Read Online Flame of Diablo by Sara Craven - Free Book Online

other until the
    knuckles whitened.
    'I don't know what you mean.'
    He raised his eyebrows. 'No? Then I
    will
    explain. Guaqueros are illegal
    emerald miners—men, women and
    children who search for the elusive
    green flame of wealth in tunnels that
    smother them, rockfalls that crush them
    and rivers that drown them. They all
    dream of the fortune that will be theirs,
    but do you know where many of them
    end up—as corpses in the back streets of
    Bogota, shot or with their throats cut for
    the sake of their pitiful finds. They say
    you can find your way to Santa Isabel
    where the esmeralderos live by the
    bloodstains. So if your brother is in
    Diablo looking for emeralds, you had
    better tell me now.'
    It was painful to swallow because her
    mouth was so dry.
    'My brother is a geologist on a post-
    graduate field trip,' she said at last.
    'Whatever he's looking for, it isn't
    emeralds. The only reason I'm looking
    for him is because our grandfather is ill
    and wants to see him urgently.'
    And there's nothing in that to interest an
    army patrol, she told herself. Perhaps
    there was a reward offered for
    information
    about
    illegal
    emerald
    mining, and that was why Vitas de
    Mendoza was so interested in Mark's
    activities. Certainly he must have
    another source of income apart from
    acting as a guide. The sort of fee Carlos
    had named would not pay for that
    expensive silken shirt, or anything else
    he was wearing, for that matter. Unless
    his clothes were gifts from satisfied
    clients, she thought bitterly.
    'A geologist?' he said thoughtfully. 'An
    expert who would know where to look
    for emerald matrix if anyone did.'
    'I suppose so,' she acknowledged,
    wishing that she had described Mark as
    a botanist or an ornithologist.
    'And he chooses to make his field trip to
    Diablo,' he went on, still in that
    thoughtful tone. 'Not the most obvious
    place, one would have thought.'
    She shrugged. 'He had some Colombian
    friends at university. Perhaps one of
    them mentioned it to him.'
    'Perhaps they did,' he said drily. 'That is
    what I am afraid of, querida'
    Rachel wanted to get away from this
    topic of conversation. She regretted now
    giving in to her impulse to have some fun
    at his expense, to make him believe she
    had been waiting with bated breath for
    him to offer her his services as a guide,
    and then tell him coolly she had made
    other arrangements. The encounter
    between them was not going as she had
    planned at all.
    And something else had occurred to her
    too. He had called her Raquel, as Isabel
    had done. But he didn't know her name.
    She had never mentioned it to Ramirez
    or signed the register, and even Carlos
    Arnaldez only knew her as Senorita
    Crichton. 'How do you know my name?'
    she asked suddenly, uncaring as to
    whether he recognised her question as a
    ploy to change the subject.
    He shrugged. 'While I was waiting for

you to come back, I amused myself by
    reading your passport. You had left it
    here beside the bed. It made interesting
    reading, and the photograph almost does
    you justice.' He smiled lazily. 'But I
    looked
    in
    vain,
    querida,
    under
    "Distinguishing
    marks"
    for
    that
    enchanting heart-shaped mole you have
    on your left hip. Were you afraid some
    inquisitive
    Customs
    officer
    might
    demand to see it?'
    Rachel had the curious sensation that she
    had been turned to stone.
    'You were annoyed at the lateness of my
    visit,' he went on mercilessly. 'Yet I
    came to your room earlier—using Juan's
    key again. You were sleeping so
    beautifully that I did not have the heart to
    waken you.'
    Theatre dressing-rooms were by no
    means private places, and in any case
    there
    was
    a
    kind
    of
    backstage
    camaraderie between actors of both
    sexes in which Rachel had always
    joined without a second thought. Yet the
    knowledge that this man had stood
    beside her bed and seen her asleep and
    next door to naked made her burn with
    shame. The scraps of lace she had been
    wearing would have hidden nothing