Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page B

and tingling.
    Peter stood up again, grasping the napkin in his lap and trying to shake hands at the same time. He did it awkwardly, caught by surprise. “Yes, Peter Kaestner, Señor Escobedo. I didn’t realize you dined here—I wouldn’t have ignored you.”
    “No, it’s all right,” Nicolás said, waving him down. “I am here on private family business— Ashcroft’s is good for not being noticed, I’ve found. You too, I see.”
    “Yeah, you can really get away from people here,” Peter agreed. “Please...sit down.”
    Nicolás sat in the chair to Calli’s left and looked at her. “Miss Munro, yes? You were at the general’s birthday party last night.”
    “That’s right,” Calli said. Her voice emerged husky.
    Peter looked shocked. “You got an invite to that ?”
    “Callida has managed to make quite an impression on Vistarians in her short time here,” Nicolás said.
    “I guess,” Peter said with a half laugh, half exhalation. He seemed genuinely bemused.
    “We met at Las Piedras Grandes , didn’t we?” Nicolás asked him. “At the opening ceremony for the mine?”
    Peter nodded enthusiastically. Quickly Nicolás drew him out, opening up the conversation, getting Peter to talk about his work, his worries. Calli tuned the conversation out, watching the two men instead. While Peter spoke and Nicolás listened, Nicolás played with the stem of the empty water glass in front of him, absently sliding his fingers up and down the length of it. Calli watched the motion, almost hypnotized by it. His fingers slid up the stem, then up further still, around the bottom of the glass itself, to cup the curve there.
    She released the breath she’d been holding. Was he doing it deliberately? But he never once even glanced at her.
    Abruptly, she stood up. “Will you excuse me?” she murmured before either of them could react and hurried towards the door into the wide hallway that led to the front door. A waitress with a starched apron spoke to her, and Calli heard ‘help’ amidst the blur of Spanish.
    “ Sí, ” she said. “Washrooms? Um...” She frowned, recalling the phrases she had been studying, groping for an appropriate word. “ La conveniencia?”
    “Sí ,” the woman said, and pointed toward the wide carpeted stairs running up along the opposite wall of the hallway. The heavy paneling repeated there, and a thick railing of heavily carved wood glowed with age and good care.
    “Up?” Calli questioned, also pointing.
    “ Sí , up.” The waitress agreed with a wide smile.
    The stairway broke into a square landing very close to the bottom of the case, and the wall along the side of the landing had a huge picture window, framed with lavish green velvet swags and curtains. At ninety degrees to the rest of the stairs, three more steps reached down to the hallway floor. Calli climbed the steps slowly and saw the reason why the window had been placed there: The lights of la colina spread out before her, undulating down the hillside and off to the north and south for miles.
    She didn’t pause to admire the view, for she wanted to reach a place where no one could find her easily, but she moved slowly. The longer she took to reach that place, the longer she stayed away from the table, the higher the probability that Nicolás would be gone when she returned to the table.
    Why had he come over? There had been no reason that she could see. His talk with Peter had been virtually mindless, yet someone like Nicolás Escobedo did not engage in superficial conversation for no reason.
    She found the washrooms, with the universal symbol for women, and stood at the basin staring in the mirror but not seeing herself, tasting the roiling anger and frustration. Last night and again tonight. He simply toyed with her.
    But no, that wasn’t accurate. Her mind, trained for critical thinking, nagged her into acknowledging the inconsistencies.
    Calli spread her hands and leaned on the counter, letting her head hang as