One Grave Less

had parked behind. But that wasn’t what it was.
    “Stay here,” she told Rosetta.
    Maria walked to the mound and began climbing up the steep bank of brush and rock until she got to the top. She looked out over the huge burned-off clearing that covered, she guessed, over a hundred acres. She saw several giant earthworks, ruins of rock structures, wide lines scarring the ground, all in a pattern. Maria knew all of the major Incan ruins that had been discovered. This one wasn’t on the list. Apparently it had been uncovered by the fire. It was huge, larger than any of the others that were known. And the fire hadn’t even uncovered all of it. She saw ruins leading into the unburned jungle.
    Here she was, an archaeologist in the middle of an undiscovered lost city, and she had no camera and no time. She didn’t even have a notebook.

Chapter 26
    Diane was stunned.
    “Now I’m an internationally hunted murderer? How the hell did I fall to such depths?”
    Gregory didn’t answer. His fingers were clicking away at the keyboard, looking for more information.
    They both stared at the final window he pulled up. There was her picture and her last known address. It was the wrong address, thank God—the apartment she had lived in before she moved in with Frank. There were also the names and pictures of the four men she supposedly had murdered. She stared wide-eyed at the screen.
    “Well, this is just bloody ridiculous,” said Gregory.
    He flipped through a black notebook sitting next to the computer.
    “You remember Cameron. Cameron Michaels,” he said, with a quick motion of his finger toward his desktop.
    Diane looked at Gregory’s notes spread out on the desk. Cameron Michaels had a wiggly circle around his name and was connected to the two of them with a straight line and to Father Joseph and Oliver Hill with a dotted line. Straight line meant professional relationship, dotted meant social. If she remembered correctly, Cameron had played the Chinese game of Go with Father Joe and Oliver—a game Diane didn’t really understand. Her preference was chess.
    “Yes,” she said. “Our UN liaison.”
    “He’s not at the UN any longer. He works for Interpol now. I have a call in to him about the rumors, which he hasn’t yet returned. I’ll try again.” Reading from his notebook, he entered the number on the phone, punching each key hard, as if that would transmit his determination across the airwaves. “This is just bloody ridiculous,” he said again under his breath.
    Diane waited. A flutter of fear threatened to invade her stomach. She looked at the dates of the murders. Yesterday. All in one day. Damn, she’d been on a homicidal rampage. In Brazil. At least she had an alibi. She felt marginally better. Still, what the hell was this about? She looked at the name of the town that the complaint originated from. Río de Sangue. She didn’t recognize it. But how fitting. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was Portuguese for River of Blood.
    “Yes, Cameron. Thank you for answering.” Gregory put the phone on speaker.
    Cameron Michaels was Swiss and had worked as World Accord International’s contact at the UN. Periodically he would visit them in the field and she and Gregory would update him on their progress, or in some cases, lack of progress. He was bright and was fluent in several languages. She was surprised he wasn’t still at the UN advancing upward at a rapid rate. But he also had an adventurous streak. She supposed that was what accounted for Interpol. She wondered what he did there.
    “Sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner, but it’s good to hear from you,” Cameron said.
    English was Cameron’s second language. His first was French. He was so fluent in English he could be mistaken for a Brit when he spoke it, or a Spaniard when he spoke Spanish. A sudden flash of Ariel breezed through her mind. Ariel had a natural gift with languages. Diane switched her focus back to the phone conversation.
    “So, you are Interpol’s UN representative,” Diane heard Gregory say. “Congratulations.”
    “Gives me a chance to expand my horizons,” he said. “I still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up.” He laughed a happy, mirthful laugh.
    “I’ve called you for a couple of reasons,” said Gregory. “You remember Diane Fallon.”
    “Of course. It hasn’t been that long,” he said. “How is she?”
    “Actually doing well, getting married, all that,” said Gregory.
    “Glad to hear