One Grave Less

seat opposite them across the narrow aisle. He smiled. “At least if I go to jail and lose my company for smuggling a kid into the United States, I can fall back on acting when I get out.”
    Lindsay suddenly realized how much he trusted her. It was enough for him that she said bringing Ariel into the United States without a passport was the right thing to do. She walked over to where he was sitting and kissed him. She put her hands in his long hair and looked him in the eyes.
    “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
    He put his arms around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. “When I found out you were missing, I was . . . I thought we wouldn’t get lucky again like the time you disappeared coming back from that conference. I thought, we won’t get lucky twice. Then you called. I would do this and more. Though you are getting a little expensive.”
    “I hate to ask,” she said. She knew he had paid a substantial bribe to fly out of Tabatinga. “I’ll pay you back,” she said.
    He laughed. “Archaeology doesn’t pay that well,” he said.
    Lindsay kissed him again. For the first time she felt calm, safe. She kept forgetting they weren’t home yet.
    She got up out of his lap and sat down in the seat.
    “Can you tell me what happened?” he said.
    She and Ariel told the story, the whole story, the parts that were Lindsay’s, the parts that were Ariel’s, and the parts that were theirs together. It poured out of them, sometimes out of order and sometimes confused, but they didn’t stop until John knew everything—Lindsay’s kidnapping, the massacre at the mission, Ariel’s plans to find her mother, their experiences in the jungle. The people she killed in self-defense.
    “I just wanted to get back to Mama so bad,” Ariel said.
    John was private with his emotions most of the time, but Lindsay could see the glistening in his eyes. She was afraid to speak because she knew her voice would crack.
    “We’ll get you to your mama,” he whispered. He looked back at Lindsay. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s worth any price.”
    “Can we call Mama?” asked Ariel.
    John grinned at her. “Sure.”
    Lindsay wished she could bottle the look of excitement and joy on Ariel’s face. John picked up the phone built into his chair and called information. Then he dialed the RiverTrail Museum. He said nothing for several moments and hung up the phone.
    “Can’t get through right now,” he said. “I’ll try again in a few minutes. Don’t be worried. This happens sometimes. We’ll get hold of her.”
    Arthur Youngblood came out of the cockpit and stood at John’s chair. He winked at Lindsay and Ariel.
    “Who’s flying the plane?” said Ariel.
    “Otto,” he said.
    Ariel looked down the passageway into the cockpit. “Who’s Otto?”
    “Otto Pilot,” he said. “Always take him with me.”
    He gave a hearty laugh. Lindsay wondered how many times he had made that joke and how many times he had laughed at it. He turned to John.
    “There’s a big weather system stalled over North Georgia. We won’t be able to get near the place. Our best bet is to go home to Cherokee and land in our private field, especially since we kind of took that long detour from our flight plan. I could try for Atlanta, but it’s bad weather there too, and they have a lot of security.”
    John nodded. “The bad weather is probably why I can’t get through on the phone. We can drive down to Rosewood,” he said.
    He looked over at Ariel. She had an anxious look on her face, like maybe her dream wasn’t going to come true after all.
    “It’s not that far,” said John. “We’ll get you there.”
    “You don’t think the bad man will get there first, do you?” she said. “He knows I’ll tell Mama about him and what he did to Father Joe and the others. What if he tries to hurt her?”

Chapter 62
    Diane awoke from a three-hour nap and took a shower. It left her less refreshed than she would like. Star was still asleep. Frank was having coffee and doughnuts with David and Izzy. She found Gregory Lincoln sitting alone on a bench near the huge dinosaur paintings in the Pleistocene Room.
    He sat with his forearms resting on his knees. He was in quiet contemplation, looking through a packet of postcards he carried with him. Each card was a small reproduction of a Vermeer painting whose subject was people doing everyday things. It’s what he did when he was under stress. The cards had grown rather ragged around the