“Llámale,”he replies, pulling the satellite phone from his bag.“En seguida.”Call him.Right now.
Silvana glares at him. But then she takes the phone and presses a button.
I hear a series of soft tones as the phone autodials. She holds it to her ear, and a second later she speaks. “Buenastardes, Hernán.Tenemos Genesis, Ryan, y Madalena.You know what we want for them.”
The realization washes over me like the shock of a cold rain. “Dad!” I run at her, grasping for the phone, but Sebastián catches me around the waist. “Dad!”
“Genesis!” my father’s voice is soft, stretched over the distance and the wireless connection, but I can hear the power in it. He’s shouting. In his office at home, the glass case behind his desk is probably rattling.
“Let go!” I slam the heel of my boot into Sebastián’s shin. He only tightens his grip. I shove my elbow into his ribs. He grunts, and his hold weakens. “We’re in the jungle!” I shout. “Somewhere near the—”
Silvana pulls her pistol left-handed and aims it at me.
“Stop,” Sebastián whispers into my ear with a thick accent.
“She’s lying!” I yell. “They don’t have—”
Sebastián’s hand covers my mouth.
“Give us what we want, and you’ll get all three of them back,” Silvana says into the phone.
“Don’t touch her!” my father shouts. “Silvana, if you hurt her, I’ll—”
“You have until three p.m. tomorrow. Twenty-four hours, Hernán.”
Silvana gives me a smug smile and ends the call.
MADDIE
I sink to my knees in the dirt. Tears fill my eyes, blurring the clearing around me.
It’s not Ryan. Itcan’tbe.We heard seventeen shots. Anyone could be buried under that tree.
But seventeen anyones could not. It’s a single grave.
I crawl toward the fresh earth. Rocks bruise my palms and cut into my knees. The rest of the camp blurs into nothing on the edges of my vision.
I have one mission, and it has only two parts.
Dig up the grave.
Seeany face in the worldother than my brother’s.
I pick up the first clod of dirt, then I’m digging, frantically tossing handful after handful over my shoulder. Soil cakes beneath my nails. Bugs land on my neck, but I hardly feel the bites. My breath hitches with each inhalation. I’m choking on my own fear.
Eighteen inches down, I scrape a muddy swath of cotton. I fall back on my heels and wipe my eyes with both grimy hands, breathing through the fierce ache wrapped tightly around my chest.
Iclawat the dirt now, sniffling, and each bit I removeexposes more of a blood-and-dirt-stained shirt.
My finger scrapes metal, and I freeze.
No.
I brush the dirt away. My hand trembles as I clutch the medallion.
My father wore one just like it. They used it to identify his remains, in the burned-out van where he was found, on the outskirts of Cartagena.
Like my father, Ryan never took his medallion off.
