pumper passed them, loaded with volunteers. Corinne’s stomach turned to stone upon following its direction up the hill with her gaze. Hacienda Ortiz had looked like a giant torch contained in the cup of its courtyard wall.
Icy fear coursing through her veins, she and Diego had left Doña Violeta to await the hitching of Chiquita to her cart and joined the rallying villagers in an uphill race to what became a nightmare of incompetence, despite everyone’s best efforts.
The tanker truck, an antique affair that held just enough water to make the fire laugh, raced back and forth to the lake to refill, while men, women, and children formed a ragtag bucket brigade between the fire and the orphanage, the next nearest source of water. As the tanker left for its third refill, the roof caved in, scattering anyone near the blaze and ending any further efforts.
In the village below, the church bell tolled the morning prayer hour, its gongs single and solemn as Corinne’s heartbeat. Villagers, looking like moving miniature dolls in the distance, made their way to the small stone house of worship, which had remained open all night for those wishing to pray for the fate of their Señor del Cerdito.
Already the grounds outside the blackened courtyard walls were ablaze with color, although Corinne had hardly noticed the Indios paying their homage. Her attention remained on the smoking hovel where Capitán Nolla and some men picked at the roof, trying to pull it away from the massive central chimney on the theory that if Mark’s body was in the rubble . . .
Doubt nipped at her spirit with ugly fangs, but Corinne backed it down with resolve. God didn’t open her heart to Mark for this. He had to be alive, because the place that his spirit had filled in Corinne’s heart did not feel empty. It was cold with alarm, but not empty. Besides, Soledad had said that Mark had been outside the hacienda when she left to call the police. Outside, Corinne thought, scanning with a weary but obstinate gaze the area that she and others had searched with flashlights the night before.
The gun of an engine drew Corinne’s attention to where Diego Quintana backed a silver SUV toward them. Her cousin had stayed with her most of the night and, unable to convince Corinne to abandon the scene, left just before dawn for a shower, change of clothes, and some food for the workers.
Diego opened the back of his vehicle, revealing a large thermal container of coffee, a sleeve of Styrofoam cups, and white bags of bakery goods.
“If it isn’t Don Dulce,” Corinne teased, walking over to the tailgate.
“You are in better spirits than when I left earlier. Anything new?”
“No. It’s not new that God is good and answers prayer. I’m just waiting to see how.”
The scent of fresh baked confections triggered her appetite. She’d been finishing the dessert of their late Mexican supper when the alarm sounded, so she joined the workmen in the refreshments, taking time to thank each one for their efforts.
A little while after the work was resumed, Juan Miguel, having learned about the disaster that morning, arrived to join his brother Juan Pablo. Their brother, Electric Juan, as Mark had dubbed him, had helped fight the fire until the roof fell in. Juan Pablo explained to Corinne that Juan Pedro left for the Cantina Roja, overcome with remorse that he might have made a mistake in the wiring, causing the fire.
“Corina, Tía Violeta wishes you to stay with her. You cannot remain here until . . .” Diego broke off at the warning flash of Corinne’s eyes. “Until the search is over. It will take at least the remainder of the day just to clear the salon.”
She wouldn’t allow the worst to be said in her presence. “Then I’ll stay here the remainder of the day.” She took a sip of the black coffee. “How is Grandmother?”
Having caught up with them in her cart just before the roof caved in, Violeta became so upset that Dr. Flynn insisted she return home with Gaspar, lest the smoke and distress take their toll on her health. Don Rafael had accompanied them with the promise to return. Except he hadn’t.
Corinne turned to Diego. “Where is your father?” Usually when Nolla was on duty, the alcalde wasn’t far from view.
Diego shrugged. “Perhaps resting, since there is nothing he can do here . . . which is what you should be doing.” When she declined to answer, he jerked his finger toward the side of the gutted hacienda frame. “You are as stubborn as that pig. The firemen say that it has been circling the debris and nosing in each time they turn over a section of wall or roof.”
Emerging from the rear of the house, smeared in soot and dirt, Toto was almost unrecognizable as Soledad’s pristine white pride.
“Poor baby, he’s going to burn himself.”
“Corina,” Diego called after her as she hurried up to where Toto nosed the debris.
But she didn’t listen. She wanted to hug the little critter that shared her affinity for her precious prodigal. Granted, Toto was just a pig, but right now, he was something warm, breathing, and positive to cling to.
“Toto,” she cooed, nudging the animal back from some glowing debris. “Let me see your feet.” To her horror, the flesh around the pig’s hooves was black and tender. “Diego, go to the farmacia and get some aloe vera gel . . . what the tourists use for sunburn.”
“For a pig?”
Corinne gave him a sharp look. “For a dear pet.”
If Soledad had not been reduced to hysteria and needed sedation, the housekeeper would have taken Toto into her care. As it was, she was with her sister at the parsonage.
“And get some triple-antibiotic cream . . . and some cabbage from the market section.”
“You will not come to Grandmother’s house?”
Corinne shook her head stubbornly. “Come on, Toto,” she cajoled, drawing the pig away with a handful of grass. The pig ignored the grass, but turned from the ruins and walked at her feet toward the pen at the back of the yard.
“I will return with food and supplies for the pig and my stubborn cousin,” Diego called after her.
“That would be wonderful, thank you.” As he turned away, Corinne raised her voice. “Diego?”
He stopped, his wavy raven hair catching the brilliance of the sun in shades of black and blue as he tilted his head in question.
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re my cousin.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he answered in kind. “El gusto es mío, querida.”
Before Diego returned, a twenty-first-century cavalry of Federales arrived, led by a white vehicle with the lettering of the Mineral Resources Council. Recalling that Mark had phoned Blaine about the latest developments regarding the possibility of valuable ammonites being behind the “witching,” Corinne watched them with heaviness in her chest.
Too late, she thought, dragging to her feet from the seclusion of the trellis-covered bench near the orange grove.
Capitán Nolla met the men who spilled from the vehicles as she reached the front of the house. Among the smart-suited and uniformed entourage was Don Rafael. Heavy circles from lack of sleep accentuated the darkness of his gaze, which he cast down upon seeing her.
Alarm slowly set in as Corinne realized that he was accompanied by guards. Accompanied or escorted?
“Don Rafael?”
“Corina, I pray that you will forgive this undeserving man.” Misery glazed the man’s eyes. “I am too late to save your Mark, but—”
“Mark is alive,” Corinne interrupted. “I know it.”
“Señorita Diaz,” said a man clad in a tailored natural linen suit. “I am Carlos Aquino, a friend and colleague of Señor Blaine Madison, and this is my second cousin, Vincente.”
“M-Mark was supposed to be in the house, but—” But what? What, God?
“Señorita, the authorities will do everything within their power to find him,” Carlos Aquino assured her.
“Yes,” Nolla chimed in. “As you have seen.”
“But if it is of any consolation,” Aquino went on, “Don Rafael has told us everything.”
“Everything?” Corinne said in concert with Nolla.
“I only wish I had called the authorities earlier,” Don Rafael confessed. “Please accept my apologies.”
Corinne was incredulous. “You had something to do with this?” she asked, jabbing her finger at the hacienda ruins. The memory of Rafael’s irritation over the necklace Diego had given her flashed through her mind. Bits of the past came together with Mark’s suspicions to paint a shocking picture. “And Diego?” she asked.
Don Rafael answered with a vehement shake of his head. “No, my son knows nothing of the caracoles.”
“And thanks to Don Rafael, those who do know are now in custody,” Vincente Aquino told her.
“In custody for what?” Diego Quintana asked as he walked toward the cluster of officials with Dr. Flynn in tow. “Papá?” Diego said, his inquiring gaze landing on Don Rafael. “What is going on?”
He handed the doctor the bag of supplies.
Corinne felt a fleeting warmth. Her cousin grew dearer by the moment.
“Let’s take a look at what you’ve done to yourself,” the doctor said, approaching Toto and kneeling at his side.
Corinne soothed the wary pig, listening to Don Rafael’s story of how the Pozas brothers showed Dr. Herman Krump the caracol fossils, initiating a series of sinister events that included murder committed by Lorenzo Pozas. It never occurred to her that the congenial little German could be behind such a travesty of murder and intrigue, yet it made sense. If anyone would know what the fossils were worth, it would be a geologist.
“He was furious when he learned that the orphanage had purchased the land out from under him.”
“Indeed he was,” Carlos Aquino recollected. “Señor Madison and Father Menasco had just signed the contract on behalf of the church when he called to make an offer.”
And that was when the revival of the legend of Doña Lucinda Ortiz’s ghost came into play . . . except that Mark and Corinne hadn’t been scared off. So Lorenzo resorted to his mother-in-law’s witchcraft, scattering spore-rich dirt from a local cave in Mark’s room so that he’d get sick.
“And you allowed this?” Diego asked of his father.
“I did it for you, Diego, so that you would be the first artisan to use the local gemstones,” Don Rafael answered. “But I did not know, when Krump invited me to help him cover the knowledge of the discovery, that it involved murder.”
A mix of pain and disbelief tore at Diego’s handsome features. “But why, Papá? Have you so little faith in my work?”
“It was only to help you, son.”
“Because you did not think that I could help myself.” Resentment vied with disappointment in Diego’s voice. “And if you suspected Lorenzo of murder, why did you not call the police then? Why wait until a child’s death followed?”
“I did not know if his brother and sister-in-law’s deaths were murder or an accident,” Rafael replied. “God forgive me, I would have spoken, had I known for certain.”
“Even so, it would be hard to prove,” Vincente Aquino told them. “Gas leaks are common in such villages where the Indios sometimes change their own tanks. And Pozas is denying everything.”
Pozas. The image of the man’s hostile glare across the small coffin at his nephew’s grave site sent a shiver up Corinne’s back. She easily could believe him capable of murder. She glanced up from wiping Toto down with some of the wet wipes from the market bag. “And what about Enrique?”
Don Rafael frowned. “That is what I cannot understand. Dr. Krump wanted Pozas to offer the boy money to show them some of the other sites that he and his father had found in their hunting and exploring together. Killing Enrique made no sense.”
“Maybe Enrique wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to know,” Corinne thought aloud. The whole world was going mad and taking her with it. “And what about last night?” Much as she dreaded the answer, she needed to know.
“That is when I knew that Krump would stop at nothing. He ordered Lorenzo Pozas to burn down Hacienda Ortiz and everyone in it. I knew I had to stop him.”
Corinne’s chin quivered. “So why did you wait so long? Why didn’t you send Capitán Nolla after Lorenzo right then?”
Rafael dropped his head. “Because a coward does not run to the fight. I waited until I saw for myself how far Pozas and Krump would go.”
“You waited until the fire?” Diego exclaimed in contempt.
“May God forgive me.”
Diego cupped Corinne’s arm as she struggled to her feet. She couldn’t believe her ears. The man admitted to letting the hacienda burn, possibly with Mark inside, and yet he did nothing until he saw the fire.
“God might forgive you, sir, but that is too formidable a task for me.” At least for now. Maybe someday, Lord, but not today.
She wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run to escape the pain. A sob tore at her chest, welling to her throat as she stumbled toward the orchard.
“Corina!”
She heard Diego’s footsteps behind her, felt his hand catch her arm as she ran toward the jacaranda tree where Mark had kissed her the night Lorenzo Pozas left the disease-carrying dirt behind. Diego easily caught up and blocked her way.
The dam of her emotions burst with the impact. Mark was gone, and Don Rafael could have prevented it.
“I am so sorry for my father, Corina,” Diego whispered brokenly against the top of her head.
“It . . . it’s not y-your fault,” she cried against his chest.
“Would that it had been me in the fire, rather than see you in such despair.”
“Toto, wait!”
Dr. Flynn’s exasperated shout drew Corinne from the shelter of her cousin’s arms in time to see the soot-splotched pig race by them toward the orange orchard, a long string of gauze trailing from its hind foot. Approaching the edge of the hacienda yard, a filthy man hobbled toward them, leaning heavily on his shorter, equally filthy companion. Although his clothes looked like something from another century, there was something vaguely familiar about him as he pulled himself upright and planted his hands on his hips.
“That does not look like a cousinly embrace to me, Miss Muffet.”