One Grave Less

charges. They just want the rest of the world to believe it. It really messes up my life.”
    “That’s probably the point,” said Garnett.
    “The first I heard of any rumor about South America was from that travel reporter, Brian Mathews,” said Diane. “I’m going to try and get a phone call to him, wherever he is.”
    “I think he has a blog,” said Andie. “He probably has his itinerary on there.”
    “Good thinking, Andie. Get the details for me, please. I’m going to call Vanessa, Mr. Mathews—and Colin Prehoda, and sic him on that Halloran woman.”
    “Good,” said Andie. “You need to get a lawyer like Prehoda on that . . . that . . . woman . Tell him to force her to make an on-air retraction. Naked.”
    Diane and Garnett chuckled. “I’ll do that.”
    Diane walked into her office and sat behind her desk. Garnett followed and pulled up a chair. She supposed he wanted to hear what Mathews had to say. She stared at the water fountain on her desk. It looked like a miniature grotto. That’s where she would like to be—in a nice, quiet cave. That would be heaven.
    But first she needed to call Vanessa. She wasn’t looking forward to that. She also needed to postpone her wedding. She hated that idea, but with everything going on, she didn’t want to walk down the aisle into the hands of U.S. Marshals, or the FBI, or whoever would come to arrest her should things get really out of hand.

Chapter 28
    Maria committed the pattern of the city to memory—the mounds, the lines scarring the ground, every pile of rocks she could see. At the next overnight stop she would draw it on the back of the map. That was all she could do. Damn. Her fingers itched for some mapping equipment and a trowel. And the peace to work unmolested.
    She reluctantly climbed down from the ancient vantage. At the foot of the mound the edge of a smooth-looking object caught her eye. She scraped her boot gently over its surface—an artifact. She picked up the item along with a companion piece near it. A potsherd. A fragment of pottery. A fragment of the history here. The faint markings on the scorched surface looked as if the object had been shaped by coiling a snake of clay. She flicked the edge of the piece with her thumbnail. The substance had a gray temper, perhaps slate. She took the sherds with her and slipped them in the backpack.
    Rosetta had gathered up enough unburned wood and had a meal cooking. More soup.
    “The vegetables will not be good tomorrow,” said Rosetta. “We should eat as much as we can. I picked out the things we can save and threw the rest away.”
    “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be lost in the jungle with,” said Maria.
    Rosetta smiled.
    As their breakfast cooked, Maria walked over to the arrow on the ground she had made the previous night and checked the direction it pointed against the reading of her compass. They lined up almost perfectly. Nothing wrong with her compass. She hadn’t thought there would be, but it was a safety precaution to check. She took out the map and arranged it on the hood of the truck, spreading it out with her hands and weighing it down with the compass, orienting them both to the north.
    She thought she knew where they were on the map. She wanted to get to a place called Benjamin Constant. But there were no marked roads from where they were to where she wanted to go. The road she could connect up with looked to be about seventy miles away. That’s a long way through the jungle.
    She hoped the truck would start. If not, they were in for a long walk. She put the compass and map in the truck.
    “You doing okay?” she asked Rosetta. “Need help?”
    “I’m fine. It’s almost cooked,” she said.
    Food and sleep had made Maria feel better, think better. This was really a simple problem simply solved. Just get to a phone. The last few days she had been so filled with fear she couldn’t think and she’d bought into Rosetta’s fear of the man who worked at an embassy. Whoever he might be, he couldn’t possibly have control over everyone at all embassies and consulates, or whatever official places they had here. Her plan was to call John and tell him what had happened. He would find out what she needed to do and get help for her. Easy.
    As she waited for the food to get done, she took her knife and cut a couple of bandannas from the bolt of brightly designed fabric. She put one over the top of her head and tied it in back. The other one she tied around her