On The Loose by Tara Janzen

Author:Tara Janzen [Janzen, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Dell Book
Published: 2007-08-04T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Morazán Province, El Salvador

It was a dark and stormy night—the words went through Honey’s mind and stuck. Very dark, she silently added, very stormy. They’d gone beyond rain in the last half hour, way beyond, straight into a tropical deluge—most of it, as far as she could tell, dropping right on top of the Land Cruiser.

Unless Smith had accidentally driven them straight into a waterfall.

Which she wouldn’t put past him.

“We’re lost.” The words slipped out of her. She hadn’t meant to say them out loud, but there they were, lying in the air between them now, the truth.

Just as well. He needed to know.

“No, we’re not,” he said.

Yes, they were.

“I have a GPS and a map, and we’re on a road,” he said calmly.

No, they weren’t.

“This isn’t a road.” It was a streambed, or a river, or a flooded rut. She could hear the water rushing by the tires, and yes, she could see the GPS in his hand, and the map in his lap, and the flashlight in his other hand, and even with all that, they were still lost. The radio was out and the phone didn’t work, basically, she knew, because they were stopped under a waterfall, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with not a damn thing anywhere in sight.

“We have a break in contact with the convoy,” Smith conceded, “but we are not lost.”

Yes, they were, with the nose of their vehicle noticeably lower than the tail end of their vehicle, which meant they were headed downhill—which pretty much summed up her take on the situation as well.

Great. She and the Land Cruiser were in agreement. Only Smith was in denial.

Honey liked adventure, to a point. She loved traveling with Thomas, had loved the trip to Nepal, and had been to Antarctica and the Sahara with him, exploring and investigating all sorts of scientific phenomena—without ever getting lost. She’d gone adventuring with Haydon and his inevitable film crews to Alaska, the Amazon, and Borneo, documenting environmental disasters—without ever getting lost. With Gerald and William, she’d survived countless clubs from Saint-Tropez to Monte Carlo, and with her mother, she’d personally conquered the rarefied shopping districts of Dupont Circle, Georgetown, and Upper Northwest near Friendship Heights, not to mention Fifth Avenue and every boutique in Manhattan.

Never lost.

She let out a sigh.

“Do you need another granola bar, or a drink of water?” he asked, calm as a rock, which was starting to get under her skin. Panic was in the air, and he was clueless.

“Suck eggs.” If he could get them lost, she could sigh.

Smith held the GPS back up and muttered something under his breath—she thought it was “Eggs, geezus.”

Ditto, as far as she was concerned. She started to sigh again, then held it back, which probably wasn’t healthy.

Damn, it was dark out there.

And Julia was in trouble. Honey knew it down to her bones, and for all the other adventures she’d had, this was the worst, because her sister’s safety, maybe even her life, was at stake.

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