Life Blood Part 28

"Well, let me call upstairs," he muttered, realizing, I suppose, that the best way to get rid of me was to kick me up the chain of command, "and see if Mr. Morton can take a moment to meet with you."

It worked. The next thing I knew, I was in the office of a good-looking diplomat named Barry Morton--gray temples, tailored suit, rugged face of a sixty-year-old soap-opera heartthrob who plays tennis and keeps a mistress. Chief Information Officer.

"Actually, I do remember her, vaguely," Morton declared, flashing me his professional smile. "The Crenshaw girl was an unfortunate case. To begin with, anybody who overstays their visa that long gets us in a lot of hot water with the locals. They always tend to blame us, Ms. . . ."

"James. My name's Morgan James."

"Ms. James." Another of those smiles. "Frankly, I don't know what to tell you, though." He shrugged, exuding helplessness. "It's hard to keep track of every American tourist who comes and goes through this country. Some of the hippie types end up in a mountain village somewhere, gone native. In this instance, as I recall, we got her out on a medevac."

"Her landing card gave her destination as someplace called 'Ninos del Mundo,' up to the Peten. That ring a bell? Any idea how I could find it?"

"Niiios del Mundo?" He glanced up quickly. "That's a new one on me."

He'd been fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk, giving me only half his attention, but he abruptly stopped. "You try the phone book?"

"Like I said, it's in the Peten." I was getting the definite sense he wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible. The whole scene was feeling tense and off. "My understanding is that's mostly rain forest.

Do they even have phones up there?"

"Not many," he said, his tone starting to definitely acquire an "I have better things to do" edge.

That was when he focused in on me, his look turning protective.

"Let me speak candidly, Ms. James, strictly off the record. Down here people have been known to 'disappear' just for asking too many questions. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Between us, this place is still a police state in many regards. You want my advice, let sleeping dogs lie. Just forget about this Crenshaw girl. She's out of the country now, so . . . Let me put it like this: People who go poking around here are just asking for trouble."

I felt a ring of sincerity in his voice. Maybe a little too much sincerity. Why was he so worried for me?

"That may be true, but I'm still going to see what I can find out. My heart is pure. Why should anybody care?"

"Do what you think best," he said with a sigh, "but I've told you everything we know. Which, I'm afraid, is actually very little."

"By the way." Try one more thing on him, I thought, see what he'll say.

"Since you're so concerned about Sarah, you'll be relieved to know she's regained consciousness and started to talk." There seemed no point in telling him any more. The rest was all still speculation.

That stopped him cold. "What . . . what has she said?" His eyes appeared startled in the glaring light of the office fluorescents. At long last I had his undivided attention.

"You're busy." I smiled at him. "I don't want to bore you with details.

But it's just going to be a matter of time before she remembers exactly what happened down here."

"She hasn't talked about it yet?" He was fiddling with an ornate letter opener, an onyx jaguar head on the handle.

"She's getting there." I stared back at him, trying to read his mood.

"We may soon find out who was behind whatever happened to her." Then I tried a long shot. "Maybe officialdom here had something to do with it."

"Let me tell you something." He sighed again, seeming to regain his composure. "The sovereign state of Guatemala definitely plays by its own rules. Whenever foreigners down here meet with foul play, lower-level officials have developed a consensus over the years that sometimes it's better not be too industrious. n.o.body's ever sure of what, or who, they might turn up."

The meeting was definitely ending, and once again I had more questions than answers. Something about Barry Morton felt wrong, but I couldn't quite get a grip on what it was. One thing I was certain of: He knew more than he was telling me. Why was that?

As I was exiting through his outer office, headed for the swarming streets below, I waved good-bye to his secretary, a stout, fiftyish Ladino matron with defiantly black-dyed hair, a hard look mitigated somewhat by the Zircon trim on her thick gla.s.ses and a small silver pendant nestled on her ample, low-cut sweater. It was the pendant that caught my eye, being the silver face of a cat, most likely the local jaguar. Looked just like the ones I'd seen you-know-where. I was staring so hard I almost stumbled over a chair. Yes. It was definitely like those I remembered from Kevin and Rachel.

The only difference was, when she bent over to reach for her stapler, the medallion twisted around and the back, I could see, flashed blank silver, no engraving of lines and dots.

So where did she get it? I started to ask her, but decided I'd just get more BS runaround. Then I had another thought: Maybe she handled a lot of things that never made it to Barry Morton's desk, the "don't waste the boss's valuable time" kind of secretary. Maybe she s the one I really should have been talking to, the kind of woman who takes care of everything while the high-paid senior supervisor is at long lunches.

She looked at me, and our eyes met and held for a second. Had she been listening in on my chat with Morton? Did she know something I ought to know?

By then, however, thoughts of Steve were weighing in. I hadn't seen him in three and a half months and I was realizing that was about my limit.

I wanted to recapture the lost time. Our being together was going to make everything turn out right.

Clinging to that thought, I grabbed a cab and headed for my hotel and a much-overdue hot bath.

Chapter Sixteen

"Come here," he said.

Whoosh. There he was. He strode through the door, tan safari shirt, smelling like a man who'd just driven hundreds of miles through Central America in an open Jeep. I wanted to undress him with my teeth and lick off the sweat. Brown eyes, skin tan as leather, he threw his arms around me and I felt the weight of the world slip away. He was here. I was wearing a robe, fresh from the tub, but it was gone in a second.

Steve, I gotta say, knew a thing or two about the bedroom.

As we wound ourselves together for the next two hours, I had a refresher course in how much Id missed him, soul and body. His taste, his skin, his touch. Finally, we were both so exhausted we just lay there bathed in sweat, spooned together on the sagging bed. I hadn't felt so good in years. It was like another world.

"G.o.d I've missed you," I said again, holding him closer. The air-conditioning was beginning to lose ground against the late sun, but I didn't care. After my solo nightmare of the last two days, I was remembering what it was like to be a couple again.

The Camino Real, by the way, turned out to be an American-style hideaway with budget s.h.a.g carpeting and flaking blue walls. In a way, though, the downtrodden decor actually made it more romantic, like we'd sneaked off to a garish hot-sheet motel for a twilight rendezvous.

I finally dragged myself up and got us a bottle of water. Then, leaning against the rickety headboard, I recounted an abbreviated version of what had happened yesterday after we'd first talked--the theft of my film, and then Lou being a.s.saulted and Sarah taken, apparently willingly, to be brought (I strongly suspected) back here. What I held out on were the details about a certain Colonel Jose Alvino Ramos, my belief that he was behind the crimes and in league with Alex G.o.ddard and stalking me. I was afraid our room was bugged.

"Morgy, we'll get through this," he said, reaching over to stroke my hair. "If somebody brought her back down here, we'll find her. And I apologize for being such a s.h.i.t on the phone, about the baby. I'd just had a local lab lose three rolls of high-speed Kodachrome and I was seriously frosted at the world. We can keep trying if you want to."

"Just hold me." I put down my gla.s.s and I reached around and ran my finger across his chest. It was so lovely to be this close to somebody you wanted so much. I loved his earnest brown eyes and his soft skin. I loved him. Just having him with me made such a difference.

The unexpected part was, I'd asked him to come and help me, but now that he was here, I was starting to feel uneasy about luring him into my personal nightmare. Was that really fair?

Also, I was getting hints he had problems of his own. The photo book, I gathered, was not coming together the way he'd hoped. He'd mumbled something about finding himself torn between a heartstrings essay about the children (his specialty; you've probably seen his work, whether you know it or not), a devastating portrayal of the latest crop of sleazy politicos, or a nature valentine to the vanishing rain forest. But whenever he agonized about his work, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and just listen. He didn't want bright ideas; he just wanted me to clam up and be there for him.

Anyway, I knew he'd think his way through the problem. He had a deceptive air of vulnerability that always disappeared in a crunch. He was the master of ad hoc solutions. . . .

At that moment, he reached for his watch, studied it, and abruptly bolted straight up. "Hey, I almost forgot my surprise. I hope you're still up for it. Did you know this is our anniversary? It was on this very day I first watched you dive into that grungy swimming pool at the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince."

"My G.o.d you're right. I'm humiliated." I hugged him contritely, feeling like a self-centered twit. I guess I was too focused on Sarah. (I screw up a lot on birthdays too, always with an excuse.) "I don't even have a present for you. I've been so--"

"That's okay." He grinned then stood up and headed for the shower. "Not the first time. But I've got one for both of us. We'll make it a gift to each other. It'll help start you thinking like a _guatemalteco_ insider."

"What? You sneak. What did you get?"

"A trip back into the void of prehistoric time," he yelled over his shoulder. "I am the possessor of a little-known secret about this town.

I called from Belize City this morning and made dinner reservations for us downtown. You'll see."