Page 15
When our expressions made it plain that she couldn’t put it off any longer, Maria looked at me and kind of sighed, resigned. Clearly she believed I wasn’t that great, but I was better than Felix.
“Maria, who paid you to kill my sister?”
“I didn’t really try to kill her!” Maria said, as if her life hung on that point.
“I have to know who paid you to do this.”
“She threatened me and my family,” Maria said, stalling again. “She didn’t tell me her name.”
“You threatened mine.” I wasn’t budging, couldn’t. “And she did tell you a name.”
“Will you help me get back home if I tell you?”
“Won’t do me any good to have you around.” I shrugged.
Maria leaned forward. Felix tensed up.
“ Alemana ,” she whispered. “That was what she was.”
A German had hired this girl to attack my sister. I hoped Felix hadn’t understood the word in Spanish. I tried to keep still. I took a long, silent breath.
“No Rusa ?” I said. Not Russian?
Maria looked at me like I was a dummy. “ Alemana .”
I remembered the young German woman who’d tried to talk to Felicia in the Japanese Friendship Garden. But I had to be sure.
I got up and went to the bedroom door. I knocked softly.
“Yes?” Lucy opened the door. She looked very surprised.
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“A little.”
“I need to you to speak to this woman.”
“What shall I say?”
“Ask her if she wants to earn some money in a strange way.”
“All in Spanish?”
I nodded.
Lucy worked it out in her head for a second or two. “Okay.” She went into the living room. Felix gave us an unreadable look. Sure wasn’t loving Lucy being there.
Lucy said in Spanish, “Do you need to make some money? The way may seem strange to you.”
Maria looked past Lucy to meet my eyes. She shook her head. “ Rusa, no Alemana .”
“Thank you,” Felix said to his wife, careful not to use her name. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Lucy retreated to the spare bedroom with a smile on her face.
“So now I can go?” Maria asked.
Felix had no intention of letting Maria walk out of here alive. I knew that. I had to ask questions while I could.
“This woman approached you outside the Spanish Mission for Women?” I didn’t sit, so she’d think it was almost over. “Tell me again what she looked like?”
“Gray haired, like I said. But that may not have been her own hair. Her face was not much lined.”
“What clothes was she wearing?”
Maria shrugged. “The kind of suit a wealthy woman wears to go out.”
“Did she make arrangements to meet with you again? To get the results of this so-called security test?”
This was the question Maria had been asking herself, I could tell.
“No,” she said slowly. “She did not. I was sure she would be there, to see the results.”
“And did you see her?”
“No,” Maria said. “I did not.” The girl knew what that meant. She gave up hope.
Felix killed her then, without touching her.
After the job was done, he sat with his eyes closed, radiating vitality.
The expression on his face was one I’d only seen on men after good sex.
I didn’t move or speak until he’d calmed down.
He flexed the arm that had been wounded; he smiled. Good as new.
I helped him carry the body to the trunk of his car.
While he went back inside to tell Lucy he’d be gone for a while, I searched Maria.
The car was in Felix’s backyard, and it was dark, so I wasn’t being watched.
I used the small flashlight from the glove compartment.
I was sure Maria had been searched more than once throughout the course of the day, but I had to be sure.
I came up with nothing.
She had a very small amount of money on her, a token for a meal at the Mission, and a crumpled letter from one of her sisters, who lived in Encinitas.
I made myself read it in case it was in code or had some bit of information I needed, but it was just a letter from a barely literate woman to her younger sister, who was trying to make a living in the Holy Russian Empire.
Her name really was Maria.
Felix and I were silent on the drive to the bay.
We drove south to be sure we didn’t see any patrols.
We worked our way to the water by an old cannery or warehouse, about to fall down.
I was terrified the whole time something would happen to my black dress, so I took a lot of care.
Felix made frequent comments about that.
After we’d gotten rid of Maria, Felix dropped me off at the ferry landing. Again, we hardly spoke. That was fine with me.
I didn’t like the things I’d done. Nothing was clear; nothing was simple.
It was a relief to get on the ferry by myself. I went to the ladies’ room and checked my dress in the harsh light. It looked fine.
I got a taxi to the Del Coronado. It was on the other side of Imperial Island.
I arrived looking very proper, despite my body disposal stint.
From the music and bustle, there were several parties going on throughout the hotel grounds.
The uniformed man at the door directed me to the correct room for the Medina/Hirsch/Anderberg party.
I’d missed the dinner, but the dancing had begun.
I spotted Eli right away. His light brown hair was braided back, and he was in his evening clothes.
Ordinarily, my husband looked a little gawky, a little awkward, in his everyday gear.
But not tonight. When our eyes met, he let me know he thought I looked pretty good in the black dress, too.
It had been a while since he looked at me like that.
Eli knew I’d want to know where my sister was, and he nodded at the dance floor.
She was partnered with Clayton Dashwood.
I relaxed. Clayton had been by far the most pleasant of the men and women who’d shown up to get an early look at my sister.
And he hadn’t tried to kill me or abduct Felicia.
Maybe my standards of pleasant weren’t that high.
It was a pretty lively dance number. Though I wasn’t surprised that Felicia could dance (my sister could do anything), I was a little taken aback that she and Clayton were so in sync.
They looked good together. Ahren Hirsch was dancing with Katerina Swindoll, Felicia’s friend.
They were not as quick on their feet, but they were smiling.
Fenolla was standing close to the drinks station, talking to a young man I didn’t know.
I should have remembered him from studying everyone Listed, but I was too tired to recall his name.
When the dance ended, Felicia smiled at Clayton Dashwood and went to speak to Eli.
He pointed to me, and she tracked me down to give me a little wave.
She began working her way around the room.
She was making her way to me, I thought, but Felicia stopped halfway to talk to a young man and stuck there. Hans Goldschmidt.
For the life of me, I didn’t know how I felt. Did it even make any difference?
“The sister,” Clayton Dashwood said. Somehow, he was standing right in front of me.
“That’s me,” I said, trying to sound bright. “The sister. Lizbeth.”
“I talked to your husband earlier.”
I noticed again that his brown eyes were more a mahogany. Clayton was a handsome man. “Camilla is here, too. I think she’s having a pretty good time. She found a guy from Canada who loves to ride and raises Arabians.”
“How about you?” I said. “Has your evening been successful?”
“I think my suit for Felicia might be a failure.” Clayton inclined his head toward Felicia and Hans. He gave me a wry look.
“You don’t seem real heartbroken,” I observed.
“Let me get you a drink,” he offered. Clayton didn’t seem heartbroken, but he might have been a tad relieved.
“That would be nice.” I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until he said the word “drink.”
Clayton put his hand on the small of my back, very lightly, I guess in case I got lost on my way to the drinks table. “What would you like?” he said.
“Not alcohol,” I said. “Anything else.”
“I’m not a drinker myself,” he told me. “Drinking runs in my family. I’m going to dodge that bullet.”
“I’m real glad to hear that,” I told him. I’m always impressed by people who see trouble coming and try to head it off.
Clayton had a funny expression on his face. He was surprised, and quite pleased. Huh. He got me a glass of soda with ice. I was glad to take a sip. This chitchat was not going the way I’d expected.
“I’m going to ask you a delicate question,” Clayton said. He was real serious.
“Go ahead.” Another surprise from this Britannian.
“Your husband is clearly a grigori. Did he go to a meeting today?”
I’d been looking around the room to find out where Felicia had gotten to, but now Clayton had all my attention. “Eli’s a busy guy,” I said carefully. “I don’t know where he goes. Or what he goes there to do. Maybe he went to a meeting.”
“So that’s a yes,” Clayton said, doing some direct looking of his own. “I’m very anxious to know what went on. I believe Britannia’s about to go to war, and I’d like to know why.”
“You read the papers, I guess. What do you think?”
“I think this Adolf Hitler is a terrible man,” Clayton said.
“But that war will be in Europe. It’s not likely to get to this soil, even if Japan allies with Germany, which maybe has already happened.
It would be our mother country that draws Britannia into it.
Half the English government is determined to fight.
The other half is just whistling in the dark, hoping everything will be all right.
I wonder what your husband thinks will happen, if he went to an important meeting today. ”
“I would like to know the answer to that, too,” I said. And I’d never meant anything more. “I hope we’ll both have that answer soon.”
“Will you undertake to tell me that answer, if you learn it before I do?”
“I want to say yes, but I can’t. I have to see what… secrecy is laid on me when I hear the answer.”
We stood in silence for a moment, looking at each other.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15 (Reading here)
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41