Martin nodded, pouring me another shot to loosen my tongue. As I needed all the courage I could, I drank. And talked.
“I know your sisters weren’t happy with the will,” he said as I neared the end of my story. “But from there to wanting to kill you seems somewhat farfetched.”
“Then how do you explain the assassin on the ship?”
“A mistake?”
“What about the check and the note with my name I found among his things?”
“I know Angélica has many defects: she’s vain, arrogant, and ambitious, but she’s not a murderer. And Catalina, well, she’s a saint.”
“She’s not a saint. She’s a human being with flaws like everybody else. But if you think so highly of Angélica then what did you mean when you told the neighbor—Fernando del Río, right?—that he should know better than anyone who Angélica was?”
“That has nothing to do with her moral character. A few years ago, before Angélica married Laurent, Del Río asked for her hand in marriage. Don Armand considered it for a while as a partnership between the two men and joining both haciendas would’ve meant owning the largest plantation in the region, but Angélica declined. Del Río could never forgive Angélica for rejecting him. After that, the Frenchman came along and she married him instead. Del Río and”—he hesitated—“your father had a strained relationship ever since.”
“I heard something about the creek.”
“Yes, the damned creek.”
“And now Angélica is suing him.”
He nodded. Under different circumstances, I would admire my sister’s audacity to behave as she wanted in spite of what our father, or anybody else, desired. But not when it could also mean that she would hurt her own sister to get her way.
“If Angélica is as harmless as you say, then how do you explain that I found a snake in my room—the same kind she keeps as a pet?”
Martin’s face paled. “It could be a coincidence. There are a lot of snakes in this area.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Martin paced the kitchen, absorbed in thought, hopefully trying to make connections that would shed some light into my predicament.
“I just can’t imagine any of Don Armand’s children doing something like that. There has to be another answer.”
I stared at my empty glass. “What about my father’s other daughter?”
“Another daughter?”
“Elisa,” I said. “Apparently, she used to live here but Do?a Gloria sent her away when she found out she was her husband’s child with one of the maids.”
“I’ve never heard of her. Elisa, you say?”
“Yes.” This time, I added aguardiente to my own glass. “What if she’s in town? What if she’s the woman Soledad Duarte mentioned?”
“I haven’t seen anybody new in town. And I spend a lot of time there.”
“Then who is the woman who hired Franco to kill me?”
Martin didn’t have an answer.
I was about to mention what I’d discovered about Alberto, too, but didn’t. I’d promised Mayra I wouldn’t say who the father of her baby was and there was no reason to betray her.
“I’d better go,” I said. “Are you going to tell my sisters who I really am?”
“No, but they’re bound to find out sooner or later.”
“I know that, but I need a little more time. I believe that if I come out as Puri, my life would be in danger. The person who sent Franco aboard the Andes may still be here, and perhaps closer than we think.”
I didn’t know how to read his silence. It lingered on me all the way to my father’s house. What was Martin going to do with all the information I’d given him? Moreover, why had he given me that inscrutable look?
CHAPTER 28
Angélica
Vinces, 1913
“Laurent needs one last push,” my mother said, mashing green plantains for tigrillo. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
Once again, my mother and I were talking about my ongoing problem with Laurent: the fact that he hadn’t proposed. I knew it bothered my father, too—he questioned me every time the Frenchman visited.
“You haven’t proven to him yet that you would be a good wife,” she said.
Her comment irked me, though I didn’t know exactly why. Then again, almost everything my mother said had that effect on me. I sighed in resignation.
Grabbing a basket, I set out for the orchard in search of ingredients for dulce de guayaba, the only dessert I was good at.
Guayabas were a lot like large lemons, but harder and sweeter. When you split them, the food inside was red and full of seeds. I found a tree bursting with them—I used to come here a lot during my childhood—and filled my basket.
“A miracle, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice startled me. “The elusive lady is outside her palace without her eternal companion.”
I turned around to find Juan standing there.
I hated his sarcasm. I turned my back on him and continued picking guavas. I hadn’t seen much of him after the party, though I heard through Catalina that our father had given him a job on the plantation. Papá’s reasons for hiring him were a mystery to me. I’d never understood his interest in our poor neighbor.
“What do you want?” I said.
He scoffed.
I turned around, a guayaba between my fingers. “What?”
He had a contemptuous smirk on his face. “You’ve become so vain. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m the same person.”
He shook his head. “You used to be so sweet.”