thanks always to my wonderful agent, Jenny Bent, and to my amazing editor, Susan Pezzack, to whom I wish only the best with her move to MIRA. And a very special thank-you to Elizabeth Fensin, for giving me the gift of Maddie.
This book is dedicated in loving memory of Robert H. McNeill. Uncle Bob, I know you are kicking back in one of Heaven’s easy chairs now, reading this with a smile on your face and still cheering me on.
1
“I’M SERIOUS, MADDIE. I’m giving you one more hour to find your mysterious bug, and then I’m heading right back to the hotel.”
Dr. Madeline Morgan, devoted entomologist, didn’t bother looking at her older sister. Instead she kept her eyes trained to a pair of high-powered binoculars as she scanned the barren desert terrain. She was on a mission. A mission that had brought her from Georgia to Roswell, New Mexico, and the desert wasteland they were driving through.
“It’s not a bug, it’s a butterfly, Mary Beth,” Maddie corrected. “We’re looking for a Deva Skipper. Or if you prefer, Atryonopsis deva, to be exact.”
Mary Beth sent her sister a sideways glance. “Well, if you ask me, the only divas in this desert happen to be sitting right here in this Jeep.” When Maddie laughed, Mary Beth said, “Well, at least one of us could qualify as a diva, I suppose. In that costume you’re wearing, you look more like…”
“Someone prepared to spend a hot August day in the desert, perhaps?” Maddie lowered her binoculars and leaned back in her seat. “Only you, Mary Beth, would consider wearing a tube top and thong for this type of outing.”
“These are short-shorts, sister dear,” Mary Beth said, continuing their usual sisterly repartee. “Something you would know if you stopped playing professor long enough to get in touch with your feminine side.”
Maddie looked down at her own clothing. She had thoroughly researched what was considered proper attire for the time they would spend in the desert. Like her sturdy long-sleeved shirt that wouldn’t allow desert sun access to tender skin, and her khaki straight-leg pants that tucked quite easily into her sturdy new high-top hiking boots.
“Of course, it’s that pith helmet that really makes the outfit,” Mary Beth said on a giggle. “Yep, nothing turns a man on quite like a stylish pith helmet. It reels them in every time.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, it isn’t male attention we’re looking for,” said Maddie.
Mary Beth tossed her long, pale hair back from her face and dropped her sunglasses down on her tanned nose. “Speak for yourself. I’m always looking for male attention.” She held Maddie’s gaze for a moment with challenging blue eyes.
It was like looking in a mirror, Maddie always thought. They were identical twins, with Mary Beth being all of two minutes older. Yet, Maddie had always thought of them as the opposite sides of a coin.
Even as children, Mary Beth had loved the frilly dresses, the white tights and the patent leather shoes their mother had dressed them in. Maddie, on the other hand, had usually soiled her dress, torn the knees of her tights, and scuffed the toes of her shoes crawling around on her hands and knees observing insects of every size and description.
As they grew older, Mary Beth had been the social one, while Maddie kept her nose buried in the encyclopedia learning everything possible about the winged invertebrate population. Mary Beth had been the cheerleader and homecoming queen in high school, Maddie the valedictorian of their senior class. And while Maddie had plunged into college for a Ph.D. in entomology, Mary Beth had chosen an acting career.
We’re identical, all right. Identical opposites, Maddie thought, but offering a truce to the sister she dearly loved, she said, “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t say anything else about your short-shorts, if you’ll stop making fun of my pith helmet.”
“It’s a deal. But I wasn’t kidding about heading back to the hotel within the hour,” Mary Beth threw in as she gave their immediate surroundings another nervous scan. “This place totally creeps me out and you know it.”
“Do-do-do-do—do-do-do-do.” Maddie chanted the Twilight Zone theme in fun.
“Very funny,” Mary Beth grumbled. “But more than one eyewitness claimed a space ship landed in Roswell in l947. Some people even claim to have seen the bodies of those poor space creatures our government dissected for its own amusement.”
“And after fifty years of extensive investigation, the government concluded all those people saw was a weather balloon,” Maddie insisted.
Mary Beth sent her a shocked look. “You mean you really don’t believe other intelligent life is out there somewhere?”
Maddie grinned mischievously. “Maybe the surest sign other intelligent life does exist, is the fact they’ve never tried to contact us.”
Both sisters shared a good laugh before Maddie reached out and patted her twin’s shoulder. “You know, I really am glad you came with me on this trip. We never get to see each other now that you’re out in L.A.”
“If you want to be in pictures, you’ve gotta go where the action is,” Mary Beth answered with her standard reply.
“I know,” Maddie said with a sigh. “But we really do miss you, me and Mom and Pop. Though I have to admit they haven’t seen much of me, either, these days. I’ve been so caught up trying to map out the migration of the Deva Skipper, I’ve barely had time to eat and sleep.”
“And what happens if we do find this bug?”
“Butterfly,” Maddie corrected again. “It’s a rare species. There have been reported sightings in the southeastern part of New Mexico, but none have been confirmed. If I could find one, it could help pave the way to preserving future colonies.”
“And also advance your career a little, maybe?” Mary Beth accused with a grin. “Like that research team you’re so eager to be chosen for?”
Maddie didn’t deny it. “I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t kill to make my boss’s research team on…”
“On why an old bore like him can’t find a date?”
For the first time, Maddie sent her sister a stern look.
“Okay. Don’t get all huffy,” Mary Beth said as she downshifted and picked up speed. “We’ll look a little longer, but I mean it, Maddie. There’s no way we’re staying out here in UFO utopia after dark.”
“Afraid we might get probed?” Maddie chided.
“No,” Mary Beth said with a laugh. “I’m more afraid you’ll never get probed if this is your idea of how to spend your summer vacation.”
Maddie’s eyes cut to the left. “That wasn’t an invitation for another lecture about my love life.”
“What love life? Or have you finally determined celibacy is too grim a fate even for a workaholic like you?”
Maddie took up her binoculars again and refused to answer.
“I hope you know you’re fooling yourself. You think you’re safely hidden behind those saintly college walls playing professor, but one day some guy is going to come along and knock your feet right out from under you.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know the second anything like that happens.”
“But he won’t be some mental wizard like those stuffy professors you hang around with now,” Mary Beth predicted. “He’ll be all man. Total brawn from head to toe. And you’ll be so hot for this guy, even you would be willing to dance naked on CNN just to get his attention.”
Maddie laughed in spite of herself.
“Besides,” Mary Beth added with a sigh, “we aren’t getting any younger, you know.