Shadows of the Heart Page 4

  The door was locked.

  Chapter Three

  Trish staggered away from the door, one hand clutching at her throat. Strange lights danced in front of her eyes, so many lights and yet she could see nothing. Her mind reeled dizzily. She felt as if she had been running, running until her lungs were bursting and her throat parched in pain, running for her life. But now she could go no farther.

  Her foot struck a suitcase and she stumbled to her knees, her mind barely registering the new pain. Her hand touched something hard.

  The lamp. She was so close now to being overcome by the smoke that even as she struggled to her feet with the lamp in one hand she had only a vague notion of what she should do with it.

  The window. It was a lighter oblong against the blackness of the wall. Or was the lighter shape only another of the geometric lights that danced in her eyes? Irrationally, her mind wandered. She remembered the way she amused herself long ago as a child in the darkness, squeezing her eyes shut tightly and watching the shapes play against her eyelids… No, she must not think about that now. There was something she must do.

  It seemed to take more strength than she possessed, but some instinct for survival forced her to act. She swung the lamp at the oblong, heard the tinkle of breaking glass. The sound, distant though it seemed, encouraged her, and she swung again and again as the life-giving air surged around her. Finally she dropped the lamp and leaned weakly against the nightstand, gulping fresh air. She felt it clearing her lungs and mind, felt the strength returning to her healthy young body. She wiped at her watering, burning eyes, relief washing over her, but when she opened her eyes, there was new terror.

  The rush of fresh air had fanned the smoldering mattress into flame. In another moment the filmy curtains would catch. Trish screamed wordless sounds of pure terror. She grabbed a pillow and beat at the flames but they spurted higher, dancing demons that nipped at her hands and hair.

  She wasn’t even aware that the door had opened until she heard shouts in Spanish and someone took the pillow from her. A moment later water streamed through the smashed window and the flames died with a protesting hiss. A spray of water hit Trish and she covered her face with her hands. “Seňorita! Seňorita, you are hurt?” Trish blinked. Someone had turned on the overhead lights, but the room was still hazy blue with smoke. The smell of soggy bedding mixed with the acrid odor of the burned mattress. The servant who had spoken helped Trish sit in a heavy wooden chair. A sharp order in Spanish cut off the deluge of water spurting through the window. Trish opened her mouth to speak, but only a hoarse croak escaped.

  “Trish! My God, what happened?” It was Edith, her long dark hair hanging in a single braid down her back. Her astonished eyes took in the condition of the room, Trish’s disheveled appearance, and her incongruous bikini attire.

  Trish cleared her throat and finally managed to speak. “I don’t know what happened. I went for a swim—” She broke off, her mind, even in this groggy condition, hesitating about telling Edith in front of the servants of that frightening encounter with Edith’s father. “When I came back, I fell asleep and when I woke up, the room was filled with smoke. I tried to get out, but the door was locked.”

  “Locked!” Edith exclaimed. She turned to the middle-aged servant and spoke to her in rapid Spanish.

  Trish was too weary and confused to translate the reply but there was no mistaking the vehement shake of the woman’s head. She even made motions in the air to illustrate how quickly and easily the door had opened. Trish stared at her in bewilderment.

  “But I’m sure it was locked. I was trapped or I wouldn’t have smashed the window!” The exclamation left Trish gasping for breath and she went into a spasm of coughing.

  Edith patted her back. “You must try to keep calm. Perhaps you were simply too frightened to think clearly. This was formerly my room and I remember that the door would stick sometimes,” she added soothingly.

  “And the window was stuck too,” Trish remembered suddenly. She stood up, startled to find how unsteady she was on her feet, but she managed to make the few steps to the window. “This afternoon the window opened easily but tonight it was stuck tight, just as if someone had…”

  Trish’s voice trailed off as she and Edith inspected the window together. Trish’s blows with the lamp, weak though they had seemed at the time, had been strong enough to damage the window frame as well as shatter the glass. It was impossible to determine now what condition the frame had been in before Trish battered it.

  “You’re shivering,” Edith said suddenly, her voice concerned. “We’ll talk about this in the morning. What you need right now is a warm bed. I’ll take you to another room.”

  Edith found Trish’s blue robe in the closet and was just helping her into it when Armando appeared in the doorway. He was scowling, still tightening the rope belt of a corduroy robe around his waist. His dark hair was slightly awry, as if he had hurriedly smoothed it back with his hands after leaping out of bed.

  “Trish!” He muttered an oath in Spanish. He grabbed her by the shoulders and then stepped back to inspect her singed hair and disheveled condition. “What have we done, bringing you here and letting this happen to you!”

  He snapped an order in Spanish and the middle-aged woman hurried to the door.

  “I was just going to take Trish to another room,” Edith explained.

  “But how did all this happen?” Armando demanded. He took a long stride toward the soggy mattress and bent to retrive something. “You were smoking in bed.”

  “Oh, no,” Trish said. She shook her head. “I rarely ever do that, and I’m sure last night I didn’t.”

  She broke off suddenly as Armando held up between thumb and forefinger a bare half-inch of cigarette stub.

  “You see, you must have set the cigarette here,” he said, pointing to a small burn on the nightstand. “Then you fell asleep and the cigarette either fell or you knocked it to the bed, where it set the mattress to smoldering.”

  Trish looked at the cigarette stub uncertainly. She hadn’t been smoking before she fell asleep… or had she? She remembered huddling apprehensively in the bed, watching the door until her eyes ached. She couldn’t remember lighting a cigarette, but it was quite possible she had done so, she supposed. Obviously she had. The proof was right there in Armando’s hand.

  She shook her head, feeling disoriented and dazed. “I must apologize. Ruining this lovely room, disturbing everyone…”

  The servant reappeared with a silver tray holding a bottle and glasses. She offered them to Armando.

  “Ah, this is what we all need,” he said. “Brandy.”

  Trish shook her head, but Armando insisted she take a few sips. The liquid felt fiery as she swallowed it and she was again conscious of the raw soreness of her throat. But the bracing, strengthening liquid seemed to help dissolve the blue haze that had enveloped her mind as well as the room.

  She hadn’t been smoking in bed. She was sure of that. And the door had been locked, not merely stuck.

  But that didn’t make any sense, she thought, bewildered. Unless… The apparition of Robert Hepler rose in her mind, the lanky hands opening and closing convulsively.

  “There, you’re shivering again,” Edith scolded gently. “Come with me.”

  Trish returned her glass to the tray and thanked Armando. Edith put an arm around Trish’s shoulders to steady her as they walked down the hall and around the corner to another room. Trish apprehensively wondered where Robert Hepler’s quarters were located. Edith efficiently threw back the bedcovers, fluffed the pillows, and pulled the drapes. Trish perched on the edge of the bed, but, weary as she was, she couldn’t force herself to relax.

  “Stay with me a few minutes,” Trish said. She smiled self-consciously. “I don’t feel like being alone just yet.”

  “You need your rest,” Edith protested. “After such an unfortunate and upsetting accident—”

  “Edith, something else happened tonight that I think you sh
ould know about.” Quickly Trish told Edith about the hallway encounter with her father earlier that evening. “I know seeing me must have upset him terribly. In fact, he seemed to think I was our mother. He called me Carole Ann.”

  “Did you have any further conversation with him?” Edith asked.

  Trish shook her head. A slight frown creased Edith’s smooth forehead, but she put a reassuring hand on Trish’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry about upsetting him. By morning he may forget he even saw you,” Edith said. “But I’ll check with his nurse. If he really seems disturbed, she can give him something.”

  Trish hardly knew how to put her awful suspicions into words. “But suppose he… I mean…” she began awkwardly.

  There was an odd look on Edith’s face. “What is it you’re trying to say?”

  What was she trying to say? That Robert Hepler had crept into her room and left a lighted cigarette with the deliberate intent of burning her to death?

  Carefully, trying to keep her voice from shaking, Trish said, “I felt someone watching me while I was swimming. If… if as you say your father has had mental problems, and you mentioned his bitterness toward Mother…”

  “You think my father tried to kill you? That he deliberately…” Edith’s face paled visibly and her voice trailed off as she stared in horror at Trish.

  The suspicion seemed even more terrible now that it lay exposed between them in blunt words.

  “Maybe not deliberately. Or maybe not me. I mean, if he thought I was our mother.” Trish stammered. “Oh, I don’t know what I mean! But I’m sure, almost sure, I wasn’t smoking, and the door was locked.”

  “Trish, you’re not going to go away because of this, are you?” Edith knelt by Trish’s bed, her hands reaching for Trish’s, her voice anxious. “You mustn’t. Not after all these years, just when I need you so much.”

  The thought of leaving had not entered Trish’s mind and she was touched by Edith’s concern. “Of course I’m not leaving,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t miss your wedding for anything.”

  “I’ll make sure that my father has no opportunity to leave his room unattended again,” Edith added, her voice almost grim.

  Trish noted that Edith, after her initial shock at Trish’s suspicions, did not deny the possibility of their being true.

  “You must not let this frighten you away,” Edith repeated.

  Trish squeezed Edith’s hand reassuringly. “I won’t.” She shrugged and smiled. “And perhaps it was just an accident. Maybe I was smoking in bed. Everything will probably look different in the daylight.”

  Edith stood up. “I’m sure it will. But if you’d like me to post one of the servants as a guard by your door…”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” Trish said quickly.

  Edith gave her another reassuring smile as she closed the door. Trish’s eyes lingered on the knob. It had a privacy lock, the kind where you simply pressed a small button in the center of the knob to lock it. Was that what had happened? Had she in her panic simply locked herself in that other room?

  The thought was momentarily reassuring, but then she remembered. The lock on that other room was not of this type. It required a key. But Edith had said the door tended to stick occasionally, and that was surely the rational explanation. She had fallen asleep while smoking in bed and then in panic had mistaken a door that was merely stuck for one that was locked.

  Now she got up, went to the door, and firmly pushed the button. It was time to get what sleep she could in what remained of this shattered night.

  She slipped the silky robe off, then realized she had no nightgown. She thought about going back to her former room to get one, but she abandoned that idea immediately. No more traipsing around tonight. She quickly stepped out of the bikini and slid naked between the smooth sheets. The sensation was pleasing, momentary coolness giving way to delicious warmth against her skin as she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  When she woke, she was temporarily disoriented both in time and place. With the heavy drapes drawn the room was still in almost total darkness, but a crack of light along the edge revealed bright daylight outside. Trish’s chest felt tight and scratchy inside, and a tentative deep breath brought a twinge of pain. Then she became aware of a light tapping on the door.

  “Trish? Trish, are you all right?”

  Trish had to try twice before she could make her voice respond. She cleared her throat and managed to say hoarsely, “Just a minute. I’ll unlock the door.”

  She slipped the blue robe on. Every muscle felt sore as she hobbled to the door. Edith stepped inside, looking concerned. She was wearing a white dress, almost like a nurse’s uniform.

  “I hated to disturb you, but I was getting worried.”

  “It must be late.” Trish’s voice was a croaking, foreign-sounding noise.

  “I’m going to bring the doctor over later today,” Edith said firmly.

  Trish started to protest, but talking was just too much of an effort. Unresisting, she let Edith help her back into bed.

  “You just stay there,” Edith instructed. “I’ll have breakfast brought to you. We’re lucky that today is the doctor’s regular biweekly visit to the village. It’s one of the services the cafetal provides to the workers. I usually go to the village and assist him. I’ll bring him over as soon as he can get free.”

  Trish nodded, surprised to find how weak she was and how scratchy and raspy her breathing felt. Shortly after Edith left, a servant appeared with an attractive breakfast tray. The juice was particularly refreshing to her raw throat and Trish asked for more. The servant also brought a concoction that tasted a little like a homemade cough syrup Trish’s grandmother used to give her. Somehow Trish doubted that it had any great medicinal value, but it felt soothing and she dozed off again after eating.

  She awoke for the second time that day to hear a commotion from somewhere down the hallway. Suddenly the servant who had brought her breakfast appeared in the doorway.

  “Seňorita, you have a visitor,” she announced breathlessly, disapproval quivering in her voice.

  It must be the doctor Edith was sending over, Trish thought, though why that should arouse the servant’s ire she did not know. Then the servant stepped aside and another figure loomed in the doorway. Marcantonio de la Barca!

  Trish’s heart pounded erratically in reaction to his totally unexpected appearance in her private bedroom. Tall, lithe, faintly predatory, he paused in the doorway. Trish was so astonished that she couldn’t have said anything even if her voice had been working properly. Now she understood the servant’s agitation. A gentleman did not call on a lady in her bedroom. Or was it that Marcantonio did not call on anyone in this household?

  “Marc. What a… a surprise!” Trish finally managed to croak weakly. She clutched her robe around her, glad she hadn’t removed it after breakfast. She touched her tangled hair uneasily, feeling the stubby ends where the fire had singed it.

  He strode into the room and looked down at her, his expression inscrutable, his dark eyes appraising. Trish somehow felt utterly exposed, utterly vulnerable under that superior gaze. Why had he come?

  “Won’t you sit down?” she said, motioning to the room’s single chair.

  She thought for a moment that he was going to refuse and retain his position of domineering superiority, gazing down at her, half-sitting, half-lying on the bed. But he finally turned and sat in the chair she indicated. She pushed herself into a more upright position, careful to keep the robe clutched around her. She wondered uncomfortably if he knew she wasn’t wearing anything under it.

  “I understand there was a fire,” he said abruptly.

  “More smoke than fire,” Trish said. She rubbed her throat. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “Things get around.”

  Trish quickly surmised that the servants of the cafetals were on good, gossipy terms, even if the patrones were not.

  “Young ladies should not smoke in bed,”
he added. He might not be physically towering over her now, but there was a certain patronizing superiority in his voice as he offered the advice.

  “You certainly seem to know everything,” Trish snapped. “I suppose you also know about my midnight swim first?”

  His sensuous lips twitched slightly. “Perhaps.” He glanced around the room. “I assume this is not where the fire occurred?”

  “No, I was in a different room, one that looks out on the swimming pool.” Her throat felt better now, not nearly-so rough and scratchy. The syrupy medicine must have had some effect. There was a glass of juice on the nightstand and she took a sip.

  “But you were smoking in bed?” he persisted. He raised a dark eyebrow. He was lounging back in the chair now, seemingly relaxed and carrying on a casual conversation. Yet Trish was reminded of a cat she had once owned, a cat who would lie motionless, seemingly oblivious to the world, until some unwary bird came within striking distance. Then the cat struck with deadly accuracy. It was not a reassuring comparison.

  Trish hesitated before answering his question. She hated to admit she had been smoking in bed and thus corroborate his obvious opinion of her as a careless, irresponsible little fool. But if she didn’t admit to smoking in bed, she would have to offer some other explanation, and she certainly could not voice her suspicions about Edith’s father to this man.

  “I suppose so,” she finally answered reluctantly. Something tickled in her throat and she coughed nervously.

  “You were fortunate you were not seriously injured,” he commented.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Trish agreed. “I suppose if the curtains had caught fire, the entire room would have gone up in flames.”

  “It is also fortunate someone heard your cries of distress.”

  Why, Trish wondered, did she have the feeling, in spite of Marc’s casual manner, that she was being interrogated? Marc seemed only mildly interested in her answers, lounging in the chair, watching her lazily through half-closed eyes. And yet she had the feeling nothing escaped his attention. She nervously reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear and realized his eyes had dropped to where her hand had been holding the robe together. Now the front of the robe gapped open, revealing the curving hollow between her breasts. She hastily clutched the clinging material together again. He smiled faintly, making her feel somehow prudish.