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campfire. It was an eerie and unnatural kind of gloom to someone who had grown used to the lights of the city. It roused memories of some of the nights she had spent with her parents out in the jungle as they did their research.
    It was on a night like this one that they had died, she recalled painfully, and the thought dragged a shiver from her. She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the sensation the dark created.
    Dani noticed and playfully nudged her, trying to settle her nerves. “Weird, isn’t it? This is the fourth trek I’ve been on and I’ve yet to get used to it.”
    Cynthia looked upward at a night sky that was so black, it seemed empty. Only the brightness of the North Star and a few other constellations broke the vast expanse of ebony heavens. The thought came too quick for her to stop it.
    Was this the last thing Rafe saw before he died?
    Dani knew her too well. “Don’t think about it. Think about finding the temple and what that will mean. Personally. Professionally.”
    Professionally? Cynthia thought. There was only one thing that mattered to her.
    “All I want is to find out what happened, Dani. And even though I pray Rafe’s still alive, I need closure if he isn’t.”
    Dani tossed a small twig into the campfire. “Don’t give up hope. That’s not like you.”
    “Face it, ladies. If Santiago and his team were alive, they’d have been found by now,” Booth said and rose, stretching his arms overhead. Without a good-night, he stepped away from the campfire and toward one of the tents, then slipped inside. The zip of the tent closing was loud in the quiet of the night.
    Rogers stood up as well and shook his head. “Damn shame, losing such a fine man.”
    With that, he sauntered over to his tent. He had pitched it on the edge of the larger tent that she and Dani intended to share and far from Booth’s. That left only Hernandez by the campfire, and as Cynthia met the team leader’s gaze, she noted his uncertainty.
    “You don’t think they’re dead, do you?” she asked, rubbing her arms to banish the chill that had arisen despite the heat of the night. She told herself it was from the cooling evening air and not the discussion.
    Hernandez poked a long stick into the campfire and a few logs shifted, sending a spray of glowing embers into the emptiness of the night sky. After, he shrugged. A furrow knit his brow as he said, “Yolotli Yaotl believes they may be better off dead. I don’t disagree.”
    Dani patted Cynthia on the back, trying to comfort her, but something quickened inside of her. Something that straightened her spine and tightened her gut with determination. “We’re going to find out what happened. We’re going to find the temple no matter what.”
    Hernandez snorted inelegantly and tossed his stick into the fire. Rising, he said, “Channeling Coronado, are you? Just remember how most of those conquistadors ended up.”

Chapter Four
    Cynthia was awake way before the sunrise.
    She had not slept soundly.
    The discussion around the campfire the night before and the stillness of the night had forced memories of how her parents had died to rush out of her brain.
    A few weeks earlier she had turned an awkward and lonely twelve. She had been playing by the campfire with a doll her parents had somehow had delivered to their remote camp. Her parents had been beside her, discussing the latest developments in their studies when they had heard the noise of booted feet crashing through the jungle and the cries of the men, which grew louder as they approached.
    Somehow her parents had known the clamor meant trouble.
    They had secreted her in a small belowground food locker they had built weeks earlier to protect their supplies from an assortment of wild animals.
    Even now she could still smell the wetness of the earth and the ripe fruits in the shelter as they had slipped the plywood deck over her. Hear the rustle as her father draped a tarp over the wood and then the vibration