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something interesting about you last night, Allison.”

Chapter Six
    “Oh?” I said. “What’s that?”
    “She said your father was a journalist, too. That he even served as editor in chief of your magazine for a while.”
    Apparently, Sylvia hadn’t gotten up at the crack of daylight to watch my appearance on the Wake Up Show . I’d talked about Dad, in response to the host’s questions.
    “That’s right. He was a brilliant journalist and he did run the magazine.” I smiled, remembering Dad with his sleeves rolled up. Sitting at the typewriter, a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, he was the picture of industry. “That was a long time ago now. He inspired me to become a reporter,” I confessed.
    “I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job with this story, Allison, and do him proud,” Clark said with certainty, verbally patting me on the head. “You know these treks are pretty interesting events — and I don’t say that just because they were my idea.” He paused. “Although they were.”
    Then, he started telling tales about other treks the zoo had sponsored. Funny things that had happened. Food disasters. A love story. I didn’t really think he’d bring up whatever had happened on the last trek — the “unfortunate incident” Elaine had called it — since that would mar the image of the treks. And he didn’t.
    So I did.
    “I heard there was some trouble on the last trek to Belize. What happened?”
    I didn’t imagine the immediate silence and the tension that filled our vehicle like an electric charge.
    “An accident,” Clark began, overly interested in the view all of a sudden.
    “Elaine called it an ‘incident,’” I pressed, keeping my tone questioning.
    “Incident, accident,” Clark waved away the semantics. “All of our trekkers were safe. That’s what matters.”
    “Someone was … hurt?” I soft-pedaled. “In the jungle?” I pictured a snakebite or a fall off a cliff.
    Clark sighed then spoke. “Someone was killed. Accidentally. There were drugs involved.”
    “I see,” I said, recognizing the bad public relations connotations in the tragedy.
    “Yes. Please don’t dredge up the story again, Allison. It would serve no purpose.”
    “I won’t. Thanks for telling me,” I said, making plans to check local newspaper archives for the original coverage.
    There had to be more to the story. A drug overdose, no matter how tragic, wouldn’t cause the flash of energy I’d felt, like a breath held, in the SUV.
    Shifting gears, I asked Clark about that accent I could hear in his voice on certain words.
    “Oh, I was born in Austria,” he explained. “My parents brought me to the States when I was just a boy, six or seven. I’m American, now, through and through, but that accent,” he stopped to wave a finger at me, “it remains with me. We still travel back to see the relatives every once in a while,” he said as Sylvia nodded. “Maybe we can have a trek there one day.”
    And he was off again, thinking out loud, making big plans, which seemed to be the only sort of plans this man made.
    He went on and on as the vehicles bucked and jumped over the ridges of earth, jolting us about. The week before our arrival, the rains had been moderately heavy, deepening the ruts in the road. Now, the ruts were at least a foot deep and some were still filled with water.
    Several times, my head made contact with the window at my side. A few more times, I bounded in the opposite direction, up against Mart, who gallantly righted me.
    “Have you been to Tikal before?” I asked Mart as the SUV continued to creep, rock, and bounce along at about fifteen miles per hour.
    “Oh, three or four times, I guess,” he said, screwing up his face to think back. “Four, actually, but this is my first time here with the zoo.”
    “Oh, really.” I found this — and him — interesting. “How long have you been at the zoo?”
    “Too long,” Clark muttered from his seat in front of