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respirator. “Even if the macaque did survive the crash, which I doubt, it was infected nearly twenty-four hours ago. With its smaller body mass, ARFIS would overwhelm its system much more quickly than it would a human. One way or another, the monkey is dead or soon will be. The virus won’t be a threat.”
    Biting her lower lip, she checked the seals on her wrists and ankles.
    He took in her woman-on-a-mission expression and sighed. “At least wait until tomorrow morning. Once the blood tests are done and we’re sure no one’s sick, we can send the men out in search teams. They may not be big-city doctors, but they know these woods and they’re good people. They’ll want to help.”
    “That’s a good idea. If I haven’t found David and the others by then, we’ll do that.”
    He could tell from her tone that she was only half listening to him. She turned to walk away.
    “Damn it,” he called to her back, “it’s a big forest out there. You can’t just go traipsing around it alone.”
    She laughed, but there was nothing joyous in the sound. “I was raised in the bayou. My sisters and I played so far out in the bogs even the gators couldn’tfind us. You think I’m afraid of a little walk in the woods?”
    As she spoke, she hit the edge of the tree line—and immediately stumbled over a vine that caught her ankle. She caught herself on the trunk of a pine tree just in time to keep from falling on her face, righted herself and disappeared into the foliage.
    Cursing his luck and stubborn women under his breath, Clint counted to ten to give his temper a few seconds to cool. Then he counted to ten again.
    Finally under control, he yanked the straps on his face mask tight and clomped after her in his rubber booties. The infected monkey might be dead, but the twenty-two men Clint had helped convince to accept the quarantine in the camp behind him weren’t. Not yet. If they got sick, they were going to need her.
    He’d be damned if he’d let anything happen to her before he knew they were okay.
     
    Either there was a rogue elephant stampeding through the woods behind her, or the Ranger had caught up to her. An awkward moment passed between them when he reached her side. Macy tried to say something, but her throat closed around a knot in her esophagus and she couldn’t speak. She flicked him a cautious smile instead.
    He must have expected her to be angry at his intrusion, because his eyes rounded in surprise for a moment before the steel curtain he hid behind so often slammed down.
    The truth was, she was glad for his company. Underthe canopy of trees, the forest felt like a morgue. The temperature was several degrees cooler. Leaves muffled their footsteps. The critters that should have been scuttling around were quiet, as if in deference to the dead.
    She didn’t want to be alone with the dead again.
    The going was rough, as Ranger Hayes had said it would be. At times the underbrush grew in impenetrable walls. The saw-grass vines seemed alive, reaching out to snag her arms and ankles. Three-inch mesquite thorns sharp enough to puncture the sole of a boot and thick enough to impale a girl to the bone made every step over a broken limb an adventure.
    They walked wordlessly until, after nearly an hour, she sat on a mossy boulder near a thin stream to catch her breath.
    The Ranger loomed over her, swiveled his head. Sunlight angled through the boughs overhead in sharp beams.
    “Gonna be dark before long,” he said.
    Out of habit she checked the seals between her suit and gloves. “Couple of hours.”
    “We should head back.”
    “In a while.”
    His forehead furrowed over his face mask. “You do know which way is back, don’t you?”
    “Approximately six-tenths of a mile on a heading of ninety-four degrees.”
    His scowl deepened. “What’re you, a Girl Scout leader wannabe?”
    He looked so perplexed that when she smiled this time, it almost felt genuine. She opened her fanny pack,pulled out her Garmin,