A Dangerous Harbor (27 page)

Katy turned to him, a surprised smile on her lips. "Is that…?"

"Come," he said, taking her hand, "I will introduce you."

Chapter Nineteen:

Katy followed Raul down a long hallway and into a modern open kitchen, complete with contemporary appliances, a butcher block island and a breakfast nook, which was occupied by a large wire cage. In it was what might or might not be a bird. It had the beak and the rounded head of a parrot, but except for some pin feathers on its head and wing tips, it was entirely bald.

The bird whistled a greeting at Raul, then seeing a stranger, immediately turned a large yellow eye in her direction and stretched out a long wrinkled neck to inspect this newcomer. Somehow the result appeared to be less than satisfying and he opened his beak wide as if to say something, then seemed to change his mind, and fluffing phantom feathers, turned his back on them and hunched his head down onto naked shoulders.

"Wow," Katy breathed. "I've just been dissed by a bald parrot. What happened to his feathers?"

Raul handed her a glass of red wine and said, "We'll discuss this in the living room, out of his hearing. He doesn't like people talking about him."

Katy huffed out a quick laugh and saw that he was serious.

"I think you will like the wine," he said. "It's from my family's vineyard."

She lifted the stemmed glass and sniffed the heady bouquet. "Nice. Italian?"

"My father brought vine cuttings from Italy and planted them here in the hills behind Ensenada. We already produce enough to export to the States."

"This in addition to the cannery, your brother's fishing boats and your uncle's restaurant?"

"I'm a very silent partner. My sisters run the winery and the vineyards," he said. Turning to the oven, he donned oven mitts large enough to be used in a glass blowing factory and extracted a hot dish.

Katy breathed in the delicious-smelling casserole. "Lasagna's my favorite, and though the parrot has got the voice down pat, I presume he doesn't cook."

He chuckled quietly and cutting even portions, served them onto plates. Then with a bowl of salad in one hand and his plate in the other, said, "The living room is back through that hallway and to your right, if you will carry your plate and my wine glass?"

She nodded and silently moved out of the kitchen and down the hall to the huge sunken living room. A towering fireplace reached thirty feet above them and in front of it was a beige leather sectional and a shiny black marble coffee table complete with a cache of stubby lit candles and silverware for two wrapped in napkins on a couple of thick placemats.

She set down her plate on the coffee table and giving the wine a swirl said, "Did you come home early to prepare all this then?"

He put down his plate on the placemat and said, "My sister brings me dinners once a week and I asked her to bring enough for two tonight. Please. Sit and let's eat before this lovely meal is cold or I will never hear the end of it."

"It sounds as if you have a wonderfully close family."

"
Mmm
-mm," he said between mouthfuls. "That's why my uncle was so thrilled to see us at his place last week. I don't see him or my aunt enough and they're good people."

Katy was beginning to get the picture. "Mother? Father?"

"My father died three years ago, but my mother is living, and she has six grandchildren and a private girl's school to run, so she is content."

"There are enough wealthy families here in Ensenada to support a private school?"

He closed his mouth around another bite and silently shook his head, asking for a moment while he swallowed. With a quick swipe of his napkin, he explained. "It is private so that she can do as she pleases. My mother is determined to educate poor girls through high school and, when she finds the exceptional student, into college. She has this huge old limousine that she got from some deposed South American dictator—it has bullet holes on the driver's side, which she refuses to have repaired, and she has a driver, Marco. Every morning at five a.m. he waits at several assigned places and then drives them to the school where they get a hot meal and a decent education."

"Indians too?" she asked, remembering the Indian children begging with their mother near the fish market in town.

"When my mother can browbeat the parents into allowing them away from the fields. When you were at Baja Naval, did you meet Roxanna? She's the bookkeeper in the office."

Katy remembered a self-confident young woman with flashing almond-shaped dark eyes and a humorous mouth at the marina office. Roxanna was the one who called Raul for her and then getting no satisfaction, gave the phone a slam-dunk back onto its cradle, and she did have the look of the local Indians.

"The revolution here was about the old land grants that had been gifted in the millions of acres and held for centuries by absentee owners who seldom lived here. The revolution threw out the charters and divided the land up into smaller family plots and gave a voice to the Mestizo. The condition, that the property had to be improved in fifty years or it would revert to the government and be sold, meant corruption, theft and in some cases murder, where land, especially attractive seaside property, was acquired so that developers could make a profit."

"I have a friend who is Mexican-American," Katy said. "She bought a condo in Puerto Vallarta, only to repeatedly have it padlocked on her. Something about the land being stolen from the poor? She got a Mexican judge to reverse the order, but it's still dragging through the court."

 
"Yes, the developers pay off the lawyers and the poor are left with some rocky acreage up in the hills as recompense. Change comes hard to Mexico."

Katy, replete from the good wine and delicious lasagna, quietly asked, "Why does the parrot have no feathers, Raul?"

"Parrots develop a life-long devotion to a mate of their species or an owner. And if their mate, or in this case, owner, dies—they grieve and drop their feathers. My sisters say I am mad to keep him. But I thought if I kept him with me that someday he would recover and they will grow again."

She turned the wine glass around, wondering if Raul had recovered yet. "It must be terribly painful to come home and hear your wife's voice calling to you. Does he do that '
Dinner, sweetheart
' every night?"

He sighed and stood up. Stacking the dishes onto a nearby wheeled butler's trolley, he said, "Come and sit on the couch with me."

Katy, too interested in his story to object, settled next to Raul on the big comfortable cushions of the sofa. He sat a little farther away than she would have liked, but he stretched an arm across the back of the sofa and lightly stroked her shoulder then let his hand fall away as he began talking.

"My dead wife's voice, the laughter of my children—my daily penance, my monthly scourging and my annual sacrifice, such as it is, to their deaths."

Katy waited for him to continue as the seconds turned into minutes.

"I was a lawyer then. I got my law degree in the U.S. as my father wanted me to, married to a good girl from a good family and we had two very young boys. I was representing Ford Motors in
La Ciudad
, as we call Mexico City. Ensenada was considered a haven away from places like Mexico City, which was, and still is, the world capital for kidnappings. So, what did I have to worry about? You've seen the gate and wall outside? It was built after they were murdered, so I don't know why I bothered—I was too late. The house was a design of my father's and he had it built as a wedding gift to us. I loved this house once, but I don't see it anymore… do you understand what I mean?"

"I think I do."

"There had been some problems with what I thought of as the local bad boys smuggling marijuana into the U.S. but my wife was uneasy. She noticed that several homes here on the mountain had been bought by strangers and there were parties and cars coming and going all hours of the night. We had servants, but I hired a guard to watch my family and check incoming visitors.

"One evening, my wife and sons were on the patio next to the house, where the boys liked to play. My sons, I'm told, heard popping sounds, and thinking it fireworks, went to see. The bullets hit my older son first. When my wife screamed and ran for him, more bullets hit her, then my youngest. The servants, to their own peril, dragged them behind the house to safety, but it was too late. I flew home on a friend's private jet…."

"Raul… I…."

"The shooters, the killers, were never found. As well as my family, the police found the occupants of the house next door murdered. I had that house, and all the other houses on this mountain burned to the ground, and the wall and gate built.

"When I finally accepted that the killers were never going to be brought to justice, I became a federal agent for the Mexican government. At first I worked only in Mexico City, but our federal government, even with Calderon as President, has no hope of stanching the bleeding that has become part of this country with the cartels. So, I came home to be close to my family again, and now I work for the President and report on the cartels' activities from Ensenada."

"That's all very dangerous work."

"I did say penance, didn't I? And I have the parrot, his name is Sal
Mineo
, we call him
Mineo
. I see my family more often now that I am here, and they are very patient with me, but I have to say that when I asked my sister to fix dinner for two she was ecstatic… of course, tomorrow I will have to repay her with information."

Katy thought back to their first dinner out and his comment that he'd have to report in to his family the next day. As wonderful as the house was, it was obvious to her that it had become a mausoleum for the man and parrot.

She looked down at his hands, at the gold wedding band on his left hand. "You date, but not here in Ensenada."

He touched the ring and said, "It doesn't do much for the ambitions of the local matrons with eligible daughters, but until now, I have not had a reason to remove it." He searched her face for understanding. "I have friends and another home in Puerto Vallarta, Katrina, but no one woman that I truly care for."

Taking all this in, Katy was at first amazed that she didn't see it from the beginning. But then, she'd been too busy handling Gabe's problems and the investigation, and Raul… that was why… and every time she thought she saw something in his eyes that matched hers… she'd been right the first time, she just didn't want to think she was falling for a married man. But the attraction between them
was
real.

She shook her head and laughed, startling him. "Aren't we a pair? You, a grieving widower, and me, limping down to Mexico where I can hide from the fact that my fiancé dumped me and my job with the San Francisco police department may just be in the toilet."

"He dumped you? You are no longer engaged to be married? I read the San Francisco newspaper notice of your engagement. You were to be married in a month."

"I was actually relieved. But Raul, where do you think this could go, this attraction for each other? Certainly nowhere else but this room, and your wife and children live here still, and certainly as long as you have that parrot. And if that isn't enough, you're hoping to catch the men who killed your family. What do you want from me, Raul?"

He looked from her eyes to her mouth and back again, memorizing her face for when she was gone again. "Is it not enough that I fight with myself to keep from coming to you at all hours because I can't bear to stay away? So, I'll tell you what I want," he said, moving closer to her. "I want to be with you, for as long as you want to be with me. For a day, or a lifetime.
 
What do we have to lose, Katrina Hunter?"

She opened her mouth to answer then closed it, and unable to speak she reached out and put a hand on his cheek. He covered her hand with his own, turned it palm up and ran a forefinger lightly along the crease next to her palm. "This is your lifeline,
cara
mia
, it is yours to do with as you please. No one but you can choose. So, choose, Katrina."