Page 26 of Falling for the Enemy

I sat up in surprise. “Action? Over.”

“You’re on a strip of land between two bodies of water. If there’s going to be significant rainfall, we may need to evacuate. Over.”

“Evacuate. I don’t understand. Do you mean by air? Over.”

Harold chuckled. It seemed ill-timed, given the subject matter. “No place to land a plane or helicopter out there. We’ve got—” A loud grinding sound blotted out his words.

“Please repeat. Over.”

There was a scraping sound and then Harold’s voice came through. “We’ll carry you out on dirt bikes. They’re the only vehicles that work on that trail, but we’ve only got two, so it’ll take a few trips. That’s why we’re keeping an eye on it, so we have plenty of time to get you all out. Over.”

“Get us all out? That sounds ominous. Over.”

“No, no, it’ll be fine. Just wanted to give you a heads up. We’ll keep you updated. Over and out.”

“Please do. Over and out.”

I returned to my kettle. The water had boiled over, and the handle was too hot to touch. I lifted it off the flames with our grilling fork and set it down to cool. Voices and laughter in the distance told me the group was returning to camp. I decided to let Jack in on Harold’s message, but it didn’t seem necessary toalarm the others. After all, Harold said the tropical storms were usually nothing more than weak rainstorms by the time they reached Costa Rica. I was sure that would be the case, and so, I pushed it out of my mind for now. The students returned with baskets full of samples, so there was work to do.

Chapter Eighteen

JACK

Pam and I ended up on dishwashing duty. It seemed her crush on me had ended, and she’d transferred her affections to Ian. I hadn’t gotten any real sense that Ian returned the affection, and that was for the best. This wasn’t the time or place for a budding romance. I definitely didn’t want to be policing secretive nighttime movement between theboys’ and girls’ camps.

Ian and Evan had started an impressive fire in the pit, and everyone had gathered around, sitting on the smooth logs that had been placed there as benches. Ava came into the mess tent. I got the sense that there’d been something she wanted to tell me since we got back from sample collection, but the group had gotten busy cataloging and categorizing specimens, so we never had a chance to talk. She bit her lip as she looked at Pam.

“Pam, I’ll finish drying. Why don’t you join the others at the campfire?” I said. Pam, who’d lamented the lack of a dishwasher in our crude surroundings was more than happy to toss me her dishtowel.

Pam walked out, and Ava picked up a towel to help.

“Well, Lo, what’s on your mind?” I had no idea when we’d crossed the enemy line to meet each other in neutral territory,but I was good with our new relationship. We were professional colleagues. I doubted we’d ever walk down to the union together for a coffee, but maybe there wouldn’t be fire spitting and flared nostrils every time we passed each other in the hallway. Good ole Brimley. I supposed there was a reason he was so beloved at the university.

Ava glanced out to make sure all the students were out of earshot.

“Uh-oh, we’re making sure little Johnny isn’t listening at the door. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, really. But when I got back to camp with Norm, Harold was trying to reach us on the two-way radio. He said they were keeping an eye on a tropical storm off to the east. He assured me those kinds of storms rarely reach Costa Rica as more than a weak rainstorm.”

I nodded. “Doesn’t sound too dire then. Except I’m not loving this expression.” I waved my hand around her face.

She reached up and slapped it away, then laughed. “Sometimes I get this inkling—my sisters and I have it whenever something happens to one of us. The others can sense there’s a problem even without talking to each other.”

“I see. So, yourinklingis that we might be in trouble?” I hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but stupidly, it came out that way. Old habits and all that.

“Why do I bother?” Ava became immediately defensive. It seemed I was expert at pushing her into that mode. So much for that change in our relationship, and I withdrew my silent accolades to Brimley. “Hopefully the storm will stay offshore, so we won’t have to evacuate.” She balled up the towel. “The dishes were on your list tonight.” She threw the towel at me. “Finish them yourself.”

“Wait, what? Evacuation?” I asked as I watched her walk out. “You’re an idiot, Sinclair. No, idiot is too kind. You’re an imbecile.”

I finished the surprisingly therapeutic task of drying the dishes and joined the others at the firepit. It seemed I’d missed an earlier round of ghost stories, and now it was Robyn’s turn to come up with an activity. I’d found that young people, who were mostly entertained by whatever popped up on one of their many screens, had little imagination when it came time to enjoy primitive things. Things like sitting around a campfire on a sultry night in the middle of a rainforest that vibrated with a chorus of creatures the second the sun rose and then fell eerily quiet the second the sun set.

With the only light coming from the fire, everyone’s faces were bathed in fluttering shadows. I looked over at Ava, but she stared into the flames with a look of concern. She wasn’t paying too much attention to the conversation as she fingered the necklace her grandmother had given her as a good luck charm. Now I very much regretted being so flippant about her inkling. The woman had been around the world, and she probably had much better intuition about impending problems than most people. I wondered when I was going to shrink my own ego and admit that Ava Lovely was more experienced and worldly than me.

“You start, Professor Lovely,” Robyn chirped excitedly. It seemed neither of us had a clue what was going on at the circle. Ava looked up, puzzled, then glanced my direction for assistance, but I shrugged. I had no clue what to tell her.

“Uh, let someone else start, Robyn, while I give it a think,” Ava said. It was a brilliant save—one that could have served me well in seventh grade algebra when I spent most of the class daydreaming about skateboarding and Michelle Beckman.

Robyn looked around the circle. “Evan, how about you? Tell us about the strangest, most inexplicable thing to happen to you.”

---