She ignored the pastor. “I had another vision.”

The line was silent for a moment.

“You’re walking again?”

“No. But I’m praying. I want you to join me.”

“What was the vision?”

Helen paused. “I’m not sure.”

“You had a vision but you’re not sure what it was?”

“Something terrible is happening, and somehow its outcome rests in my hands. In our hands.”

“Our hands? God can’t deal with this on his own?”

“Please don’t be smart. I’m too old for games.”

“Forgive me.” He let out a long breath. “I’m not sure I’m ready for another round, Helen.”

“I don’t think anyone is this time.” A tremor laced her voice. “He who is faithful in little will be given much. This feels like much. And, frankly, I’m a little scared.”

The line was silent.

“Who is it?” Bill finally asked.

“Tanya,” Helen said.

CHAPTER ONE

THOSE WHO know call that part of the jungle the hellhole of creation for good reason. And they call the Indians who live there the fiercest humans on earth for even better reason. It’s why no one wants to go there. It’s why no one does go there. It’s why those who do rarely come out alive.

Which is also why the lone American girl who ran through the jungle really had no business being there. At least according to those who know.

Tanya Vandervan jogged to a halt atop a cleared knoll and tried to still her heavy breathing. She’d run most of the way from her parents’ mission station, hidden by trees a mile behind, and in this heat, a mile’s run tended to stretch the lungs.

She stood still, her chest rising and falling, hands on hips, her deep blue eyes sparkling like sapphires through long blond hair. The rugged hiking boots she wore rose to clearly defined calves. Today she had donned denim shorts and a red tank top that brightened her tanned skin.

Still drawing hard but through her nose now, she lifted her eyes to the screeching calls of red-and-blue parrots flapping from the trees to her left. Long trunks rose from the forest floor to the canopy, like dark Greek columns supporting tangled wads of foliage. Vines dripped from the canopy—the jungle’s version of silly string. Tanya watched a howler monkey swing suspended by a single arm, whether provoking or protesting the parrots’ sudden departure, she could not tell. She smiled as the brown mammal reached a flimsy arm out and nabbed a purple passionfruit from a vine before arching back into the branches above.

A gunshot suddenly echoed through the valley and she jerked toward the plantation. Shannon!

An image of him filled Tanya’s mind and she ran down the knoll, her heart thumping steady again.

To her right, the clearing butted against hills that rose to a black cliff, looming a mile to the plantation’s north. The Richtersons’ large two-story white house sat still in the midday air, white like a marshmallow on a sea of green.