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Heat, thirst, so thirsty, Santa Maria, agua, oh please I need water, I beg of you, Virgen Santisima, Madre de Dios, my son, water for him at least, you were a mother, Blessed Virgin...now and in the hour of our deaths...our deaths...
The voice was so distorted, forced through a parched throat from a body with no moisture to spare for tears, that Rhonda Zimmerman had trouble recognizing it as her own. She clicked the tape recorder off. There was more, another three minutes of increasingly unintelligible Spanish and dry coughs, but she couldn't stand to listen to it. Hearing it made her throat ache, even though she couldn't remember making it. She picked up her cup and drained half the overly-sweet mint tea. It helped. She rewound the tape.
It was no help anyway. No matter what method she used, she hadn't been able to contact the right spirit. There were plenty of ghosts in the area, which wasn't surprising; thirty-four years in Arizona had taught her how treacherous the desert could be. But she had found no ectoplasmic trace of her target, the one she'd been hired to exorcise after a local Catholic priest had failed. A bigger mystery was why this region of northern Mexico had been settled in the first place. Although "settled" might be the wrong word, she thought. Rancho de Pozoseco had no close neighbors; it was over sixty kilometers by road to the nearest town.
"Perdoneme, Doña Rhonda." She hadn't heard him knock. Her employer stood framed now in the doorway, one hand still on the knob, the unlit hallway behind him a dark backdrop to his almost theatrical good looks. It was a dramatic pose. Felipe Luis Maldonado Alvarez had a gift for dramatic poses.
He smiled at her with conscious warmth and advanced into the room. "Forgive me, I did not mean to interrupt your work. Do you make any progress?" Again the smile beneath the heavy mustache. The mustache was flecked with gray, as was the dark hair at his temples, the faintest hint of aging. His smile was all gallantry and flirtation.
One hand flew up to pat her hair automatically. She knew what she looked like: short and ball-shaped, with frizzy gray hair straggling its way out of an untidy bun. Turning back to her notes with an effort, she shook her head. "Mr. Maldonado, I can't find a trace of your ghost. This does seem to be a locus of great power, but there are no ghostly bandits and absolutely no malignant influences. I haven't even had a nightmare."
"I did not imagine the attacks, Miss Zimmerman." The suave manner cracked for a moment, and fear showed through. "A bandit of a century ago has shot me twice now, and even though it did no physical harm..."
"Certainly, certainly! My dear Mr. Maldonado, surely you don't think I'm questioning your word? Not at all, not at all. A great many bandits in this part of Mexico, what with Pancho Villa and the revolution, poor people desperate for a change--I read all about it before I came, of course--this manifestation is obviously quite focused, as though the unhappy soul felt a particular animosity toward you. Perhaps an ancestor, some ancient grudge against your family...well, I shall simply have to see what I can discover." She was dithering worse than usual, she knew, fogging her lack of progress in a cloud of nonsense.
He smiled ironically, and inclined his head slightly. "I suppose I expected a miracle from my personal ghostbuster."
She kept her face still with an effort; Rhonda had hated that movie from the moment it came out, and every client she'd had since then had referred to it at least once. "You have been here less than a week. But this...haunting...it's disrupted my life, my sleep, my business. Surely you can understand why I am so anxious for you to succeed."
"Oh, of course! Now, there's this one poor soul, quite recent--a widow with a nine-year old son, age about twenty-seven, I think--there's a very strong connection with this location, although I don't believe she lived here. Maybe she died near here--anyway, she manifests quite strongly, and I thought, perhaps a seánce, nothing elaborate, just the two of us, possibly you knew her..."
"Dear lady, I am interested in only one ghost. This poor widow--pardon, but she does not sound like anyone I would know, alive or otherwise. So, another dead end. If you will forgive such a tasteless joke." He stepped to the door, and bowed slightly in his most charming manner. "Concepción will bring you a tray if you wish, but I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me."
"Oh..." She shook her head, knowing how fluttery she sounded. "I'm afraid not. I intend to fast tonight, and try another working when the moon sets. Perhaps tomorrow?"
"As you wish, Doña Rhonda. You are the expert, after all." He bowed once more, like an old-fashioned courtier, and withdrew, softly closing the door behind him.
She waited a full minute by her watch, then tiptoed to the door and laid an ear against it. No sound, but it was a solid door. She opened it a crack looked out. The hall was dark and untenanted.
She closed it and let out the breath she'd been holding. "How the hell I get into these things..."
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