Fierce Love (37 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Maggie and Fox sat on the end of the dock as Santos talked with a man anxious to sell his nineteen-foot Flying Scott. She’d been surprised the sailboat was priced cheaper than a used car and also by how knowledgeable Santos had proved to be. Clearly he didn’t make hasty decisions but managed his money well.

She focused her thoughts on the sparkling Mediterranean and sighed. “I love the ocean.”

“Then why do you live in Arizona?” Fox sent her a quizzical glance and raised a hand to check his spiked hair. In a T-shirt and shorts, he looked younger than his sixteen years.

“An excellent question. There’s a beauty to the desert too.”

“If you say so. I should have thanked you for offering me a place to live, but I’ll be fine with Santos. A friend from school invited me to visit the family estate in Exeter. I’d like to spend the rest of the summer with him and go on to school in the fall. Then I’ll be out of everyone’s way.”

“You’re not in the way, Fox,” she assured him. “I’d like to come visit your school. Do they have a family weekend?”

He looked at her askance. “You’d come with the matador?”

“Sure, why not?”

Before Fox could answer, Santos joined them. “We’re taking the boat out.”

The owner walked away from them along the dock. “Is he trusting us to sail it back?” Maggie asked.

“Sure, he knows who I am, and I’ll have to come back for my car. I hope you haven’t changed your mind about sailing.”

“No, let’s go,” Maggie encouraged, and she was the first into the boat. Santos swiftly guided the sleek sailboat out of the marina into the cool blue Mediterranean. The ocean spray wet her clothes, and the breeze tangled her hair, but racing along the coast was as exhilarating as she’d hoped it would be. Santos kept them in sight of the shore for a wonderful afternoon, but her head ached with the effort to live in the present rather than worry herself sick over Rafael’s chances of surviving the day.

They were seated at a table in a seaside café when Santos’s friend called. He left them to take it privately, but Maggie could hardly wait for his return. She’d asked for tea while Fox and Santos had ordered huge seafood platters. She wondered if the Aragon trust allowed for the cost of food for the teenager, who never got full for more than an hour at a time.

When Santos returned wearing a huge smile, her vision misted with tears. “Is Rafael all right?”

“Of course. Our father taught him well, even if he taught me more. The crowd loves him, and he was awarded a couple of ears.”

“What do matadors do with the ears?” Fox asked. “Do they make them into something?”

“I suppose you could skin the ear and make a coin purse out of it, but most men just toss them into the crowd. You should have been there, Magdalena, and he would have tossed the ears to you.”

“I’ll pass on that grisly honor.” She reached for her teacup, but her hand shook so badly she couldn’t bring it to her lips. Spain held bullfights from May through October and the rest of the year, a matador could travel to Mexico and South America for fights. With fifty-two Sundays a year, and two bulls per event, Rafael would face one hundred four bulls a year. He might as well dance in front of a firing squad. “I’m never going to get used to this,” she murmured.

Santos picked up a shrimp. “Break his heart now. Don’t string him along.”

“What about her heart, Mr. Sensitive?” Fox asked.

“She’ll find another man.”

Maggie knew there were other men, but she wouldn’t make Augustín’s mistake and marry someone she didn’t love.

Once they were seated on the patio behind the beach house, Maggie slipped her watch on her wrist. She expected Rafael to be there within the hour but was too excited to rest. Santos stretched out on a chaise and closed his eyes, and Fox lost himself in a game on his phone. When Mrs. Lopez came outside to bring her a note from Carmen, she was surprised her grandmother wished to see her. She’d said all she cared to to her, but, hoping Carmen wanted to apologize, even if it were a dim possibility, she’d give her a chance.

“Fox, if Rafael arrives, please tell him I’m talking with my grandmother.”

He didn’t look up. “Sure.”

She followed the housekeeper through the appropriate door to the house behind the main staircase and on into the den. Carmen was dressed in one of her neat black dresses with a demur lace collar, and Maggie regretted not bringing an extra set of clothes to wear after sailing. At least her clothes were dry now, if a bit wrinkled. She was glad she couldn’t see her hair, which had to resemble dark straw.

“Please sit down, dear,” Carmen said, with the first hint of a smile Maggie had seen from her. “I had Tomas make his special hot chocolate for us. He uses a bit of cinnamon and another spice he refuses to identify. Won’t you have some?”

Two delicate china mugs were already filled on the tray. “Yes, thank you.”

Carmen topped both mugs with a spoonful of whipped cream and handed one to Maggie with an embroidered napkin. “You were right. I made no effort to welcome you, and I should have done so for Miguel’s sake.”

Maggie took a sip of the hot chocolate and found it as delicious as described. She licked the whipped cream off her lip and took another sip. She was elated her grandmother was making an effort to apologize but didn’t dare gloat. “This is a difficult time.”

“Yes, in every way. Do you like the chocolate? Can you tell what the mystery ingredient is?”

Maggie took another swallow. “In Mexico they use chili, but this has something different. A dash of nutmeg?”

“Nutmeg? Perhaps. Years ago, I spoke with your mother on the telephone, and Miguel sent photos of them together, but we never met. I expected you to favor her.”

Maggie had to cover a yawn. “I’m sorry, it’s been a very long day.”

“Yes, Sundays are especially tiring.”

Maggie felt dizzy and set her mug back on the tray. “Perhaps we could speak another…” She knew what she meant to say but produced only a jumbled slur. Something was dreadfully wrong. Her thoughts were as blurred as her speech, and Carmen now wore a triumphant grin. A scream dying in her throat, Maggie wished for Rafael with her last conscious thought and slipped into a drug-laced hole.

Rafael cleaned up and changed into his street clothes at the arena and left through a side door rather than exit where aficionados of bullfighting would lurk, his mother and half brothers included. He drove to the beach house taking great care not to drive so fast he’d be stopped. He parked out front and jogged around to the patio, where he found Santos sound asleep and Fox busy with a video game.

“Where’s Magdalena?” he asked.

Fox nodded toward the house. “With Carmen.”

The kitchen was dark, but Rafael had seen lights in the front of the house when he’d driven up. “How long has she been with her?”

“I don’t know, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”

Rafael tried the kitchen door and found it locked. “Where’s your key?”

Fox pulled it from his pocket and threw it to him. Rafael unlocked the door and tossed the key back to him. He knew the layout of the house, and when he didn’t see anyone, he went toward the light under the den door. He knocked. “Mrs. Aragon, it’s Rafael Mondragon. Is Magdalena with you?”

When there was no response, he didn’t waste the time going upstairs to search for them. He tried the doorknob, found the room locked, knew something was wrong and kicked it open. At first, all he saw was blood. Maggie lay slumped on the sofa, her wrists slashed, her blood dripping onto the carpet. Carmen sat in her chair sipping hot chocolate as though she were merely enjoying a relaxing evening while her granddaughter bled to death.

Rafael ran to the den’s door leading to the beach and yelled for Fox and Santos. Mrs. Lopez came running, and he sent her for sheets to rip into bandages. He gripped Maggie’s wrists and pressed hard to stem the flow of blood. He shook her. “Wake up!”

Santos came sliding into the room, and saw by his grandmother’s serene expression that she was to blame for the bloody mess. “Fox, call an ambulance.”

Mrs. Lopez ran down the stairs with white sheets and, with Santos’s help, followed Rafael’s directions to rip them into large pieces and strips.

“Come here, Santos,” Rafael called. “I’ll need you to press a cloth against the wound in her left wrist while I wrap the right. Hold her arm up.” Santos leaned over the back of the sofa and pocketed her bloody watch to get a good grip. As fast as Rafael twisted the cloth around her right wrist, her blood soaked through.

“What did you give her?” he asked Carmen.

“You should have died,” she uttered softly. Not a hair had escaped her tight chignon, and her dress showed no sign of bloodshed, but her crazed gaze held the truth.

Fox came in. “They’ll be here as fast as they can. What more can I do?”

“Find Cirilda, then open the front door and be ready for them,” Santos urged.

“Cirilda has gone to dinner with Dr. Rivera,” Mrs. Lopez offered. “This would never have happened if she’d been here.”

Maggie’s blood was oozing through Santos’s fingers, and he pressed harder. “Call her and insist she come home. I’m sorry I asked you to tell prison stories, Rafael, but thank God you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve treated men who cut their wrists, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.” There was a bloody paring knife on the tray. Carmen had not sliced across but along Maggie’s arm to open a three-inch gash. When he at last succeeded in stemming the flow of blood from her right wrist, he had Santos let go and wrapped her left.

“We should have sent for a second ambulance for Carmen,” Santos posed. “She’s hostile even on her best days, but if she wanted you dead, why did she attack Magdalena? Clearly her mind’s gone.”

Rafael was too busy to worry about Carmen. “Find a water bottle to empty so we can take what’s left of Magdalena’s chocolate to analyze.”

“You think Carmen drugged her?”

“She must have. There’s no sign of a struggle. Maggie wouldn’t have sat still while Carmen slashed her wrists. Call Moreno to come and look after Carmen. What about Manuel, the chauffeur? Couldn’t he come in to help Mrs. Lopez watch her until the doctor arrives?”

Santos left the room at a run and soon returned with Manuel, who stood back to avoid stepping in Maggie’s blood. Santos had washed his hands and brought an empty bottle to fill with what was left of Maggie’s chocolate. They could hear an ambulance’s wail in the distance.

“Moreno’s on his way. All he’s prescribed for Carmen is sleeping pills. She must have laced Magdalena’s chocolate with them.” He carefully picked up the bloody knife and slid it into a plastic bag to save as evidence. “We’re lucky she didn’t slit her throat.”

“God, I wish you hadn’t said that.” Sick clear to his soul, Rafael couldn’t bear to think of how easily he could have lost the woman he loved. If he’d arrived a few minutes later, he couldn’t have saved her. With Manuel and Mrs. Lopez there to stand watch beside Carmen’s chair, he lifted Maggie into his arms and carried her to the front door to meet the paramedics. His hands still covered in her blood, he climbed into the back of the ambulance.

“Here, you take the bottle,” Santos said. “Fox and I will meet you at the hospital.”

The paramedic fit an oxygen mask over Maggie’s face. “You did a good job on her wrists. Where’d you get your training?”

“Prison,” Rafael replied, but the word sounded strange in his ears. He’d not been this afraid when he’d faced the Miura bulls that afternoon. The beasts brought an exhilarating thrill demanding absolute concentration, but finding Magdalena near death was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. If what he’d done to help her hadn’t been enough, he’d take a knife to his own throat.

Santos found Rafael standing outside a treatment cubicle in the emergency room. He took Rafael’s arm. “You need to wash off her blood. You can come right back.”

Rafael followed Santos into the restroom and scrubbed to remove the blood from his hands and under his nails. The front of his black shirt was soaked, but the blood didn’t show. “I should have gotten to the house sooner.”

“I was there,” Santos exclaimed. “No one expected something this awful to happen.”

Rafael was startled by his image in the mirror
.
A few hours earlier, he’d been handsome in his traje de luces, but now he looked haunted, as though his dear Magdalena were already dead.

“She’s going to need blood, isn’t she?” Santos asked on their way back to the emergency room.

“Yes. Ask where you can donate.”

“Aren’t you going to donate blood too?”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Santos grabbed his arm. “You’re not HIV positive, are you?”

“No, but I still shouldn’t give her blood.”

“A Gypsy’s blood wouldn’t be my first choice for a transfusion, but blood’s blood, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t need mine.”

Santos just shook his head in disgust and asked where he could donate blood for his sister. Fox was too young, which he took as an insult, and sulked along behind him.