The kitchen was dark, but Rafael had seen lights in the front of the house when he’d driven up. “How long has she been with her?”
“I don’t know, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”
Rafael tried the kitchen door and found it locked. “Where’s your key?”
Fox pulled it from his pocket and threw it to him. Rafael unlocked the door and tossed the key back to him. He knew the layout of the house, and when he didn’t see anyone, he went toward the light under the den door. He knocked. “Mrs. Aragon, it’s Rafael Mondragon. Is Magdalena with you?”
When there was no response, he didn’t waste the time going upstairs to search for them. He tried the doorknob, found the room locked, knew something was wrong and kicked it open. At first, all he saw was blood. Maggie lay slumped on the sofa, her wrists slashed, her blood dripping onto the carpet. Carmen sat in her chair sipping hot chocolate as though she were merely enjoying a relaxing evening while her granddaughter bled to death.
Rafael ran to the den’s door leading to the beach and yelled for Fox and Santos. Mrs. Lopez came running, and he sent her for sheets to rip into bandages. He gripped Maggie’s wrists and pressed hard to stem the flow of blood. He shook her. “Wake up!”
Santos came sliding into the room, and saw by his grandmother’s serene expression that she was to blame for the bloody mess. “Fox, call an ambulance.”
Mrs. Lopez ran down the stairs with white sheets and, with Santos’s help, followed Rafael’s directions to rip them into large pieces and strips.
“Come here, Santos,” Rafael called. “I’ll need you to press a cloth against the wound in her left wrist while I wrap the right. Hold her arm up.” Santos leaned over the back of the sofa and pocketed her bloody watch to get a good grip. As fast as Rafael twisted the cloth around her right wrist, her blood soaked through.
“What did you give her?” he asked Carmen.
“You should have died,” she uttered softly. Not a hair had escaped her tight chignon, and her dress showed no sign of bloodshed, but her crazed gaze held the truth.
Fox came in. “They’ll be here as fast as they can. What more can I do?”
“Find Cirilda, then open the front door and be ready for them,” Santos urged.
“Cirilda has gone to dinner with Dr. Rivera,” Mrs. Lopez offered. “This would never have happened if she’d been here.”
Maggie’s blood was oozing through Santos’s fingers, and he pressed harder. “Call her and insist she come home. I’m sorry I asked you to tell prison stories, Rafael, but thank God you know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve treated men who cut their wrists, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.” There was a bloody paring knife on the tray. Carmen had not sliced across but along Maggie’s arm to open a three-inch gash. When he at last succeeded in stemming the flow of blood from her right wrist, he had Santos let go and wrapped her left.
“We should have sent for a second ambulance for Carmen,” Santos posed. “She’s hostile even on her best days, but if she wanted you dead, why did she attack Magdalena? Clearly her mind’s gone.”
Rafael was too busy to worry about Carmen. “Find a water bottle to empty so we can take what’s left of Magdalena’s chocolate to analyze.”
“You think Carmen drugged her?”
“She must have. There’s no sign of a struggle. Maggie wouldn’t have sat still while Carmen slashed her wrists. Call Moreno to come and look after Carmen. What about Manuel, the chauffeur? Couldn’t he come in to help Mrs. Lopez watch her until the doctor arrives?”
Santos left the room at a run and soon returned with Manuel, who stood back to avoid stepping in Maggie’s blood. Santos had washed his hands and brought an empty bottle to fill with what was left of Maggie’s chocolate. They could hear an ambulance’s wail in the distance.
“Moreno’s on his way. All he’s prescribed for Carmen is sleeping pills. She must have laced Magdalena’s chocolate with them.” He carefully picked up the bloody knife and slid it into a plastic bag to save as evidence. “We’re lucky she didn’t slit her throat.”
“God, I wish you hadn’t said that.” Sick clear to his soul, Rafael couldn’t bear to think of how easily he could have lost the woman he loved. If he’d arrived a few minutes later, he couldn’t have saved her. With Manuel and Mrs. Lopez there to stand watch beside Carmen’s chair, he lifted Maggie into his arms and carried her to the front door to meet the paramedics. His hands still covered in her blood, he climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“Here, you take the bottle,” Santos said. “Fox and I will meet you at the hospital.”
The paramedic fit an oxygen mask over Maggie’s face
. “You did a good job on her wrists. Where’d you get your training?”
“Prison,” Rafael replied, but the word sounded strange in his ears. He’d not been this afraid when he’d faced the Miura bulls that afternoon. The beasts brought an exhilarating thrill demanding absolute concentration, but finding Magdalena near death was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. If what he’d done to help her hadn’t been enough, he’d take a knife to his own throat.
Santos found Rafael standing outside a treatment cubicle in the emergency room. He took Rafael’s arm. “You need to wash off her blood. You can come right back.”
Rafael followed Santos into the restroom and scrubbed to remove the blood from his hands and under his nails. The front of his black shirt was soaked, but the blood didn’t show. “I should have gotten to the house sooner.”
“I was there,” Santos exclaimed. “No one expected something this awful to happen.”