door of the plane. Wind whipped against him as he looked below at the brilliant green canopy of treetops in the tiny country of Cruz in Central America. It was a bad place for a plane to go down. It was a damned bad place for him. He didn’t like this job or want it, but he needed the money. And he owed an old buddy from the military—Luke Webster had saved Micah’s life once in a clandestine operation in Saudi Arabia, and Micah was going to repay the favor now in a jungle in Central America.
Luke’s father, Atlee Webster, had put up the money for the search for his two daughters and his grandchildren. Luke had wheedled, bribed and finally reminded Micah that he owed him one. But the convincing offer had come when Luke had promised Micah double his usual fee plus paying Micah’s future medical bills for his mom.
Luke had come to his office, blond, cocky as ever, leaning against the desk as Micah had stood in front of the window. “Think of the money, Micah. You can take some time off to be with your mother.”
“I’m thinking about all the times you said your one sister was a bitch,” Micah said.
“Raffaela is. Wild, bitchy, impossible. She cheats on Hector. He cheats on her. But she’s my sister and she’s got two little girls. Look at their picture, Micah.”
Micah had looked, and they were beautiful smiling little faces. “You know I don’t have any resistance when it comes to kids,” he had grumbled.
“And Rachel’s shy and nice. As sweet as the girls. She won’t give you a minute’s trouble.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Think of the money. Your bills will be paid, and you won’t have to worry about the care for your mother. Think about it.”
Micah had thought about it for a moment and had agreed to try to find the Webster women and children and bring them back to Texas.
He still had mixed emotions about the task as he looked down at the solid canopy of green below him. The small government of Cruz had made no search of their own because revolutionaries took all the official attention and resources. The Granillo pilot had lost radio contact shortly before going down. He had been fifteen miles off course, and Micah had a general idea where to search.
That morning Micah had found the downed plane. As he sped over the treetops, he had looked at the smashed trees where the plane had crashed. He circled to fly over the site several times, thinking that if there were survivors, they would try to signal. But as the trees swayed in the slipstream of his plane, no one had appeared.
He had been hoping to find them, rescue them and then get right back to Texas. It wasn’t going to be that simple.
Returning to Agapito, the coastal capital, he had phoned Luke to say he had located the crash site and promised to go back. Within the hour he made arrangements to be flown to the site again.
Now wind beat against him as he braced himself in the open door of the plane and double-checked his parachute harness. Eduardo circled the plane above the wreckage. As Micah looked down at the burned rubble, he thought about the passengers. Even though he hadn’t known any of them, he felt a wave of sickness at the loss. What hurt most was the thought of the little girls, Sophie and Angelica. He didn’t want to have to go back to Texas and tell Luke the little girls wouldn’t be coming home.
They approached the crash site the second time. Micah waved to Eduardo and received a salute in return. He saw the slash in the trees coming up. He jumped, dropping through the air, green treetops that looked as solid as the ground rushing up to meet him.
When he pulled the rip cord, the chute ballooned up behind him, yanking him up, and then he began to float toward the trees. Pulling the steering toggles on the risers, he guided his descent, watching the gash in the trees as it grew larger. The scorched ground and burned bits of plane loomed into view, and he couldn’t imagine survivors. Unless they had gotten out before the plane went up in flames or had been thrown clear.
For just an instant his stomach knotted as he thought of Shawna and the car wreck. He blanked out his thoughts, clamping his jaw closed grimly as he tried to angle down to where the plane had cut through the trees. He landed on his feet only yards from the wreckage and in seconds was out of the chute. He turned to look around him, listening as the sounds of the forest brought back memories of his years in the U.S. Army Special Forces. He hoped he hadn’t forgotten his survival skills, because he was on his own in a corner of the world that was swarming with rebel insurgents and gun smugglers. Tomorrow at noon Eduardo would return. If Micah found survivors before then, they could all get out by chopper. If he discovered all had been killed, he would have to get the bodies out. But if he couldn’t account for everyone on the plane, he was going to have to hunt for them on foot and get them back to civilization the best way he could.
Steamy heat made his body damp with sweat within minutes after dropping to earth. He could smell the earthy, rotting vegetation on the forest floor. Judging from the looks of the plane, there were no survivors. Micah poked through the wreckage, and five minutes later he changed his assessment. He couldn’t find any bodies in the burned metal.
He moved away from the charred rubble and circled it. Something caught his attention. Frowning, he crossed the clearing. A mound was covered with brush and branches and a couple of smaller tree trunks had been dragged over it. He knew he was looking at a hasty burial site before he began to clear away the brush.
He had seen many dead bodies on military assignments in hot spots in different places of the world. Some had been civilians, most had been soldiers. None had been a beautiful woman from Texas and he drew a deep breath, his stomach knotting as he finished clearing away the makeshift grave. He fished out the pictures Luke had given him.
Raffaela was a married socialite. He could remember Luke’s deep voice listing her jewelry with as much certainty as if he had presented her with each piece: an eight-carat engagement ring, a six-carat ring their father had given her, a diamond-studded gold wedding band, a ruby pendant with gold filigree, diamond stud earrings. This body bore none of the above. Rachel, the twin, seldom wore jewelry. She owned a diamond ring their father had given her upon her graduation from college, but she wore it only on special occasions.
So, Micah decided, he was looking at the body of Rachel Webster.
He thumbed through the six pictures, holding Rachel’s picture next to Raffaela’s picture. With makeup and different hairstyles, it was easy to tell one from the other. But if they had the same hair arrangement and no makeup, he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Now—because of the wreck, the heat, and time that had passed—the quickest way to identify which twin had died was jewelry or lack of it.
“Just great,” he mumbled cynically. “If the other one is still alive, I get to save the bitch.... Focus on the little girls,” he reminded himself aloud.
Pocketing the pictures, he tossed the branches back over the body. In a few more minutes he found the pilot’s partially decomposed body.
For the next hour Micah went over every inch of the crash site, walking in ever-widening circles until he was in thick brush and trees. Lianas draped over branches and hung to the ground. Where an occasional patch of sunlight broke through the forest canopy, the vines were covered with green leaves. Butterflies looped and circled lazily, and scarlet macaws perched high in trees like bright red blossoms.
It took Micah another hour before he found a hair ribbon caught on a fern. He could detect where someone had moved through the brush, and he followed their tracks. He swore softly because they were headed deeper inland. If they had gone west, they would have had a better chance of reaching
