Jurassic Heart (10 page)

“S
O
WHY
don’t you dig up humans, then?” Joseph asked, leaning back in his seat.

“I thought you objected to that too.”

“Oh, I do,” he said. “I just want to know.”

I shook my head. “Archaeology and paleontology are different disciplines,” I said.

“Explain it to me.”

I was sure he already knew, and wasn’t quite sure why he was pressing me for an answer. If it was a trap, I couldn’t see where, so I launched into an explanation.

“For the past twelve thousand years or so, humans have developed rituals for burying their dead,” I said, then took another sip of my coffee. “Okay, some civilizations burned their dead, but most buried. And depending on all sorts of things—culture, religion, society—they did it in different ways. But nearly always, you’ll find the dead person was laid in a deep trench, on their back. The important dead were laid to rest in a box structure of some kind. This dates back thousands of years.

“But with dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, we’re not talking about thousands of years, it’s
millions
. Dinosaurs didn’t bury their dead in neat little rows. They were eaten or left to the elements or simply destroyed as the continents divided and reformed in those millions of years since they died. So we can dig up human remains and apply what we know about modern humans to the skeleton and can tell how old they were when they died, if they had any diseases, what they died of. Sometimes who their family was. There’s no point of reference with prehistoric animals. I can’t dig up an Archaeopteryx and say, ‘Oh yeah, let’s go out and look at a living one of those and compare notes.’”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “So it’s harder.”

“Not just that,” I said. “We will never be able to put all the pieces back together because some of them are lost forever. I can determine that an animal was a carnivore because of its teeth and sometimes its claws, but that doesn’t mean I can figure out its hunting behavior. We need to dig up its prey for that. Then when we have the prey, we have to figure out where that animal fits into the ecosystem.”

He nodded again and took another sip of his drink, gesturing for me to carry on.

“We’re getting better at guessing,” I said, “because of the number of fossils we now have. And things like finding teeth marks on bones can tell us who ate whom in the prehistoric world. But we’ll never know for sure. We’re always making educated guesses.”

“And sometimes you get it wrong,” Joseph said with a smirk.

“Yeah,” I said. “We do. There have been some absolute howlers in the past. But we’re getting better.”

“So the difference between archaeology and paleontology is whether you study humans or animals?”

I winced. “That’s probably too general a statement. There is some crossover.”

“I know,” he said, smirking again. “I was just wondering how much you’d make up to get me to shut up.”

“I’d do anything to get you to shut up,” I said sincerely. There was no way in hell I’d admit I was actually enjoying talking to him. “So,” I said. “There you have it.”

“You didn’t tell me
why
, though.”

“Why what?”

“Why you do it. Why it’s important.”

“I’m going to need more coffee for that,” I said and waved a hand at Cherry until I caught her attention, then signaled for another round of drinks. “You could argue we don’t
need
to know a lot of things that science has told us. Why do we care so much about astronomy and studying the planets? NASA has spent billions of dollars on space exploration. And has it enriched the life of the average American? Or particle physics. Is that helping us solve the food crisis in Africa? Does high school chemistry tell us how to fix the economy? Many fields of scientific exploration and discovery are for the pursuit of knowledge rather than reward.”

“You’re very passionate about what you do.”

“I have to be,” I said. “Because with the way things are going, who knows if anyone else will be in twenty years’ time.”

“People will always be interested in dinosaurs,” he said dismissively.

“But there is a finite number of skeletons we can dig up,” I argued. “Not every dinosaur that existed was preserved as a fossil. We will reach a point one day when every viable skeleton that can be excavated has been. Then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.”

“Is that likely to happen?” he asked. “Running out of skeletons to excavate?”

“Not in the immediate future, no. But some scientists are already saying the age of discovery is nearly over. We have to reflect, to figure out what we do with all this information we’ve amassed.”

“I want to know a lot of the same things as you,” Joseph said, accepting our coffees from Cherry and passing me one. I smiled my thanks at him, and Cherry waggled her eyebrows suggestively. I pointedly ignored her. “And I know you think I’ve got a really narrow focus, but I honestly don’t spend all of my time running from one side of the country to the other, annoying scientists.”

“You annoy other people too?”

“Yes,” he said. “Mostly politicians.”

I groaned.

“What?” he demanded.

“Most of our funding comes from the government,” I said. “It’s people like you who lose us the funds we need to do our research.”

I could see the word “good” practically hanging from his lips, but he didn’t say it. Part of me was disappointed. I would have loved the chance to punch him again.

“Be thankful your work is funded in the first place,” he said instead. “We’re working against governments most of the time, not with them.”

I shook my head and said, “Let’s not get started on politics.”

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Okay.”

“I can’t ask you to leave us alone again, can I?”

“You could try. I’m not going to, though.”

I ground my teeth together and forced myself to be calm. “Okay. We need to figure out a way of working together without ending up in another argument. That’s not helping anyone.”

“You could just do what I want,” he said evenly.

“You could just go,” I countered.

“Fair point.”

“How about, you don’t do anything that will put our dig in jeopardy, and I won’t get a restraining order taken out to keep you away?”

He seemed to consider this. “Or, I won’t do anything that will put your dig in jeopardy and you restore the area when you’re done digging? And you don’t take out a restraining order against me.”

“That’s two things I have to do and only one for you,” I argued. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Jesus, you’re hard work. Okay, I’ll stop sneaking onto the dig in the middle of the night and taking pictures.”

My eyebrows shot up. “I’m reconsidering that restraining order.”

“I just said I wouldn’t do it again,” he said in a rush, lifting his hands in a gesture of defense. “And I won’t try and stop you from digging.”

I considered this, not convinced I was getting the best deal out of our negotiations but unsure of what else to ask for. Finally I agreed and shook his hand over the table. I had finished my coffee anyway, and I wanted to get back to work before it got too late in the day.

“Going already?” he asked.

“I have work to do,” I said as I shrugged into my jacket. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again before long, Mr. Joseph.”

“Hunter,” he said, correcting me with a bemused smile. “Thanks for the coffee, Nick.”

I gave him a look. “Dr. Eisenberg,” I corrected him, and left before he could say anything else.

A
S
OUR
unofficial office manager, River took over the jobs I hated, and didn’t bitch too much about doing them. I knew I was taking advantage and made it up to her, with candy, mostly.

It wasn’t like we had a lack of work for her to do in the lab either. For a small team, we produced a fair amount of material, which often had to be sent to River for formal identification or dating.

There was no denying the fact that she was in the perfect position to do the boring but necessary jobs like signing for packages and taking phone calls and dealing with the press. Most press queries went through Sam, but River took a lot of inquiries, especially from the locals.

At the end of my working day, I spent time logging my
paperwork and often reading through my colleagues’ logs too, making sure I was on top of what was going on. As an active digger, I didn’t always have time to sit with my colleagues as they excavated, so the time, as far as I was concerned, was well spent.

“Here,” River said, pushing a pile of mail at me. “Deal with this.”

I pouted at her. “I don’t wanna.”

“Nick,” she said, raising her eyebrows and giving me her scary warning look.

Sighing, I reached for the letter opener and started to go through the pile, only half listening to her lecture on letting things build up and dealing with stuff when it arrived. Boner came in, updated his files, and turned to leave.

“Aren’t you going to wait for me?” I asked.

“How long will you be?”

“Not long.” I ignored River’s glare. “It’ll be quicker if you helped,” I added with a winning smile.

He huffed but took a seat next to me on one of the tall stools, electing to split the letters open with his thumb.

“Hey, Nick? You should see this,” Boner said.

I was reading something from our legal rep and concentrating. Or trying to. “What?”

He pushed the piece of paper at me, and I stopped breathing.

I had, of course, seen this type of letter before, each word cut out from a newspaper or magazine and pasted onto a piece of copy paper. Of course, I thought the last time it was done was by a serial killer in a terrible movie, which didn’t exactly fill me with hope.

GO HOME DINOSAUR SCUM

YOUR NOT WANTED HERE

GO BEFORE ANY 1 ELSE GETS HURT

“Really,” I sighed. “I can’t believe they used the wrong ‘your.’”

Boner shook his head. “This is serious, Nick. You should call the cops.”

“This is fucking ridiculous! I am sick of this shit!”

“What?” River asked, coming down to our end of the trailer and reading the note over my shoulder. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Don’t touch it. They might be able to get fingerprints. Or DNA.”

“But to match it, they’d need a suspect, and as far as I know, there aren’t any.”

“Apart from Hunter Joseph,” Boner said.

I glared at him. “You know as well as I do they’re not looking at him.”

“Well, maybe they should be,” Boner argued. “He turned up about the same time all this shit started kicking off, and he’s still around. And you know he’s the only one who’s been openly hostile about the dig. Everyone else thinks it’s fucking peachy.”

“I’ve spoken to him,” I said, pushing away from the counter and standing. “He’s said he isn’t involved, and I believe him.”

“Right, so now you’re all pally with him, he couldn’t possibly do anything like this.”

“Don’t, Boner,” I said.

“Don’t what?” he demanded. “You’re the one who’s suddenly on his side.”

I looked away from him, checking the note again. It didn’t seem like something Hunter would do; it was crude and immature, completely at odds with what I knew of him so far. I could be wrong, of course; it had happened before.

“I don’t mind waiting for the police,” I said, unable to eject the weariness from my body or voice. “You two can go on if you want.”

River nodded. “Okay. Take care of yourself, Nick.”

She pulled a jacket on and squeezed my arm before leaving. I looked over at Boner, who was still hunched over the counter.

“Are you staying?”

He gave me a terse nod and retreated to the other side of the trailer. I guessed it was going to take some effort on my part to make amends with him.

The police arrived and one officer moved out onto the site to check for any further disturbance to the fences, something I hadn’t thought about and immediately berated myself for. The other worked in the lab with us, taking statements and confiscating the letter. That I had expected.

“River will be back tomorrow morning around eight,” I said to the leading officer.

“Was he alone when the letter arrived?”

“She,” I corrected. “All our mail gets delivered here. She saw my name on it and put it in a pile. I only got around to opening it this afternoon. And yeah, she was here when I found the note.”

“What was her reaction?”

I stared at the female officer taking down the statement. “If you’re looking at River for this, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re in the wrong freaking forest. She’s a scientist with a vested interest in this dig. She’s not going to try to sabotage it.”

“We’re following all potential leads, Dr. Eisenberg,” she said blandly.

“Jesus. Okay.”

The female officer left only for her seat to be quickly filled with the man I recognized—he was the one who had responded to the call when we found the Indiana Jones figure, and had knocked on our door that first night when Eric was attacked.

“Dr. Eisenberg,” he said with a nod. “I’m sorry we’re meeting again so soon.”

“Tell me about it,” I grouched, and he smiled.

“We have to consider all of this linked,” he said. “Mr. White is still in the hospital, although his condition is improving. At this time, we don’t have any lead on who attacked him or where the doll came from. However, the person behind it all seems to be insisting on piling more and more evidence into our hands, so hopefully this will help further the investigation.”

“I hope so too,” I said. “I might not tell the rest of my team about the letter. I’m sure River will tell Raven, but I’ll try to keep it contained from there.”

“Raven?” he asked.

“Her twin sister.”

“Ah, yes. Creative parents, there,” he said, a whisper of a smile tugging at his lips.

I wondered if he was flirting. I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea—he was hot, but a bit old for me. “I won’t tell you what their siblings are called, then.”

I’d met Copper and Sage, their two brothers, and their creative parents only once, at a fundraiser we’d held in New York. The whole family was a little crazy.