“This way, señorita.”
She blew out her cheeks with an explosive puff of air and followed. The pace was much less rapid now as the boy hacked his way through the tangled mass of greenery, wielding the machete with consummate grace. Mac had more time to consider how hot it was, and notice the black flies that seemed to have suddenly discovered the presence of easy prey. She considered digging out her insect repellant and giving herself another dousing.
But it took concentration to keep up with her guide, who exhibited a preference for scrambling through the roughest and swampiest patches of ground. Mac had been careful to come to Guatemala during the canícula—August’s two-week “dry” period in the midst of the rainy season—but there was still plenty of mud. And mosquitoes. And plants whipping her in the face.
Any number of things to discourage all but the most intrepid of adventurers.
After almost an hour of walking, Mac was beginning to feel rebellious.
Homer, are you watching? This had better be worth it.
It was. One moment she was floundering in her guide’s wake, and the next she walked into a tiny clearing and came face-to-face with a vine-covered ruin.
The place bore little resemblance to the great ruins of central Tikal. A thousand years ago it had been part of the great Maya city-state, which had sprawled over fifty square miles. Now it was a crumbling collection of unexcavated minor buildings. Such places dotted the Petén, Guatemala’s lowland jungle, a dime a dozen.
But it had a very peculiar effect on Mac. She stopped and caught her breath, mesmerized. She forgot to slap at flies and mosquitoes, or brush the sodden hair from her eyes. She eased out of her backpack and crouched where she was, taking it all in.
Wild. Ancient. Untamed in a way Tikal proper no longer was. And Mac’s heart came alive as it hadn’t done in the spectacular but well-trodden Maya city.
This was what Tikal had been like when Perry and Liam O’Shea had come to the Petén. This must have been what they felt when they made a discovery, knew they could be the first Americans to see what the jungle had hidden.
Hah. That’s not you, Mac. The kid’s probably brought plenty of tourists here. But nothing could dampen her strange excitement.
This was exactly the place to enact her little ceremony of contrition for Sinclair transgressions. This could even be the place where they found the pendant. Another crazy thought that no longer felt quite so crazy. She wiped sweaty palms on her khakis and reached for the piece of carved stone that hung around her neck.
It was warm. Hell, everything was warm here—but she’d expected stone, at least, to be cool.
She released the pendant and stood. “I never caught your name,” she said to the guide, who’d moved off somewhere behind her. “Do you know what this place is called?”
Overhead a macaw shrieked. Mac turned around. The boy wasn’t there. She pivoted. No sign of him at all.
“Great,” she said. “Hello? Hola?”
A mosquito whined next to her ear. She waved it away and started back down the path the boy had cut. Not a single swaying leaf hinted that he’d been there any time recently.
“O… kay.” She planted her hands on her hips and looked up through the forest canopy at the sky. Still light for several more hours, anyway. At least the kid had made her a trail to return, even if he hadn’t considered an escort back to Tikal part of his five-dollar fee.
“I should have paid him ten,” she muttered. But this way he wouldn’t be witness to what the crazy gringa was about to do.
She turned to the ruins once more. Here she was, living an adventure—alone, in the jungle, with a piece of three-dimensional history smack-dab in front of her. Homer would be proud.
And Liam O’Shea was waiting.
The thought sobered her. She walked toward the ruins, picking her way over rubble and low brush. She crouched to examine massive fallen stone steles, patterned by Maya glyphs. Beyond was the first of several buildings, blackened by time, covered by moss and lichen and every kind of tropical vegetation that could gain a foothold.