CHAPTER ONE
Elizabeth Pennington closed the heavy cypress door behind the last of her young students, shut her eyes and leaned her forehead against the thick wood. She had a miserable headache from the incessant South American heat, the children had been gratifyingly noisy after the first few weeks of polite whispers, and what she needed most was a few quiet moments in her small, darkened room and a cool damp cloth on her forehead. Father Pascal would be in the infirmary, dealing with the host of ailments so prevalent among the people in this small village outside the larger city of Puerto Claro – ear infections, dysentery, infected cuts, eyes and stomachs. As soon as Beth had rested she’d head out to help him. Father Pascal’s clinic was understaffed – until she’d volunteered with the Catholic Charities of Callivera he’d had no one but a couple of widows from the village to help. No one good at raising money, no one capable of teaching English. Father Pascal only spoke French and Spanish, which made things tricky, since Beth had only studied French and Latin in school and hadn’t done well with either.
But her Spanish was coming along, almost as quickly as the children’s grasp of English. The children had stronger motivation – she showed them superhero movies and cartoons without subtitles to encourage them, and music was an even more powerful enticement. They loved hip-hop, though it still struck her as slightly odd when rail-thin, eight-year-old Manuela started singing, “what the bitches want with a …” Only fourteen year old Carlos had remained aloof, treating her with a scarcely veiled contempt that bordered on hostility.
Beth pushed away from the door. Things were unnaturally still – the sprawling compound of Santa Luz was usually busy with the sound of children, with Father Pascal’s gentle drone, with the quiet chatter of the village women who’d come in to help. But now all was still, which she could only count as a blessing.
Except that she couldn’t. She had good instincts, even if she’d never had to rely on them. Growing up in the cocooned atmosphere of the Pennington Pharmaceutical dynasty, she’d always had people looking out for her, money to cushion every one of life’s more unpleasant moments. Ever since she’d arrived in the tiny, war-torn country of Callivera seven months ago she’d been alert, listening for a danger that never came. It just went to show that all those years growing up with bodyguards and chauffeurs had been silly precautions.
She quite desperately needed to lie down to get rid of this blistering headache. And she would. As soon as she checked on Father Pascal and made sure everything was all right.
She moved through the long corridors of what was once the largest convent and mission on the eastern border of the country of Callivera. The floors were spotless, swept clear every day, though the scent of rotting vegetation was strong in the air. Most of the place was now deserted, and had been for more than twenty years when the Calliveran army had taken over the government, ousting the current dictator and bringing their own brand of military control. When three nuns had been raped and murdered, the convent had been shut down and the current government had only grudgingly allowed the mission to be reopened to help some of the desperately poor people of the neighboring villages. It had taken months for Father Pascal to get permission to come in, and if it weren’t for the Pennington money greasing the wheels, Beth would still be in Philadelphia, waiting.
She could smell the familiar scent of alcohol and pine-based cleaners that emanated from the infirmary, cutting through the damp smell of the undergrowth that was slowly encroaching on the mission. She listened for Father Pascal’s pleasant, soothing monotone as he dealt with whichever patient had come to him, but no sound came from behind the closed doors. Beth pushed the swinging door open and walked into the deserted room. A room that was never empty.
There were no children in the metal cribs that lined the far wall. Father Pascal liked to keep the little ones overnight until he was sure the ear infections were under control, and there were always at least two or three babies in residence. Not today.
No sign of the widows who lived at the compound and took care of Father Pascal, the building, and everything else they could get their capable hands on. Beth had been a constant frustration to them with her insistence on doing her own laundry, her own cooking, her own cleaning. She hadn’t been about to explain that it was the first time in her life she’d been allowed to do so and she was finding it empowering. They wouldn’t understand that the heir to millions of dollars could always feel helpless.
She walked through the infirmary to the small office. It was late autumn and the sun set early, the shadows long and deep, shrouding the place. She flipped the light switch but nothing happened.
She let out a sigh of relief. The generator must be down again, and Father Pascal would be out working on it. The generator was a dinosaur – temperamental and ancient, and only Father Pascal could soothe it into behaving. Beth was very good with children, a natural teacher, brave in the face of snakes and scorpions, but her mechanical ability was nil. She’d probably only get in his way if she offered to help him.
On the other hand, if she was lying down trying to sleep and the lights suddenly blasted on it would make her headache worse. Best to make sure everything was moving in the right direction before she tried to nap.
The generator was in a separate building around the back of the compound, surrounded by locked gates so that no enterprising band of soldiers would be tempted to liberate it. This part of Callivera had a great deal of unrest, and members of the self-styled liberation army, the Guiding Light, were always causing trouble. Absurd that a group of semi-terrorists had named themselves after an American soap opera, but she’d seen members of the organization in the village, young men barely older than the children she taught, with hollow eyes and the omnipresent tattooed lighthouse on their forearms. Father Pascal had promised her they were basically harmless, but there were times when she wondered just how naïve the sweet old man was.
She was about to turn back, head for her room, when she heard a sound, short, sharp, brief. A cry that was cut off abruptly. She’d been in Callivera long enough to recognize most of the bird calls, and this sounded nothing like them. It sounded almost human.
She was suddenly cold in the sticky heat of the infirmary. She could do the smart thing – head for her room, lock the door, and hide under the bed until morning. That was what Father Pascal had insisted she do in case of trouble, but she’d taken the old man’s cautions with a grain of salt. Now they didn’t seem so ridiculous.
But she wasn’t going to leave the frail old man alone in a dangerous situation. She wasn’t going to run and hide. She had come down to Callivera for many reasons, and to get over her childhood fears was only a
small part of it. But here was her chance to move past the sometimes crippling paranoia her parents and bodyguards had instilled in her. Despite the international news reports, Callivera was safe. Violence was kept to the big cities, and no one would want to hurt an old priest and a teacher.
She pushed through the screen door, stepping out into the early evening shadows, and the thick jungle air closed around her like a wet velvet shroud. She took a shallow breath, annoyed that it sounded shaky, and headed for the corner of the building and the path to the generator.
She saw Tia Maria first, lying face down, the dark pool flowing beneath her and sinking into the damp earth. The other woman, Juana, was a few feet away on her back, her dark eyes staring sightless into the darkening sky, her skirts pulled up to her waist.
Beth froze for a moment, her stomach lurching, and then she stumbled backwards in a daze, hoping she wasn’t going to throw up, hoping she had enough time to run. She spun around, and saw what was left of Father Pascal lying in the shadows beside the building. He’d been savaged, and one old hand was clutching a crucifix, holding tight as he faced a cruel death. She heard a small sob and knew it had come from her own throat.
It was too late to help them, too late to help anyone but herself. There would be no reason to hurt the children – with any luck they would have reached home safely, never hearing the sounds of their teachers being hacked to death. Never hearing Senorita Pennington’s cries.
She heard the noise behind her, the rustle of movement, the smell of sweat and alcohol and anger, and there was no place she could run. She’d foolishly closed the door to the infirmary behind her, and even if she made it that far she’d never get inside. She had no choice but to face them.
She turned, slowly, knowing death was hovering near her on dark wings, waiting for the bullet to split her skull or her chest.