point in arguing, I nodded and sat again by Becquer’s side.
“You have to help me,” Becquer asked me in Spanish now, to keep the paramedic from following our conversation, I guessed. “I was supposed to die tonight.”
“I won’t let you die.”
“Carla, please, don’t make this more difficult for me. I can’t live. I don’t want to live.”
“I’m sorry, Becquer. I’m so sorry.”
“So you know?”
“Richard told me.”
“Richard? Oh! You mean he told you about my legs?”
I nodded. “Is it true, Becquer? Are you human?”
He didn’t deny it. He just stared at me with his dark eyes that seemed even darker now, sunk so deep in his gaunt face.
“The Elders … ” I hesitated, “did they make you human?”
“Yes. My punishment for making Beatriz immortal.”
“But you didn’t change her. She stole your blood.”
“That’s a technicality, Carla. I sired her, and the sentence was that I should die. I begged Cesar, the Elder’s messenger, for a week to finish your contract. And when he agreed he asked for my word that after the week was over I’d kill myself. So, you see, I’ve no choice.”
“Yes, you have,” I bluffed. “Federico will talk to the Elders. He will convince them to change their sentence.”
“Federico knows?”
“He’s coming tonight.”
Becquer groaned. “Why did you tell him? There’s nothing he can do. The Elders have already decided. You must let me be.”
I shook my head. “I won’t.”
“Why not? You broke your contract with me today. You were not to see me again. What difference does it make to you whether I live or die?”
“I ended my contract with you to keep my children safe. I don’t want you to die.”
“Do you hate me so much that you want me to live like this, broken and impotent, a shadow of the god I was?”
“You cannot really mean that. You’re still you, Becquer. No matter what has happened. Taking your life is selfish.”
“Selfish?”
“Yes, selfish. Are you really so blind that you don’t know you have friends who care for you and would be devastated were you to die?”
“Do I really?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know that Richard is totally smitten with you. He’s certain your clients will wait if you decided to take a break. And Federico is worried sick about you. And Ryan looks up to you. You can’t let him down.”
Becquer closed his eyes while I rambled on, as if embarrassed by my barely concealed distress. He opened them when I finished and fixed his dark stare on me.
“And you?” he whispered. “If I die, would you mourn me for a day?”
My vision blurred by tears. I was still struggling to find my voice when the ambulance came to a stop, and Chris asked me to move aside.
Powerless I watched, as they wheeled Becquer away.
Rachel was talking with the receptionist when I came into the hospital.
Even though Richard had insisted that Rachel and Becquer were not in a relationship, her distressed behavior that afternoon and her already being at the hospital seemed to suggest otherwise. Yet, on the list of people who cared for Becquer that I had just enumerated for him I had forgotten to mention her. A simple mistake or an unconscious wish that Richard was right?
The girl turned from the desk as I came in, and as our eyes met, she rushed to my side. She was wearing a short plaid parka over tight black jeans, a yellow scarf around her neck. In her perfectly made-up face, her eyes were no longer red, but the tension was clear in her voice as she asked, “Where is Becquer? Will he be all right?”
Her face relaxed a little when I told her Becquer had been conscious when I left him.
“David called me,” she explained as we walked to the waiting area.
I had guessed that much.
“So, he’s conscious,” she repeated when we sat facing each other in a corner of an almost empty waiting room. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it? He’ll recover.”
“Yes. But … ” I couldn’t tell her Becquer’s life was still in jeopardy because the Elders wanted him dead. Not without learning first how much she knew. “He seems depressed,” I continued watching for her reaction. “Not surprising, of course, given his recent prognosis after the accident.”
“It was not an accident.” Rachel’s voice that had been subdued before was now so loud several of the people scattered around the room looked up. “A man came to see Becquer last Monday,” she continued in a lower tone. “A man, tall and dark. ‘Cesar,’ he said, when I asked him for his name. He didn’t wait for me to announce his arrival. As soon as I let him in, he dashed past me to Becquer’s study as if he owned the house. So I assumed they were friends. But I was wrong. Becquer was not happy to see him, that much was clear, although he smiled at me and told me I could take the afternoon off.”
“I thought it was you who found Becquer.”
“I did,” Rachel said, her eyes somewhat unfocused. “I didn’t leave as he asked me to. Cesar made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t want Becquer to be alone with him. So I waited. And waited. But he never came out of the study. When I gathered my courage and knocked at the door, nobody answered, so I went in. Becquer was unconscious on the floor and Cesar was gone.
“Becquer told the doctors he had fallen down the stairs, but that is impossible. He was nowhere near the stairs when I found him. I think Becquer and Cesar fought and Cesar is responsible for his condition.”
“You don’t believe me?” Rachel asked when I said nothing. “I knew you wouldn’t. That’s why I brought this.” She reached into a canvas bag hanging from the back of her chair and produced a manila envelope. “Becquer gave me this in the morning and asked me to mail it to you, even though you were coming in the afternoon.”
“It’s addressed to you,” she explained as I frowned. “My guess is that he wrote to you to explain what happened.”
I took the envelope she offered. Inside I found a leather-bound journal filled with Becquer’s florid handwriting. A letter-size envelope was concealed among its pages.
My heart beating hard, I tore open the envelope, unfolded the letter, and started reading.
