Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(57)

“You mean I packed for no reason?” Minnie protested.

“Leave everything packed. From now on, we operate under yellow alert. You girls grew up watching Star Trek so you know what I mean. Assume the worst, prepare for the worst, just don’t fire the guns just yet. Speaking of which...do either of you have pistols at all?”

“Oh my,” Beryl murmured.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Minnie said. “I know Duardo had one.”

Calli shook her head. “No. Neither of us have guns,” she told Joshua.

“Good. Now listen hard. Do not even think about acquiring arms. Of any sort. Not even for self-protection. This is not the States and I’m damn sure that the rebels are not kitted out with uniforms or even quasi-military clothes. It means that if you are found with a gun in your possession, you instantly stop being a civilian and become a rebel. Calli, you’ve been in prison. Justice here isn’t like you’d get back home. Do you think they will throw you in jail and give you a trial if you’re found with guns on you?”

Calli shivered. “You’ve made your point.”

“Good. Minnie, promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, subdued.

They went to bed, their moods pensive. No one felt like talking or watching vapid entertainment. The Vistarian commercial station still broadcast static.

Calli hugged herself, wishing it were Nick’s arms around her. She wished he was there, whispering reassurances into her ear, his deep voice crooning that everything would be all right, that of course the rebels would not try anything while he were there and he would protect her if they did...

Only Nick was busy working to preserve his country and if he thought of her at all, it was probably with a small, reminiscing smile for a risky indulgence.

With a deep sigh she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, knowing sleep would come no easier to her than it had on other nights in Vistaria.

She was woken by frantic banging on her bedroom door and sat up, blinking away sleep. It was daylight.

“What is it?” she called.

“The door is locked! Calli!” Minnie’s voice.

Calli crawled out of bed and unlocked the door. Minnie pushed into the room waving a newspaper. “Calli...ohmigod, Calli.” She gripped Calli’s wrist and shook it, waving the paper at her. Her eyes were wide, her face pale.

“What?” Calli asked, her heart skittering. War? Assassination? Nick!

She grabbed the paper and held it so she could scan the front page. It had to be a front page headline.

It was.

Calli dropped onto the office chair that Joshua had never got around to moving out of the room, her legs draining of strength. She let the paper fall on her knees, staring at the headlines and the terrible picture beneath.

The headline was in fifty point font. Screaming.

The picture. Her gaze drew back to the picture. It was grainy—a telephoto lens at the least and the actual picture enlarged to enhance the details. The black and white didn’t help either. She had seen dozens of “candid” shots like this on the covers of cheap tabloids at supermarket checkouts.

She’d just never expected to see herself in one of them.

It was her and Nick at the pond, lying on the rock together. His hand rested on her breast and he was leaning over her, his features clear. Her hair, the long blonde hair, fanned out over the edge of the rock, smoothed out by the water. Her leg, the one closest to the camera, was bent, hiding more than it revealed—a minor mercy.

Minnie crouched next to her. “Calli, my God, they’ll crucify Nick.”

Calli swallowed hard. She couldn’t cry. She didn’t feel anything. The enormity of the disaster was too much to take in all at once. Any vestige of shame she might have felt at being plastered across a national newspaper buck naked was swept away by the weight of the consequences to come.

“Calli?” Minnie prompted.

She looked at the headline. ?Escobedo ama Americanos más!

“Ama?” she asked Minnie.

“Um...love. Loves.”

“Escobedo loves Americans more,” Calli translated and sighed. “They’ve already crucified him.”

“Page two,” Minnie prompted.

Calli turned the page. Inside, they had another photo, this one a bad copy of her passport photo. Perhaps even a photocopy taken at the station that first night? They had her name, Callida Munro, emblazoned below the photo in bold, clear Times Roman.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

Minnie squeezed her wrist. “I think you need to leave Vistaria.”

Calli shut the paper, to stare at the front page again. The photo. She sighed.

“My geeky cousin Calli...the sultry seductress. Who’d have thought?”

“It’s not funny,” Calli said tiredly.

“No, not at all. In fact I could feel envious,” Minnie confessed. She pointed to the photo. “I look at that and see blazing passion, even love. The body language.” She shook her head. “I always knew Nicolás Escobedo wanted you. I just didn’t realize...”

“What?”

“You match each other.”

Calli folded up the newspaper and gave it to Minnie. “Thanks. The rest of Vistaria will only see that their beloved President’s brother is out screwing American women, so how trustworthy are the Escobedos?” She got up.