Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (18 page)

“It must have killed him to stay out of it,” Calli murmured, feeling a sting of tears. “Maybe it did. They said the cancer was stress-related....”

“No, Calli, don’t go wearing that one too. You carry too much already.” Josh’s hand touched her shoulder briefly.

She blinked the tears away. “He knew in his gut, about Robert?”

“Yes.”

“You believed him?”

“Without doubt.”

“That’s how I feel about Duardo, Uncle Josh. In my gut, I know he’s good. Minnie will be okay.”

Again he stayed silent, absorbing it. Then he straightened. “Thank you,” he said softly and went back inside, leaving her with her thoughts. But she had been alone barely a minute when the door slid aside again and Minnie stepped out. She held a cardboard box.

“Another delivery for you.”

“Who is it this time?”

“I don’t know. Open it.”

Calli pulled the string off the box—it was the size of a cake box, but brown like wrapping paper. She flipped the lid open. Inside sat a pair of Spanish tap shoes and resting on top of them a small, flat, thick blue velvet-covered presentation box. She smiled when she saw the shoes and held them up to Minnie. “Guess,” she said.

“Don’t have to,” Minnie said quietly. She took the big cardboard carton from Calli and held it while Calli opened the smaller velvet one.

Inside lay an intricately worked silver belt buckle, made up of delicate filigree threads and adorned with green stones. Emeralds? A card sat tucked behind it. Calli plucked the card out and handed the box to Minnie silently.

Minnie gasped. “Holy Toledo!” she breathed. She pulled the buckle out and turned it over. “Yes, it is! This is Vistarian silver—see the stamp? And these must be emeralds. I know they dig them up in the northern ranges.”

Calli opened the envelope. Inside was a small card.

In my soul, you will always be dancing. Keep it so in yours.

No signature, but she didn’t need one. The strong, character-filled flourish on the down strokes was all she needed to know who signed it.

She handed the card to Minnie and leaned against the balcony rail again.

Minnie leaned beside her and swayed against her, a little companionable jostle. “I think you’re in trouble,” she said softly.

“Me too.” She dropped her head into her hands.

“My warning this morning came too late, didn’t it? You’re already involved with him.”

“Yes. No...I don’t know. I think so...But, oh God, the risk, Minnie!”

“Isn’t just getting out of bed a risk?”

“Yes, but the odds now...”

“So what?”

Calli looked at her, a little surprised by the fierce tone in her voice.

“A long time ago, Calli, when you first met Robert, you said something to me I’ve always remembered. I asked you how did you
know
Robert was the right one, that he was worth giving up college for, to support him while he went through medical school and you said—do you remember?”

“No.”

“You said that lots of people fear risk, of the price it will ask of them at the end, yet you’d read about people who lay on their death bed and they don’t bewail the price of risks they’ve taken. They regret the risks they didn’t take, the things they didn’t do because they were afraid. You didn’t want to get to the end of your life and regret what you didn’t do.”

Calli remembered the conversation now. “Instead, I’ve spent five years bewailing the price I paid for that risk.”

“I think you’ve paid enough,” Minnie murmured.

Chapter Nine

“There he is!” Minnie said, her voice lifting.

Duardo, again wearing jeans and a black sweater, lifted his hand when he saw them. He waited across the street, but Minnie rushed across with barely a pause to assess traffic—she dived between cars, causing at least one set of brakes to squeal sharply, and made the other pavement with a jump. Still running, she pushed through the people strolling the avenue, taking in the evening air, and threw herself at Duardo, literally wrapping herself around him, her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He held onto her, grinning, and ran his hand through her hair, then kissed her, passionately and long.

When Callie crossed the street and made her way through the flow of pedestrians to the place where they stood, Minnie had regained her feet and Duardo caressed her face. The gentleness of his touch made Calli’s heart ache. Oh, how she hoped for Minnie’s sake that he loved her!

Duardo turned to face her, came to loose attention and bowed. Vistarian men did it often, she realized, and it did not seem silly or archaic. It seemed like a very genuine expression of honor. Then he took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Miss Calli.”

“Thank you for the flowers, Duardo.”

“They were not enough,” he declared. He lifted her hand to his head, pushing her fingers under the hair. She felt beneath her fingers a long, hard welt of skin about an inch across.

“Ugh,” she said.

Minnie lifted her hand to feel, too, and pulled it away with a grimace.

Duardo just grinned. He pointed to his temple. “I still see double a little. So I am off duty until I see just one.” He tucked Minnie under his arm and squeezed her. “We walk, okay?”

“Yes.”

Calli noticed bruises and scrapes around his wrist, peeping beneath the sleeve of the sweater, but he used that hand without hesitation, gripping Minnie’s. “Hey, you guys should go on without me,” she said. “I can go get dinner somewhere.”

“No,” Duardo said firmly, even as Minnie protested. “You come with us.”

“I don’t want to be in the way,” she said.

“No,” Duardo said again. He pulled her around and made her walk beside him, keeping a grip on her elbow.

Realizing she wouldn’t be able to leave them alone without creating a scene, she tried to relax and enjoy the stroll. A lot of people seemed to be doing the same thing, in twos, threes, even more. It seemed fashionable to stroll the Avenue of Nations in the evening. The cars on the four-lane paved road also moved leisurely and passengers in the cars would call out to pedestrians. Along the pavement many pushcarts sold flowers, food, cheap jewelry, clothing and trinkets, but it didn’t appear to be a hard commercial push—they seemed content to watch the crowd go by and make social contact with people they knew.

“This street, they see many parades,” Duardo explained.

“It’s wide enough.”

“That’s the Palace up there, isn’t it?” Minnie asked.

Calli looked up. The road sloped upwards from here, a gentle incline that ended at a semi-circular building in white stone, bathed in spotlights.

“That is
el Edificio Legislativo
,” Duardo said. “The President’s residence is behind it and there is lots of park in between.”

At the top of the hill, the road widened out into a very large circle, matching the curve of the legislative building. In the middle of the circle was a fountain, which seemed to be the center of social activity on the Avenue. Many people sat around the fountain and many more lingered in the area, talking and walking about.

A wrought-iron fence separated the public circus from the legislative building, and in the middle, two gates stood open, with armed soldiers at attention. Duardo headed toward the gates.

“We’re allowed in there?” Calli asked.

“The public, no. But me, they let me in. I am part of the government.” He lifted his hand in a salute to the guards, who brought their feet together at parade attention as they passed by. Duardo walked over to the gate house, where a man in normal army uniform sat behind the glass. He chatted to him for a minute and pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, to show ID.

Finally, the man behind the glass pushed a clipboard through the slot and Duardo signed it. The man gave a salute, which Duardo returned and then tucked Minnie back under his arm. “No sweat,” he told Calli.

“I’m sure they don’t let just any soldier in here, though,” Calli said.

“Ah, no, but I am walking wounded. They feel sorry for me.” He grinned.

“You’re lying, but okay,” Calli said.

“It is perfectly true!” Duardo protested.

A great archway lay ahead. It actually burrowed through the middle of the building, in the manner of some of the European buildings where the road ran through the middle for coachmen and horses to drop their privileged passengers right at the door. Duardo led them under the arch and their footsteps echoed flatly across the old cobblestones.

At the other end of the archway, the road became a covered walkway, well lit, with slim columns lining each side. It was a modern addition, designed to provide shade and protection from daily rain for those walking to the legislature. Along the walkway, guards stood between the pillars at regular intervals, facing each other. The walkway ran straight toward another three story building, this one unlit by spotlights. Lights illuminated rooms here and there, but many of them remained dark. The Presidential residence.

Duardo did not walk down the pathway. Instead, he slipped out between the pillars, across well-tended lawn and around huge beds of flowers surrounding shady trees, in a big arc that would eventually bring them towards the north wing of the palace.

“You’re heading somewhere,” Calli guessed. “This isn’t just a stroll in a pretty garden.”

“We are just walking,” Duardo said. He halted them suddenly, a hand on Calli’s arm and called out something in a low voice. An equally low response came from their right and Duardo answered. Then Calli heard the sound of metal clinking. Duardo let her arm go. “Come,” he declared.

“We just got challenged by someone with a gun!” Calli said. “Hidden away where no one could see them.”

“You do not think those guards standing so stiff would be able to see everything, did you?”

“They didn’t just let you in here on a whim, did they?” Calli said.

“Not quite,” Duardo admitted. He brought them to a halt, next to a tall bed of flowers and grasses. She could smell the dry, herbal smell and a strong, almost intoxicating scent of some sort of lily nearby. They faced the covered walkway, about thirty feet away from it and they would be quite invisible in the darkness beyond reach of the lights.

“See?” Duardo said, nodding towards the walkway.

Calli drew a sharp breath, her heart jumping. Nick walked down the walkway, obviously in a hurry.

“He has been alerted by the gatehouse,” Duardo said. “No one comes in here without
el leopardo
knowing about it. Because it is me, he hurries to find out what is wrong, for he knows that I would not come here without just cause. In a moment, when he finds me gone, he will go back to the palace, puzzled and concerned.”

“Why, Duardo?”

He looked at her and in the darkness she saw him smile. “It is time for you to surprise him instead of always being surprised by the leopard. Take the choice away from him this time.”

There remained so much unspoken in his words, a wealth of knowledge and understanding that made her a little uneasy.

Minnie held out her hand. “I told Duardo, Calli. All of it. Even Robert.”

Calli was suddenly glad of the dark that hid her burning cheeks. “Jesus Christ, Minnie!”

“This is right,” Minnie said firmly. “Take the risk. Take the leap.”

“Yes, the leap,” Duardo said. “Minnie knows. You listen to her. And you, the strong one, here is what you must do.” He took her arm and led her around the far side of the flower bed beside them. They came right up to the Palace itself, on the far corner. The stone walls were still warm from soaking in the day’s sunlight. Duardo pointed up at the second balcony and then at the concrete screen that blocked off the end of the lower floor veranda. “A good ladder, yes?” he asked.

“Up there?” Calli asked.

“His rooms are there, where he stays when he is in the city.”

“How do you know so much, Duardo?”

“In the last few days I have learned very, very much, because I met you and Minnie. I have become...a channel.”

“Conduit.”

“
Sí
.” He glanced over her shoulder. “He comes.” He patted her shoulder and abruptly, silently, left. The trained soldier moving in stealth.

Calli moved around to face the concrete blocks. Their intricate patterns provided toe and finger holds everywhere. Duardo proved right—it was virtually a ladder. She began to climb, wishing she had worn jeans again, but at least her short skirt didn’t get in the way. It just didn’t protect her knees very well. A cotton skirt and spaghetti strap top would not have been her apparel of choice for climbing walls.

The blocks went all the way to the roof of the building, which meant when she’d climbed high enough, she had to move sideways to reach the actual balcony rail, a concrete balustrade a good two feet thick. She jumped down to the floor and looked about. A huge old Banyan tree spread its branches out a few feet further along the veranda, giving her a place to hide from observers down below.

She sat on the balcony rail behind the tree and rested against the pillar there, completely hidden except for anyone who might be standing at the end of the second floor balcony. If Nick’s rooms were at the end, as Duardo said, then he would have to walk past her to reach either one of the three French doors there.