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socks before finding the blue plastic file holder; his old friend, Jeff Hughes, had given it to him when they had met for drinks last month back home in Rapid City. He dropped onto the cot and unwound the string securing the cover.
    He sorted through photos of Jared Steel that Jeff’s mother had hired a private detective to take before she’d died last year, double checking to see if Angélica was in any of them. She wasn’t.
    Setting them aside, he fingered through the handful of yellowing newspaper articles about Jared Steel, his mind flitting back in time to that last summer here at the dig site with Dr. Hughes as it had many, many times before. Was there some clue he’d missed? Something he’d overlooked before flying back home and never seeing Jeff’s dad again?
    He flipped past the magazine article covering Steel’s latest accomplishments in the archaeology community and an older university newspaper article with a picture of Steel kissing the hand of a good-looking brunette. Mrs. Hughes was amazingly thorough in her detective skills. He wasn’t surprised, really, when he thought back to the way she’d always been able to sniff out any trouble Jeff and he had gotten into back in junior high. Jeff used to say his mom didn’t have eyes in the back of her head; she had spyglasses.
    “Ah ha,” he whispered, finding the newspaper photo from over a decade ago that he’d been thinking about since seeing Dr. Angélica García in the flesh.
    Easing onto his back, he stared at the princess in the photo. With her frosty smile and poised demeanor, Quint had assumed she’d fit perfectly into Jared Steel’s high society life. Steel stood behind her in the engagement photo, acting the loving fiancé, flaunting his trademark smirk. The same smirk Quint had wanted to put his fist through twenty years ago.
    His focus drifted back to the photo of Angélica in her high-collared shirt, her perfectly coiffed hairdo, her flawless skin. So different. He thought of how animated she’d been with her father when Quint had introduced himself. The sweat lining her brow and ringing her neck, the way strands of her hair escaped her braid and stuck out like live wires, her heated cheeks. So much more vibrant. She was not the porcelain doll he’d imagined.
    Tracing the outline of Angélica’s face, he chewed on his lower lip. Should he tell the Garcías he’d been here before, back when it was mostly jungle with a couple of temples rising out of the brush? That he’d known Dr. Hughes and his family since childhood? That his reason for coming to this dig site had nothing to do with an article about the site and everything to do with a promise made to Jeff Hughes after his mother’s funeral?
    He covered Jared Steel’s image with his thumb and focused on Angélica with her over-glossed smile. “Can I trust you, Dr. García?”

Chapter Three
    Dzulob: Foreigners or outsiders.
    Later that evening, after crashing on his cot for a couple of hours and then scrubbing off a layer of dust under a short camp-style shower, Quint headed for the mess tent. At the entrance, small buckets with burning citronella candles stood guard, flickering in the twilight. Male voices rumbled on the other side of the thick canvas. His thoughts replayed a similar moment from twenty years ago, triggering a twang of melancholy that fueled the anger smoldering inside of him. Dr. Hughes should still be around, damn it, cracking his corny jokes and filling Quint’s head with more stories about Maya life long ago.
    Shaking off the past, he stepped through the tent flaps. He scanned the sea of heads, locking onto Angélica and Juan. They sat at a picnic table against the far wall.
    As he squeezed between tables, brushing past sweat-soaked backs, several heads turned. He nodded at a few of the men at first, but after receiving no greeting in return, he gave up on making any new best friends forever. He dropped onto the bench next to Juan. A spicy scent filled the