They watched as Megan turned and ran back, and they quickly began to follow her.
Graciela was on the floor, desperately fighting to get free, scratching and clawing at Carrillo.
“Goddamn you! Hold still!” He was getting winded.
He heard a sound and glanced up. He saw the heel of a shoe swinging toward his head, and that was the last thing he remembered.
Megan picked up the trembling Graciela and held her in her arms. “Shh. It’s all right. He won’t bother you anymore.”
It was several minutes before Graciela could speak. “He—he—it wasn’t my fault this time,” she said pleadingly.
Lucia and Teresa had come into the store. Lucia sized up the situation at a glance.
“The bastard!”
She looked down at the unconscious, half-naked figure on the floor. As the others watched, Lucia grabbed some belts from a counter and tied Miguel Carrillo’s hands tightly behind his back. “Tie his feet,” she told Megan.
Megan went to work.
Finally, Lucia stood up, satisfied. “There. When they open up the store this afternoon, he can explain to them what he was doing here.” She looked at Graciela closely. “Are you all right?”
“I—I—yes.” She tried to smile.
“We’d better get out of here,” Megan said. “Get dressed. Quickly.”
When they were ready to leave, Lucia said, “Wait a minute.”
She went over to the cash register and punched a key. There were a few hundred peseta notes inside. She scooped them up, picked up a purse from a counter, and put the money inside. She saw the disapproving expression on Teresa’s face.
Lucia said, “Look at it this way, Sister. If God didn’t want us to have this money, He wouldn’t have put it there for us.”
They were seated in the café, having a conversation. Sister Teresa was speaking. “We must get the cross to the convent at Mendavia as quickly as possible. There will be safety there for all of us.”
Not for me, Lucia thought. My safety is that Swiss bank. But first things first. I’ve got to get hold of that cross.
“The convent at Mendavia is north of here, right?”
“Yes.”
‘The men will be looking for us in every town. So we’ll sleep in the hills tonight.”
Nobody will hear her even if she does scream.
A waitress brought menus to the table. The sisters examined them, their expressions confused. Suddenly Lucia understood. It had been so many years since they had been given choices of any kind. At the convent they had automatically eaten the simple food placed before them. Now they were confronted with a vast array of unfamiliar delicacies.
Sister Teresa was the first to speak. “I—I will have some coffee and bread, please.”
Sister Graciela said, “I, too.”
Megan said, “We have a long, hard journey ahead of us. I suggest that we order something more nourishing, like eggs.”
Lucia looked at her with new eyes. She’s the one to keep an eye on, Lucia thought. Aloud she said, “Sister Megan is right. Let me order for you, Sisters.”
She ordered sliced oranges, tortillas de patatas, bacon, hot rolls, jam, and coffee.
“We’re in a hurry,” she told the waitress.
Siesta ended at four-thirty, and the town would be waking up. She wanted to be out of there before someone discovered Miguel Carrillo in the dress shop.
When the food arrived, the sisters sat there staring at it.
“Help yourselves,” Lucia urged them.
They began to eat, gingerly at first, and then with gusto, overcoming their feelings of guilt.
Sister Teresa was the only one having a problem. She took one bite of food and said, “I—I can’t. It’s—it’s surrendering.”
Megan said, “Sister, you want to get to the convent, don’t you? Then you have to eat to keep up your strength.”
Sister Teresa said primly, “Very well. I’ll eat. But I promise you, I won’t enjoy it.”
It was all Lucia could do to keep a straight face. “Good, Sister. Eat.”
When they had finished, Lucia paid the check with some of the money she had taken from the cash register and they walked out into the hot sunshine. The streets were beginning to come alive, and the stores were starting to open. By now they have probably found Miguel Carrillo, Lucia thought.