Midnight Blues by Lynn Viehl Read Free Book Online Page A

Father and what he did in the white-washed rooms. She did not want to think about that, not here. Here she came to be, to run, to forget.
    “I wish it were,” she told him.
    I had a place like this, once, a long time ago
. A flock of green parrots fluttered around them, and he drew her closer, holding her to his side.
Can you show me the compound
?
    Somewhere in the shadows, a jaguar growled.
    “Do I have to?” When Rafael nodded, she sighed and guided him down the old path to the clearing where the Father had made the compound. The rusting, barbed wire fence sagged in places, some parts of it cut out and missing. A few ghosts scrounged around the burned and gutted buildings, the old ones who still thought they were alive, and could pick through the debris for scrap to sell in city.
    Someone burned it to the ground
?
    “The Father did before he left the country.” She stared at the place where she had been so miserable. “Men came from Europe—not his men, but others that were angry with him—so he set fire to the top part.” She took him to one of the lower level entrances, pushing aside the tool shed that concealed it. “The soldiers came and took things and burned it, and I had to go live in the village. They never did find the bottom part.”
    Dani hated going below, but knew Rafael should see it all. The sensors that still worked turned on the Father’s lights as they walked down the stairs and into the center corridor. Ghosts in wrinkled white coats shuffled past them. They wrote on blank clipboards with empty pens. Seeing the spirits made Dani’s arms throb.
    Rafael ignored the spirits and looked through some of the dusty windows.
This is a hospital
.
    “The Father called it that, but he never fixed anyone. He broke them and made me do it.” She surreptitiously checked the sleeves of her smock to see if she was bleeding again. “I didn’t like him. He pretended to be happy and kind, but underneath he was like Donatien. He didn’t really care about the tests he said he had to do, or the soldiers he was going to make to take back to his land. He simply liked doing the breaking.”
    Rafael stopped in front of one of the many framed pictures the Father had left behind, and wiped the dust from the glass over it.
What was his name
?
    “He never told us. We were made to call him ‘Doctor’ or ‘Father.’ ” She saw a portrait of the Father as a handsome young man and turned away. “Can we go back to the jungle now?”
    In a moment
. Rafael looked at some of the other pictures and then saw the birthing room, where the spirit of a village woman floated above the table, shrieking without sound as she struggled to deliver a baby that would never take a breath.
Was he your father
?
Was his name Nieves
?
    “No. Daniela Nieves is not my name. Marguerite made it up for me, for my papers. The Father called me ‘Cristál’, or this.” She pulled up the sleeve of her smock and showed him the numbers on her left arm.
    Six-one-two-seven
. He ran his fingertips over the faded mark.
What do they mean
?
    “He never told me, but I think they are when I was born.”
    No one calls a child by a number
.
    She looked at the writhing ghost woman. “The Father did.” She pulled at his arm. “Can we leave now? Everything here is cold and dead.”
    Rafael followed her out of the lower level, although he kept glancing back over his shoulder, as if still not quite believing what she had shown him.
Is this place why the villagers would not speak to you
?
    Dani thought of the years she had spent in the village. “They were afraid of me. I could walk through the jungle, and nothing would hurt me. I never got sick. When they were sick or hurt, I was the only one who could help them. They needed me, and they took care of me, but they resented me.” She almost ran back into the jungle.
    Rafael caught up with her, turning her to him.
I was wrong to make you show me that place. I’m sorry, Daniela
.
    “It was not all bad. I