Obsession. Kay David

of the party she was going to at the Taminaca Bar—dreading the party she was going to—Emma turned her attention away from the traffic and gazed out the side window. Quickly she realized her mistake and looked the other way, but not quickly enough. Her brain registered what she didn’t want to see, and her heart swelled with sympathy and pain.

      The Quechua Indian woman who stood on the corner, every day, rain or shine, cold or hot, was there. Emma went down this street, Ayacucho, on her way to work, and she always saw her. She could see the India begging from her office window, as well.

      The poor woman couldn’t have been much older than thirty, but she looked twice that. Her skin was like leather, toughened by daily exposure to the sun and wind. She wore a short-brimmed felt hat—the green one today, not the brown. Underneath it, her black hair hung in two thick plaits, which fell well past her waist. The strands were threaded with gray—from the dust or simply premature aging, Emma couldn’t tell. The rest of her outfit was the same; it never changed from one day to the next, except that she sometimes wore long pants beneath the four skirts she wore. Also three blouses, a vest, endless petticoats—more layers of clothing than Emma could generally count. And then there was the aguayo. Using every color of the rainbow, the fragile shawl was frayed and torn, mended so much Emma was continually shocked to see it still in one piece. As usual, the woman had knotted it behind her neck and then slung it diagonally across her chest. Each village wove a different pattern; if you recognized the design, you could tell where the owner came from.

      Holding her breath, Emma looked at the aguayo.

      The child was there, bundled up so tightly inside the rag it couldn’t move anything but its eyes. Two black dots stared back at Emma from beneath a thatch of equally dark hair. A smudge of something white was on the baby’s cheek.

      A physical catch formed inside Emma’s throat, closing it down as tightly as if fingers were wrapped around her neck and squeezing. She struggled against the sensation and tried to swallow, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. She almost wished someone was trying to strangle her. Then her brain would shut down, too, and she wouldn’t have to think anymore.

      That wouldn’t happen, though. Emma had seen the Quechua too many times and had hoped for that same kind of relief without it coming. There was always a child in the aguayo. Sometimes older, sometimes younger, but always there was a child. And seeing it always affected her just this way.

      Without meaning to, Emma found herself leaning toward the car window, her palm flat against the glass, her fingers spread, almost as if she was reaching out for the baby. The pain in her chest spread in a wider circle and hampered her ability to think—but not to remember.

      Sarah had been eight months old when Emma had left the States, just about the age of the child in the serape. Her eyes had been brown, too, and the fuzz on her head dark and curly. Almost five, Jake had looked more like Emma. Lighter eyes. Blond hair. When she’d brought Sarah home from the hospital, Jake had wanted to hold her. As usual, Todd had protested, but Emma had ignored her husband and carefully situated the little boy on the couch. She’d then lowered the infant into his arms, and when she’d stood up and looked at those precious children, the image had burned itself in her heart. She hadn’t understood, beyond the obvious, why it had fixed itself so firmly in her mind at that time. But then again, maybe she had. On a subconscious level, she’d been waiting for disaster for years. Todd had married her and brought her into his life, one completely different from her own, and it’d felt too good to be true right from the very beginning. Not to worry about money. Not to ever think twice about food, shelter or whatever else her children needed. Then everything had changed horribly, almost overnight.

      The light went from red to green and the taxi roared down the street, the tiny dirty child and its begging mother falling behind. Emma turned and stared out the back window, but the glass was covered with grit and she couldn’t see them. Her heart shuddering, she faced the front once more, then tilted her head against the splintered leather seat and closed her eyes.

      Two years, three months, seven days.

      RAUL SANTOS leaned against the bar and sipped his cold Paceña, the bitter bite of the beer as it rolled over his tongue and filled his mouth such a pleasure he could hardly believe it. All his senses were heightened. The feel of the wood against his back, the scent of the flowers sitting on a nearby table, even the painting over the mirror by the liquor bottles. The colors looked brighter than they should have, the images more real. The Taminaca Bar in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was so far removed, so incredibly different, from where he’d been six months ago, it was unnerving.

      It almost seemed as if the past five years had happened to someone else.

      Almost.

      He drained the beer, set the empty bottle on the bar and nodded for another, his thoughts turning harder. Those years had happened to someone else. The young idealistic Raul Santos he had been before he’d been sent to prison was a completely different person from the man resting against the bar now. They shared the same name, but that was all. His mind, his body, his very soul had been taken out, torn into pieces and reassembled into something totally opposite.

      Raul’s gaze roved the bar. It was an open-air place, but elegant, with white tablecloths and candlesticks. A blue pool, surrounded by hibiscus plants with enormous red and yellow blossoms, sparkled on the other side from where he stood. At each end of the pool, hammocks were suspended between palm trees. They swayed gently in the evening breeze, and the chatter of wild birds, contained in several cages along the walkway, filled the relative quiet. The place was beginning to fill with women in tight dresses and men in dark suits, arriving one after another. Someone started some salsa music and the pulsing beat drowned out the birds.

      At the opposite end of the polished wooden bar, the bartender uncapped two more Paceñas for a black-jacketed cocktail waitress. Without turning her head, she eyed Raul. He eyed her back, his body responding before he could even think twice. There was something about South American women, he thought. The long black hair, the curvaceous bodies, the way they held themselves. He’d traveled to Buenos Aires once—in his other life—and the women there had been the same. Incredible. As she swished away, Raul stared at her backside and wondered if it was something they learned or if it was simply in their genes.

      He turned to pick up his drink, and the bartender was waiting, wiping a white rag over the mahogany expanse between them. The man nodded toward the doorway leading out to the interior of the hotel. “Esa es la señorita. Allá.”

      The bartender’s Spanish was different from the Spanish Raul had learned as a child in Texas, but not that different. He turned and looked. The woman he’d been waiting for stood on the threshold.

      He palmed the bolivianos he’d tucked under his drink earlier and pushed the bills toward the bartender. Afraid he might miss her, Raul had wanted a second pair of eyes looking for the banker. “Muchas gracias, señor.”

      “De nada.” The man’s dark eyes gleamed. “La señorita—es muy bonita, ¿no? Buena suerte, señor…”

      Good luck? Raul nodded his thanks at the man’s sentiment, but he didn’t need it. He made his own luck.

      Turning away, Raul focused on the woman. Emma Toussaint. He’d seen her before, of course, but each time he found himself surprised by her appearance. The tall thin blonde hadn’t been what he had expected, although he wasn’t able to explain exactly why. Tonight she wore a sleeveless black dress, straight and severe with a scarf tucked into the neckline. She’d probably read in a magazine somewhere that the square of silk would make the dress into a cocktail outfit. She’d been wrong to think so. It still looked like a banker’s dress. No nonsense. Businesslike. Boring.

      His eyes went to her face. The first time he’d seen her, he’d decided her features were too interesting to be called pretty. Her cheekbones were so high they shadowed the strong-looking jaw beneath, and her nose was too straight and bladelike for conventional beauty. Her hair, falling straight to her shoulders, was glossy and smooth, her eyes hazel and cool. Only her lips seemed out of place. Full, lush and a red that had to be natural, they looked as if they were made to be tasted.

      There