Death of an Adept

Passionate and precise, the rippling string-notes of a vihuela provided intricate accompaniment to a woman's clear contralto. From the formal structures of counterpoint, Adam was willing to guess an origin in Renaissance Spain. After a while, Ximena's own voice floated in from the direction of the bathroom, matching that of the recording artist, note for note:

"Yo me soy la morenica…
Soy la sin espina rosa
Que Salomon canta y glosa…
Yo soy la mata inflamada Ardiendo sin ser quemada…

."

I am the dark girl… I am the rose without thorns, that Solomon sings of. I am the bush in flames, burning without being burnt….

Ximena's accent was virtually flawless. But then, Adam reminded himself, her mother was a native-born Spaniard. Teresa Constanza Morales and Alan David Lockhart had met thirty-six years ago in Granada, where Lockhart, then a student of architecture, had come to study the designs which glorified the memory of the Nasrid empire. They had married the following year, thereby setting in motion the stars of fates other than their own.

Still humming along with the music, Ximena appeared at the door to the bedroom hallway, wearing a casual suit of forest green. Pausing in the doorway, she cocked her head first one way and then the other as she fitted on a pair of gold-and-jade earrings in the form of Aztec totem frogs. Adam watched her with a smile playing over his lips.

"Morenica," he said aloud.

Ximena looked up. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are the dark girl, morenica cuerpo garrida."

Ximena wrinkled her forehead at him. '' The dark girl with the handsome body'? Don't let my parents hear you call me that before they get a chance to know you better."

Adam chuckled. "I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her. "What time are we meant to be there?"

Coming forward, Ximena leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. "In about as long as it takes to drive from here to there," she said with a smile. "Are you ready?"

"I will be, as soon as I've put on a tie," Adam said, stretching to retrieve the one he had draped across the back of the couch. "Your parents are expecting a Scottish laird. I'd better look the part."

Laughing, she took the tie from him and looped it around his neck, pulling him closer for another kiss.

"I'm content with el sefior de corazon, the lord of my heart," she told him happily, pulling him to his feet.

It was another five minutes before they reluctantly left the apartment.

UCSF-Mount Zion Medical Center lay to the north of Golden Gate Park, between Post and Sutler Streets. With the onset of visiting hours, the hospital car park was crowded, but Ximena swung in through the emergency room entrance and tucked the Honda into one of the spaces reserved for members of the staff.

"Lucky for us you have some rank to pull here," Adam remarked lightly as Ximena turned off the engine and set the handbrake.

"Lucky, indeed!" Ximena agreed with a rueful grimace. "My old supervisor must have pulled a dozen strings to get me reinstated. I'm going to owe a lot of favors when this is over and done with."

They entered the hospital through the door adjoining the ambulance bay. Inside, Ximena paused to trade greetings with admiring members of the nursing staff and several of her colleagues, though she kept moving the two of them in the direction of the elevators. Adam could sense her pleasure in her co-workers' reaction as she introduced him - he was long accustomed to turning female heads, and not a few male ones - but her manner was brisk as they made their way together into the heart of the hospital complex.

It was only when they came within sight of the doors leading into the concentrated care unit that her composure showed signs of wavering. The indications were subtle, but Adam was instantly aware of them.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Ximena squared her shoulders, not looking at him. "I will be," she murmured. "Let's go in."

Adam stepped in front of her long enough to open one of the double doors. Once past the threshold, they carried on along a carpeted corridor, Ximena nodding to several nurses as she passed. At the nurses' station halfway down the corridor, a slim, erect woman in a bright red jacket and black skirt was conversing with one of the nurses.

The woman was similar in height and build to Ximena, with smooth dark hair, densely threaded with silver, caught up in a chignon at the back of her neck. When she turned her head, her profile had the attenuated elegance of a study by El Greco. Mentally matching up images, Adam knew that the woman could only be Ximena's mother.

His conviction was confirmed a moment later when the sound of their footsteps caused the woman to look around. Her thin, sensitively molded face lit up at the sight of Ximena.