Houston with everything we’ll need after that—tents, cots, tables, food. You think of something you need, let me know. I’ll get it.”
A thin, black-haired young man in turnout gear raised his hand. “Only one thing I need, lady. That’s a pencil and some paper.”
Heads turned in question toward the man.
“Wife’s been after me for years to write out a will,” he said. “Guess it’s ’bout time I obliged.”
At least the workers had settled, thanks to the Ranger. Macy felt sorry for them, knowing the anxiety and the ordeal they faced if ARFIS had indeed escaped, but she had to put that out of her mind. She had a job to do.
A virus to hunt.
She left the men, including Ranger Hayes-with-the-disturbing-eyes, in the competent hands of her team. Susan already had them lining up for interviews and baseline health screenings while Christian and Curtis erected the decon showers that had arrived on the first supply chopper.
“Who was first on scene? Are they still here?” Susan asked. In spite of the rising pitch of her voice, nothing in her tone belied the urgency of finding out if anyone had been near the crash scene other than the workers present. “Were there police here? Civilians?” If there had been, they would have to be tracked down and quarantined quickly. Susan knew that. She and Christian and Curtis made a good team. They knew their jobs as Macy knew hers.
While her team kept the workers occupied, she had to find the virus.
Slipping away from the group, Macy made her way toward the wreckage. The Learjet looked like a toy that had been smashed by an angry child. Wires snaked out of jagged tears in the plane’s skin. Sheets of metal, crumpled like accordions, littered the ground.
She pushed aside the charred skeleton of a seat propped upright in a tangle of shrub, stepped over a man’s empty tennis shoe, refusing to wonder what had happened to the foot that had once been inside it. The trickles of sweat slipping down between her breasts became rivers. Her breath sounded huge inside the helmet, roaring through the filter like a hurricane wind, yet outside, there wasn’t even enough of a breeze to lift the little red flags marking the locations of human remains.
A lump formed in her throat as she pictured David Brinker beneath one of the white sheets, torn and bloody. David who was so fussy about his appearance.
Who couldn’t stand a little dirt under his nails, much less…
Anguish pulled her over to the draped body, but fear wouldn’t let her touch it. She bit her lip until she tasted blood. She had to know, she told herself. It was natural to need closure. Besides, she owed it to David, didn’t she? To face him one last time.
He wouldn’t have been on that plane it hadn’t been for her.
Heart racing, she inched closer to the white sheet, the flag at the corner, and glanced around as if she expected David’s ghost to materialize. To haunt her for what she’d done.
She told herself she was just being overly emotional. Letting her feelings run away with her again. Still, she couldn’t help whispering, “I’m sorry” before reaching for the corner of the covering.
“Sorry for what?” A hand landed on her shoulder.
Macy gasped, straightened and spun with one hand raised to fend off her attacker, even if he was already dead.
The Ranger caught her wrist halfway to his face.
“Whaa—?” She stumbled backward, barely righting herself before she landed on her keester. Blood buzzed in her ears. Her heart raced. She clutched her fist over her chest. “Are you crazy? What are you doing out here?”
“Following you.”
“You can’t be here. You don’t have a suit on.” But he had helped himself to a pair of latex gloves from the CDC supplies, she saw.
“I was all over this wreck this morning. If the bug is out here, I’ve already got it.”
“Then you should be in decon.” She glanced at the portable showers, now in working order, and the line of workers snaking around them.
“I’ll scrub down.” His voice was deep and seemed to vibrate deep inside her. It was as almost as unsettling as his eyes. “When it’s my turn.
She’d bet a month’s pay it wouldn’t be his turn until everyone else had finished.
Had he said he’d been following her?
She shook her head as if that would straighten out her jumbled thoughts. “What do you want?”
“The same thing you do.”
“Huh?” Brilliant. That implacable stare of his stole her ability to think.
“You’re looking for the bug, aren’t you?”
No sense in lying. The truth would be written on her face. She’d never been good at deception.
“I want to know what you find.” He jerked his head toward the camp. “They’re all going to want to know.”
He was right. They deserved to know. But what if she found the containment had been breached? How would she tell them?
She pulled in a shuddery breath. “I haven’t located the virus yet.”
His gray eyes went hard—harder than usual. “Did you think you’d find it under there?” He nodded toward the white sheet.
Heat crawled up Macy’s neck to her cheeks. “No. I—” She blew out her breath. “I knew these people. They were my coworkers. My friends.” More.
“They’re dead. Nothing you can do for them now. Those over there—” He nodded toward the camp. “They’re the ones that need your help now.”
A wave of guilt hit her—how selfish to be mourning her loss when so many more people—the Ranger included—faced their own mortality. David and his ghost would have to wait.
“The virus was in a steel cylinder about the size of a dormitory refrigerator, shiny and kind of dimpled on the outside, with two combination locks on top. It would have been inside a wooden crate with packing material, but that might have broken away or burned in the crash. Have you seen anything like that around?”
He shook his head, wiping the sheen of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. He didn’t seem to mind that the sleeve was as grimy as his face. Again she thought of David and his sterile white shirts. Her stomach plunged.
“Most of the back end of the plane is over there, though.” He pointed west. He didn’t have to add that a container the size she was looking for would have been stowed in the rear of the aircraft. Didn’t have to. The front half was built out with passenger seats, the remains of one of which she was standing on.
She turned and started picking her way in the direction he’d indicated. She heard footsteps behind her, and turned to find him following. “You don’t have to come.”
“Yes. I do,” he said, and she didn’t bother
