Meanwhile, she pretended to be sympathetic to Randolph’s attentions. To keep him from suspecting her plans, she let him photograph her. To further confuse him, she submitted to the indignity of agreeing to remove her clothes before his camera. But after a few weeks in which no opportunity for escape presented itself, a new source of tension afflicted her – because changes in her body made it obvious that she was pregnant.

Esmeralda’s first thought was that Randolph had forced himself upon her, but Rebecca confessed that in a moment of weakness and passion she had given herself to Winston Case. It had been Packard’s suspicion about their intimacy that had driven him to abduct her. Now the growing evidence of that intimacy made Rebecca fearful for the baby’s safety, an apprehension that seemed justified when approaching sails made Randolph lock her away.

The boat that entered the harbor belonged to Winston Case, who had finally suspected where she was. But when he hurried up to the estate, he found that Packard had hired a dozen men from the village to guard the property and keep him from getting inside. Reduced to staying in the village, he gazed up longingly at the estate, his only consolation the messages that Esmeralda brought whenever Rebecca sent her on an errand into the village.

The rainy season arrived as Rebecca’s pregnancy reached its term. Winston waited for Rebecca to regain her strength while the baby, a daughter, became strong enough to travel. Then, with Esmeralda’s help in relaying messages, Winston used the cover of an evening storm to sneak past the guards. He hid until the storm cleared and the estate was in darkness, then used a club to overcome a guard sleeping outside Rebecca’s room.

Immediately, Rebecca was at the window. She handed the baby to him, climbed out, and rushed after him through the darkness toward a path that zigzagged down from the cliff to the harbor. Winston had hidden a lantern behind the rock formation, but before he could light it, the baby started to cry, and Packard, who had not yet fallen asleep, burst from the house, shouting for help, racing toward the cries from the baby.

He caught them at the rock formation. Winston still held the baby, but either Packard didn’t realize it or else he didn’t care, because he kept shoving at Winston, causing Rebecca to scream in protest. She lunged between the two men and reached for the baby, but Packard kept shoving, and the next thing, Rebecca’s scream was one of fright as she plummeted over the edge, vanishing into the darkness, her scream ending on the surf-pounded rocks far below.

Packard couldn’t move. Anguished, he gaped downward for the longest time, then wailed. By the time the guards arrived, Winston had scrambled down the path with the baby.

10

ESMERALDA’S GAZE RETURNED FROM A FARAWAY PLACE. She cast another look at the yellowed photographs on the table in the flower garden, then shook her head and glanced toward Tash.

“I was waiting at the bottom. I asked where Rebecca was. He didn’t answer, just kept urging me toward the rowboat that would take us out to his sailboat. While I held the baby, he pulled at the oars with a strength that I never would have dreamed he possessed. By the time we reached the sailboat, we heard Packard and his guards on the beach. They jumped into fishing boats to chase us. But Winston raised his sails and disappeared into the darkness before they came close.”

Esmeralda’s frail voice dwindled.

Her husband helped her to drink more juice, then told Coltrane and Tash, “You must leave now, so she can rest.”

“We understand,” Coltrane said. “Just one question. Señora, if you got ahead of Packard, you should have been able to escape to Los Angeles. But Tash’s mother said that you and Winston and the child roamed from village to village here in Mexico, where he earned food by working as a carpenter. He was rich. Why didn’t he take advantage of his wealth?”

“Winston said that if we went to Los Angeles, we would never be safe from so powerful a man as Randolph Packard. Our only way to disappear was by doing something that Randolph would never have dreamed of, by becoming poor. Only after several years did he think Randolph’s anger would have cooled enough for him and the child to enter the United States.”

“You didn’t go with him?”

“Please,” Esmeralda’s husband objected, “no more questions for now.”

“I would have given anything to continue to take care of Rebecca Chance’s daughter,” Esmeralda said, “but Winston insisted that I had my own life to lead, and he made me go back to the village. As soon as he returned home, he promised to send payment for my years of service. He kept his word. One day a messenger arrived with photographs of the child and more money than anyone in the village had ever seen.”

“And now.” Esmeralda’s husband stood.

“Thank you, señora.” Tash clasped her hands.

“No, I thank you. Seeing you is like seeing Rebecca again.” A tear rolled down the old woman’s cheek.

“May we come back after you’ve rested?”

“Please.”

Coltrane and Tash followed the old man into the house. At the last moment, Coltrane looked back, seeing the old woman pick up one of the photographs.

“Where did you get those, señora?”

“Rebecca gave them to me. She’s still alive as long as they exist. The more people who see them, the more she remains alive. I have put them throughout the village. Once a year, on the day of her death, a Mass is said for her. The village prays over her photographs.” Esmeralda shook her head dismally. “But in this climate, the images decay.”

“And Randolph Packard?”

“He abandoned the village, as I always knew he would.”

11

THE ROAD UP TO THE ESTATE WAS SO OVERGROWN THAT Coltrane wasn’t sure the rented car would make it to the top. Leaves blocked his windshield. Branches scraped the doors. As the Ford’s wheels jounced over a fallen tree limb, sunlight gleamed, butterflies scattered, and the estate was spread out ahead.

What had seemed white from the distance of the village was now revealed as the gray of concrete from which stucco had fallen, a few surviving patches indicating that the original color had been coral. Some buildings had one level, others two. All had an elegant simplicity that reminded Coltrane of pueblo architecture. A jumble of fallen poles and decayed thatching visible through an open doorway showed where woven palm-leaf roofs supported by timbers – peaked as in the village – had long ago collapsed.

“Imagine how magnificent this place once looked,” Tash said as they stopped outside a low vine-covered wall that enclosed the compound.

“And how everything went wrong.” As Coltrane stepped from the car, he admired the gardens that had run wild, hibiscus, bougainvillea, and orchids seemingly everywhere. He raised his camera and took a photograph.

“I don’t know what I expected to find here,” Tash said. “The truth is down in the village. With Esmeralda.”

“I’m not so sure. Some inconsistencies bother me.”

Tash looked puzzled.

“If Randolph Packard killed Rebecca Chance, why did he keep hunting Winston Case? Revenge couldn’t have been a factor. Rebecca’s death was Packard’s fault, not Case’s.”

“Maybe it wasn’t Winston he was hunting. Maybe he wanted the child.”

“Why? If the child was Winston’s, as Esmeralda claims, why would Packard have wanted her?” Coltrane asked.

“Maybe he wanted to kill the child to get even with Winston.”

“For what? For making Rebecca Chance pregnant? Packard had plenty of opportunity to hurt the child when it was born.”

“And risk losing any hope of making Rebecca love him?” Tash said.

“True.” Coltrane brooded about it. “But that still doesn’t explain why Packard was so desperate to get the child after Rebecca was killed. Unless… Do you suppose he believed he was the father? He was trying to get his daughter back.”