Señor Bovio continued walking toward the stairway. I caught up with him and grabbed his arm to get him to stop and turn around.

“He knew it was me, señor. He grew inside me. My blood is in his veins. He—”

“It was the dress,” Señor Bovio said, leaning down to whisper to me.

“Qué? What?”

“The dress.” He smiled. “That dress you’re wearing was the dress she wore the day we brought Adan back from the hospital. The dress,” he whispered again, and continued toward the stairway.

I stood looking after him, my mouth open but my tongue unable to form a single word. Behind me, I heard the door being locked.

I followed Señor Bovio, but he hurried off to his office and closed the door before I could get to him. I knocked on it, but he didn’t answer.

“Señor, please, listen to me.”

I waited, but there was only silence, and the door was locked.

Frustrated, I hurried back to my room to take off the dress. I couldn’t get it off fast enough. His comment frightened me so. What madness was this now? Was he just confused, overwhelmed by emotion? How much could I blame on a man’s sorrow over the loss of his only son? Whom could I tell all of this to, anyway? Tía Isabela? Fani? Edward, who had run off? Dr. Denardo? Who would listen to me or believe anything I said now?

Undressed, I sat in a daze until I was too tired to think or keep my eyes open, but the image of Adan Jr.’s face settled over my eyes the moment I closed them to search for sleep. It brought me to tears. Then I remembered that I would be seeing Ignacio the next day, and I began to think only of that.

In the morning, I put on the dress I had worn when I had first come to mi tía Isabela’s home, a dress Ignacio had seen me wearing. I was surprised at how tight it was in the waist and bosom, but I wore it anyway. I looked for Señor Bovio. Teresa told me he had already left the house. Mrs. Newell went up and down the stairs quickly, avoiding me.

As I went out to the car, I think I was as nervous as I had been that first day I had arrived in Palm Springs. My stomach was doing flip-flops, and my heart wasn’t racing as much as it was ticking loudly like some old grandfather clock. Stevens said good morning and smiled at me. At least someone acknowledged my existence, I thought. I got into the car and practically curled up in the corner, terrified of what awaited me.

What would Ignacio do? Would he even come to the visitors’ area to see me? Would he want to greet me with a kiss or a slap? Not that long ago, we had risked our lives together in the desert, and he had nearly lost his life to protect me. He had rescued me a second time when he appeared at my old house to reveal that he was still alive. I had been days away from marrying a man I did not love, trapping myself in a life that would be a kind of prison, too. We had made promises to each other then, promises that were perhaps too great for me to keep.

As the limousine took me to him, I admitted to myself that I couldn’t place all of the blame on Sophia for having alerted the police. Ignacio’s father hadn’t been wrong, either. I had blundered and made it possible for her to do it, knowing all along that she was crouching like a cat in the bushes, waiting for an opportunity to do me harm and to do the Davilas even more harm. Ignacio had put so much trust in me, so much faith and love. I was sure that he had spent many lonely hours in his prison cell berating himself for being so gullible. I was not his favorite person.

And yet I wondered if the love we had once had for each other, a love that had seen us through such a dangerous and painful time, was strong enough to survive all of this. Would I see a flicker of it in his eyes or only hate and anger? What sort of weak defense could I put up for myself, anyway?

More important, I wondered now why Señor Bovio really had arranged for this. Why was it suddenly so important? How did it fit into his plans? What did he expect would happen? Somewhere inside me, in a place where my skepticism and distrust lived, I felt we were being manipulated. I had missed so many signs and warnings before. I was probably missing one now, too.

The guard at the entrance had my name on a list. We drove in and parked. Stevens told me he would wait in the car. The prison walls, fences, and barbed wire looked intimidating. I had read about prisons and seen them in movies, but this was the first time I would be in such a place. So nervous that I couldn’t feel my legs moving, I walked to the first booth practically in a trance and again gave my name. The guard opened a door, through which I walked to another door and another security checkpoint. The guard there was older and friendlier. He showed me the way to the visitors’ reception area. There was another guard there, with a dog that was brought close to me to sniff for drugs. I was told to pass through the door, where a female security guard took me to a private area. I thought this was where I would be strip-searched, but she only patted me down and showed me into the visitors’ room.

It was a large room, with rows of tables and chairs evenly spaced. There were already families visiting inmates, wives and even children. Guards were stationed at every corner, and one walked slowly through the aisles, watching the conversations. I saw television cameras in the ceiling. I was directed to a table to wait.

“How long will it be?” I asked.

“Not long,” the female guard said, “but sometimes the inmate decides not to come. I’ll let you know immediately if that is the case.”

I thanked her and found I was holding my breath. A young woman sitting two tables to my right smiled at me. The inmate she was visiting had yet to arrive, too. I couldn’t help but wonder how many times she had been there and how long the person she loved would be in prison. Surely, it must be even more difficult for people like Ignacio and me, people who have lived outdoors so much of their lives, to be locked away in this concrete and metal world, I thought. It nearly brought me to tears, but one thing I didn’t want to do in front of him was cry.

So much time passed, or seemed to pass, that I began to believe he wasn’t coming. Perhaps Señor Bovio wanted me to experience this rejection as a way of ending my request for him to do something for Ignacio. That made sense to me. I now anticipated the female security guard returning without him. She did enter the room, but she didn’t come to me. She went to greet another female visitor, and then, a minute or so later, Ignacio walked through the door.

His hair was cut so close he looked almost bald. I thought he was somehow bigger, wider in the shoulders, even taller. He paused for a moment when he saw me and then walked slowly to the table. He said nothing, and I said nothing. Then he sat, folded his hands, and looked down at them.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, still not looking at me.

I wasn’t sure if he hated me so much he couldn’t look at me or if he couldn’t look at me because he was ashamed of being there, of my seeing him so trapped.

“For the very same reason I wrote to you, to try to get you to believe me when I said I did not arrange for you to be arrested. It was my cousin who told the police.”

He raised his eyes to look at me. “I know all about you, about your love affair with the rich man who died on the boat and your being pregnant and living in his father’s home.”

“Yes, but—”

“While you were writing to me, promising all those things, telling me to have hope and come back to you, you were going to fancy parties and having this affair. You played me for the fool.”

Tags: V.C. Andrews Delia Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net