Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(68)

Calli touched his shoulder. “You can’t take on all the guilt. There are others who are also responsible for Vistaria.”

He glanced at her and his expression was stony and unforgiving. “The others didn’t fuck up as badly as I did.”

He said it gently but he might have slapped her and achieved the same impact. She snatched her hand back and folded her arms across her stomach, feeling sick.

The rest of the trip to the apartment was silent. Calli did not attempt to cross the soundless barrier between them. When Nick pulled up at the apartment, she opened the door herself and then opened Minnie’s. She tugged on Minnie’s hand and coaxed her out.

Nick did not linger to watch. He moved ahead to the front door. He knocked, a hard rap and when Joshua opened it, he shepherded him inside.

Calli walked Minnie into the apartment and turned her to face her. She stroked her cheek. “Did you lose your pack of essentials?”

“Everything is in my pockets,” Minnie said, her voice ethereal. Distant.

In the lounge room, Calli could hear Nick talking to Joshua. Low, controlled. The leader was back in charge again.

“We must leave again very soon. Do you have anything else you want to take?”

Minnie roused a little. “I don’t want to leave at all.”

“We have to. The fighting will break out in the city soon. We have to cross over to Mexico. Foreign nationals here, especially Americans, won’t be treated well. This is their war, Minnie. Not ours.”

Minnie took a long moment to process what Calli had said. Then she nodded and sighed. The sigh vented her resistance. “Yes,” she breathed. “I suppose we must leave.”

*

Less than an hour later they piled back into the car. This time Joshua and Beryl were with them. The plan was simple. They would drive to the yacht club on the coast and use Nick’s boat to cross over to Acapulco.

Nick sat behind the wheel again, with Joshua in the passenger seat. Between Beryl and Calli in the back seat, Minnie was a small statue. She had withdrawn into herself.

Her remoteness worried Calli. She didn’t know what to do about it. She mentally listed it as something she must take care of when they reached the boat. She couldn’t deal with it now. The drive to the yacht club would not be as breezy as Joshua made it sound.

Nick had an encyclopedic knowledge of back roads and side streets. As a result, they avoided crowded main thoroughfares. When they drew closer to the eastern outskirts of the city, Nick sat up straighter, showing more alertness than before.

“What is it?” Joshua asked.

“We have to use the main road for a few miles. It’s the only one until we get to a turnoff five miles from here.”

“Oh, well,” Joshua said.

The car climbed over a raised lip and bumped onto a wide, sealed road. They turned right, heading east. The sun sat low behind them, sending their long shadow down the road.

There was a lot of traffic. Cars, buses, mini-vans, rusted out hulks blowing blue smoke, even horse-drawn carts. Along both sides of the road a long, strung-out line of people headed east, too, carrying their burdens, shepherding children, goats and other household animals. This far from the city, they had settled into a rhythm and uniform speed. None of the panic Calli had seen in the city showed here. Instead, she saw a stoicism that spoke more clearly than words how used to fleeing and hiding Vistarians were. Nick had said it was in their blood, part of every page of their history.

She felt sad for the pretty country and happy people. Their resistance to outsiders, to Americans, hadn’t been whipped up overnight. The rebels had tapped into a deep-rooted foundation of fear built by generations of abuse. Her sadness was tinged with indignation, too. How could a people be treated this way? How could anyone watch it and not want to take up their cause?

Nick had taken up that cause. Now he would gaze upon these refugees and tell himself he had failed to save them from this misery.

She sat on the edge of the seat and reach through the front seats to lay her hand on his chest. Although she could not see him because of the headrest, she said, “Don’t look at them and tell yourself it’s finished, Nick. This doesn’t have to be the end. Not until you decide it’s over.”

Silence. She knew he listened, though, for he stopped breathing. His chest did not rise or fall under her hand.

“Yes, they’re taking a beating and you’ve made a mistake,” she added. “It was just a mistake, though. It doesn’t have to be fatal. Look at them, Nick. They’re sturdy, determined. All they need is you to find a way for them to get back what they’ve lost.”

She felt him breathe again. A deep breath. He picked up her hand. His lips pressed against the backs of her fingers.

Satisfied, she sat back again.

Joshua studied her, his expression thoughtful. She tried to smile at him and could only curl up one corner of her mouth.

Thirty minutes later, after climbing up and down undulating hills, they turned off the main road without trouble, nosing their way through the pedestrians with agonizing slowness. The new road was sandy for they were closer to the coast. It was firm enough for Nick to pick up speed.

The trees closed in around them, crowding right up to the edges of the road. Small branches swiped across the windows. After a mile the hard dirt road swung left, heading northwest. A tiny track branched off to the right.

Nick turned right. He did not slow his speed. Now the bushes scraped along the sides and windows. The dirt grew soft and boggy.