Fiesta Moon (30 page)

Standing in the door, his expression as wooden as the carvings in the tourist shops, Primitivo waited patiently, a faint trail of smoke drifting up from the pipe in his mouth. As if sensing that Mark was no longer a part of what had become their passionate exchange, Corinne backed away, confusion overtaking her flushed features. Following Mark's look toward the entrance, she gasped and leapt to her feet.

“P-Primitivo,” she stammered, reaching for the washcloth that tumbled to the floor. “We . . . I didn't hear you come in.”

“We have a custom in the States called knocking,” Mark grumbled.

“I'd best dump this water and leave you two be.” Corinne grabbed the water basin with such force that the water sloshed over the side, spilling down the front of her jeans.

“You are better?” the Indio asked, as if he was always met by a couple in passion's embrace.

Mark spied the dingy woolen medicine sack slung over his shoulder.
Please, Lord, no chopped chicken liver. I don't even like that at swanky places.

“My
nagual
entered the land of the spirits,” Primitivo said.

“Your
nagual?”

Primitivo gave him an impatient look. “My animal spirit . . . it is how one travels in the spirit world. Did you burn the candles and cobal as instructed?”

“We burned the candles.”
As night-lights.

Primitivo gave him a dismissive wave. “No matter. You were witched by the ghost before you could protect yourself.” He shook his head. “Shame you no smoke tobacco.”

“Oh, that would have helped my cough a lot.” Mark couldn't help his sarcasm. He felt like the dickens, although Corinne had done wonders to distract him. Talk about a rude awakening. Primitivo gave him the willies.

“How has Soledad cleaned since your visit from the other side?”

“Do spirits wear shoes and swear at pigs?”

Primitivo's gray brow shot up. “The pig drove it away?”

“More likely Toto was mooching attention.”

“I heard it belonged to a witch. That is good.”

There was no reasoning with this guy. Mark glanced over to where the pig had slept without fail since the night of the ghostly encounter—in front of the hearth. It fetched. It heeled, although of its own accord. Spiritual nonsense aside, could it be part guard dog too?

“Soledad sweeps with a broom, no?”

Mark nodded. Despite his doubts regarding Primitivo's beliefs, he was curious as to what Soledad's cleaning had to do with witchcraft.

“Hmm.” Digging into his sack, the Indio produced a candle. After several attempts, he finally lit it with his pipe.

If the old man started dancing and chanting, Mark would lose it. He watched as the healer walked around the room, watching the flame of the candle and kneeling to wipe the floor with his hand.

“No one else is sick?”

“Just me.” But if Soledad caught Primitivo insinuating that she did not keep a clean house, he would be needing a healer too.

Toto raised his head as the elder Indio approached him with the candle, but never moved when Primitivo climbed up on the raised hearth and ducked into the fireplace.

“Does she sweep in here?”

Mark had to think. He didn't recall seeing Soledad near the hearth since the snake episode. “I don't know.”

With a grunt, Primitivo ran his hand over the brick floor of the fireplace and then looked at it. “It is as I thought,” he said. “You have the bat fever.”

“Bat fever? Don't I have to hang out in caves to get that? No pun intended.”

Even if the pun was intended, Primitivo missed it. “See the flame of the candle? It wavers with the movement of the air. And the air moves this,” he said, showing the dark dirt collected on his palm. “It is
mal
witchcraft. Very bad.”

“What is it, Primitivo?” Corinne inquired, walking in from the foyer.

“The witch brought the bad air from the cave into this room, making Señor Marco sick in the lung.”

Mark smirked. “Are you saying that dirt made me sick?”

Primitivo nodded. “So I said.”

“That dirt came from a cave,” Corinne said, as though trying to make reason of what the Indio told them.

“I saw it in my dream. The ghost brought the cave sickness into this room, putting Señor Marco to lose.”

“So Dr. Flynn wasn't so far out after all,” she said.

Mark looked at her in disbelief. Surely she wasn't buying this mumbo jumbo. “Dr. Flynn had a dream too?”

Corinne shook her head. “No, but she said that your symptoms were in keeping with an infection that comes from inhaling spores from bat or bird dung. Cave explorers sometimes come down with it.
Histo-something.
She sent a blood sample to Cuernavaca yesterday just to be on the safe side.”

“I've been breathing spores from bat crap?” Maybe he was better off not knowing what had made him sick, since he was improving.

“The cave sickness.”

Primitivo probably wouldn't know a spore from a sponge, but somehow the old healer might have found the source of Mark's problem.

“We must remove the dirt and burn copal in its place.”

“We'll do more than that.” Corinne peered into the fireplace. “With the soot and smoke stains, I never noticed.”

“The spirits spoke true to my
nagual
.”

“Your animal spirit?” Corinne echoed.

“In his dream,” Mark explained, his mind still reeling over the dung factor. “Don't ask.”

CHAPTER 25

“I knew I'd wind up back here one way or another,” Mark teased as Corinne turned back the covers of her bed an hour later. It was the only place she could put him until his room was thoroughly cleaned.

“Keep pushing it, amigo, and you'll wind up outside on your air mattress with Toto as a nurse,” she warned in like humor. She hoped the heat blooming on her neck and cheeks wouldn't reveal that he'd been there more than he knew—haunting her thoughts and dreams. Somehow this rascal had managed to charm his way through her best defenses. Her mind was on the brink, and her heart had already deserted its post. And if Primitivo hadn't interrupted them earlier . . . Her pulse catapulted, reminding her senses of the heady, yet innocent, seduction.

“Your pillows smell like you. Sweet, fresh, flowery.”

She'd never been so flustered, so at a loss to explain what she couldn't.

“Scented shampoo and conditioner,” Corinne replied, her effort to remain unaffected and businesslike withering as her body remembered what reason dismissed—or tried to.
God, how does a woman separate passion from love?

“Orange blossom, isn't it?”

She hoped he wasn't as astute when it came to Toto's
fresh, flowery smell
. . . although Soledad had stopped washing the pig with Corinne's bath-and-body set.

At the moment, the pig was still on duty with the housekeeper in the salon, seemingly fascinated by her efforts to remove dirt. The moment Primitivo left, Soledad began emptying Mark's room for a thorough cleaning—candles and incense burning. It was easier to put Mark in her own bed temporarily than to get into an old debate that went nowhere.

But if there were disease-causing spores in the dirt that had been left in the fireplace, by evening they would be gone—except for the sample Corinne bagged after calling Dr. Flynn earlier. If the police wouldn't do their work, someone had to.

“I have to admit,” Mark told her as Corinne opened another window for cross ventilation, “I'm exhausted after that little effort.”

Sensing a downturn of spirit, she quirked a single brow at him. “So kissing me was an effort?”

Mark laid an arm across his chest in salute. “It gave me the strength to carry on . . .”

What
was
she doing? She wasn't a flirt and certainly not one of those women who milked men for compliments. She was confident, self-assured.

“. . . although I might need another dose.”

Okay, that grin was worth it. A major
twickler.
Corinne pulled her scrambled wits together. “That's for your nurse to determine. Right now, I register the blarney factor as full. Now, on a more serious note—”

“I thought heart palps were serious.”

He wasn't playing fair. Hearts were serious, and hers was flipping out. “Dr. Flynn said that if it is histoplasmosis, it should run its course in eight to ten days. It tends to linger longer or even become deadly in people who have constant exposure or a chronic breathing problem.”

Mark snorted, a good stretch from humor. “At least my witch isn't quite as practiced as he or she could be.”

“I don't know,” Corinne said, her evasive switch tactic providing time for a little self-CPR. “Putting the stuff in the fireplace was pretty ingenious. No one noticed, and with no fire and the flue open, the draft would disburse the spores into the room.” She rubbed her arms as though the ghost in question had walked through her. “We're lucky that Soledad and I aren't sick as well.”

“You only slept here one night . . . and Soledad had the place locked up like Attica.” Mark's expression firmed with resolve. “If— and I do mean
if
—the test comes back positive, this trying to scare us off is going too far. It takes more than a little bat crap to make me back down.”

Is this the same guy who didn't want to be here two months ago? In a mix of admiration and wonder, Corinne studied the stubborn set of his golden, whisker-stubbled jaw. Shaving faces was not in her job description. Too many contours, when it was all she could do to navigate a razor around her knees without drawing blood.

“Maybe you could ask Blaine if he knows anyone who will take us seriously,” she suggested.

She and Mark had already agreed that if Capitán Nolla would ignore footprints left behind by a ghost, getting him to come look at some dirt in a fireplace was a waste of time. It was so frustrating, she could just scream.

“Yeah, I can hear me explaining it now,” Mark said with a dour twist of his mouth. “Some witch is practicing Aztec germ warfare on me.”

It did sound absurd. That was the scary part about the so-called witchcraft. No one of authority took it seriously enough. And if Primitivo was right about this, could the old Indio be right about the Pozases' and Enrique's deaths as well?

“Where's CSI when we need them?” Mark quipped. He heaved a labored sigh.

Corinne placed her hand on his forehead. It was clammy, but not fevered. At least he was recovering according to Dr. Flynn's expectations. The antibiotic was doing its part, and now that they knew the cause—or thought they did—reinfection wasn't likely.

“We'll have to settle for your blood test results for now. Dr. Flynn is expecting them late this evening or tomorrow. Then we'll know for certain.” She poured fresh water from a thermal carafe on her nightstand.

“Wake me when the call comes,” he yawned with an accompanying stretch of his upper torso.

Corinne watched, mind and body held captive by the rippling interplay of his muscles . . . until the ice water overran the glass in her hand.

“Oh, bother!” She handed the dripping glass to him. “I hate it when the ice breaks from the bottom like that,” she excused herself. After all, there
had
to be some ice on the bottom, since she'd just filled it.

As she tore off paper towels to mop up the overflow, a timid knock drew her attention to the open door.

Clad in dark violet, Doña Violeta stood there, looking none the worse for wear from her angina episode that past weekend. She reminded Corinne of a tiny, slightly bent queen, crowned with the shining silver of a thick braid.

“Doña Dulce,” Mark called out from the bed. “You're a sight for sore eyes.”

The bright smile on the woman's smile-weathered face faltered. “Has the fever damaged your eyes?”

“It's just an expression to say that he is glad to see you.” Corinne threw the wet towels in a nearby trash basket. “We both are.” She walked over to hug her guest when Antonio jumped from his hiding place behind the woman.

“
Buenos días,
señorita!”

Clutching her hand to her chest, Corinne jumped back with a sharp intake of breath. “Antonio, you rascal,” she managed on recovery, giving him, and then his companion, a hug.

“I hope you don't mind,” Doña Violeta apologized, “but he was so anxious about his Señor Mark.” The sparkle returned to her gaze as the boy bounced on the bed next to Mark. “As was I.”

“Well, as you can see, I'm still here,” Mark announced. “But Corinne and I were worried about you. Any more spells?”

Doña Violeta waved away his concern. “None . . . and I would not have had that one, had I not forgotten in my excitement to take my medicine.”

Was there a pill for what Corinne felt every time Mark flashed that boyish grin, when there was anything but a boy behind it?

“Do you wish to arm wrestle?” Antonio asked him.

Mark chuckled. “Maybe next week, amigo.”

“Antonio,” Corinne chided, “Mark is too sick to play.” She watched as the boy digested her warning.

“When I am sick, I like to be read to.” The boy turned to Mark, disappointment vanishing in sunshine. “I brought a bag of things to keep me quiet and in it is my favorite book. It is called
Green Eggs and Ham
.”

“You're kidding, ” Mark replied. “That was one of my favorites too.” He patted the side of the bed. “I haven't heard it in years.”

Corinne's heart squeezed for Mark. He would obviously rather be left to his dreams, but he would tough it out rather than hurt the boy's feelings. For someone who hadn't been around children very much, he was a natural.

“And while the men visit, perhaps we might have tea?” Doña Violeta suggested.

“That sounds lovely,” Corinne answered, trying to ignore the nick of fear at the nape of her neck.