Jurassic Heart (6 page)

For three days, Boner and I stalked the area, taking
photographs and adjusting the plastic tarpaulin that was protecting our finds. The trailer, with all its valuable information, was towed away, and we were left with only the photocopies Brad had made for me. As far as I knew, Eric and his people didn’t know I had them. I was hoping to keep it that way.

Then I got a call from the copy place in town to say a fax had come through for me
—
a fax, for fuck’s sake, since Sam was absurdly retro like that. We had the paperwork, and our days of planning could finally be put to work.

Like a breath of relief, Chuck came back to help, then Nancy later in the day. I could tell she needed to take things easy, and I was fine with that; poor thing was still in shock. Boner agreed to keep her company. He was good at charming women.

Sam didn’t call again but kept sending little gifts my way. The first was a shiny trailer to work in, giving me a whole new project in setting up the site the way I wanted it to be run, not Eric White’s hodgepodge of systems. Then there were the two grad students from the University of Alberta, who were done with their dissertations and willing to work for as long as I needed them.

It was a slow process, getting the new kids familiar with the site, helping Chuck and Nancy, and vaguely supervising what Boner was doing as well as setting everything up. I was desperate to go back out on the site and get my hands dirty doing what I did best, but there was responsibility attached to running my own dig, and I took it seriously.

River and Raven, the infamous Goth Twins, turned up two days after my college kids. Well, River arrived first and her sister came along later in the evening. I hadn’t actually worked with the pair of them for a few years, and I had heard they weren’t working together anymore, so to get them both was a big win and I knew it. It meant I owed Sam big-time, but that wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

Having River around was the best thing that had happened to me all week. She was going to be my paleobiologist, which meant I could stick her in the trailer/lab and she could run that side of the operation. Raven was a digger, like me.

I wasn’t sure if anyone referred to them as the Goth Twins to their faces
—
I certainly didn’t
—
but it was a nickname well-known in the right circles. They’d earned it too; terrifyingly petite and pale, both girls had long dark hair, although it wasn’t unusual for them to dye parts of it blue or pink or purple or red. When Raven arrived I noticed she had shaved one side off completely in an undercut. That was good. It meant telling them apart became a lot easier.

Between them they had a lot of tattoos, but trying to tell them apart from tattoos alone wasn’t a good idea. Raven had waves cresting over her collarbones and, in the same spot, River had two black birds diving in toward her chest, representing her sister. Raven had Japanese designs that started with those waves and continued on down her arms all the way to her wrists. River’s sleeves were black and white, covering the tops of her arms, most of her back, and ribs.

If you knew the girls well and they were out working in the field, it wasn’t difficult to tell them apart. But in a conference room or a lecture hall or ballroom, with them both wearing dresses or suits or long gowns, they looked like each other’s reflection.

Outward appearances could be deceiving, and even though they looked like they belonged in a rock band, they were some of the best in their respective fields of study. Both girls were fun to have around, for sure, but more than that, I knew being able to cite them on my reports would make me look good, professional, and accomplished.

We settled into work quickly, assigning areas to the new members of the team and letting them get familiar with the site and the recent discoveries in their own time. In the downtime between Eric’s dig being dismantled and mine being set up, Boner had put together several packs of information so the new team members could read up on the area, the finds so far, and all the reports.

After an uncertain few days, Brad the undergrad agreed to come back, adding another number to the team. I liked him
—
he was a calm, steady presence, and he’d done good work for Eric. I got the impression his loyalty to his former employer had been the main problem keeping him from returning to the site. Sam had obviously given him a good incentive to switch sides.

Since Brad knew the site already, I had him help me relabel the ground in a more logical way. Then I went about assigning a work space to each person on the new team.

To the right of the spot I’d reserved for myself was Raven’s area. Farther south, back toward the trailer, was the section Boner had been working previously and was happy to return to. It was completely against all the rules, but I decided to work outward from grid reference A1, beyond the area that had been sectioned off for excavation. Technically it was still within the site where we had permission to dig, so I wasn’t doing anything illegal. The look on Boner’s face told me he didn’t approve
—
and Mim wouldn’t either.

Breaking the rules was fun, though, especially when it made Boner get all official on my ass. The whole time we were shifting the perimeter fence back, he bitched at me and I just smiled. Sometimes my instincts were horrendously off. And then sometimes, I got a gut instinct that we had been working in the wrong direction.

It wasn’t all gut instinct either; there was some logic in my decision. All of the finds we’d made so far were toward the north side of the dig. Both my Orodromeus and Brad’s Othnielosaurus had been discovered between the A and D grid references lower down the hill. Logic told me if we kept moving down the gentle slope, we’d maybe find more.

I called Sam to let him know what I was doing since he was technically bankrolling the dig, or sourcing the funding for us at least. He didn’t seem to disapprove, which I took as his approval, and I made sure I laid out my plans to the team before I started work.

Rather than renumbering all the grid references and causing confusion for everyone, I labeled the new areas as A0, A-1, A-2, and so on. There was some flickering interest from the others about what I was actually doing in the deeper area of the dig, and during the ensuing week, work seemed to follow me down the hill. The people who had been working the site when Eric had been in charge were starting to get frustrated, I could tell, and the team wanted to see some big dinosaurs being pulled out of the ground.

I couldn’t promise them that, of course. We could do ground work and study aerial photographs and topography maps and the soil, but there was never any guarantee we would find anything at all. I had a theory I was working through with Boner that we were excavating an old riverbed or lake. If I was right, it could mean we would strike gold. Prehistoric animals would often get stuck in the soft mud around running water and die, leaving their bodies almost perfectly preserved. If the theory panned out, working downhill would definitely be the right direction.

If we wanted to keep going, though, we needed to produce some real results, or at least make some progress. As the lead paleontologist on the dig, I had that responsibility. My hope was by moving farther downhill, I’d be able to get those results
—
for the team and for
me
.

“N
ICK
!”

I looked up as Boner jogged down the hill toward my site. I wiped the sweat from my head, reached for my water, and climbed out of the ditch. “What?”

“You need to get back up to camp.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, and I realized he was out of breath. “Hunter Joseph just turned up.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I groaned.

Hunter Joseph was the dark cloud over every dig in North America, and parts of South America too, if he managed to get down there. We never knew if he was going to turn up, and I’d been lucky—so far—that he hadn’t gotten in my hair on a dig I was running.

He was a famous conservationist and at some point had decided to get a bug in his ass about the work that I, and other paleontologists, were doing. To a point, I could silently concede that some of his arguments were valid. But most of the time he had no perspective, attacked blindly, and generally caused a mess.

As we trudged back up the hill, I cast my mind back over what I knew about him, which was actually very little, annoying the hell out of me. I hated going into a confrontation on the back foot, and I was sure Joseph would have done his research on me before coming down.

He was leaning against a small hybrid vehicle as we approached, one leg casually kicked over the other with his hands shoved in his pockets. I rarely felt intimidated by guys who were taller than me—despite being five foot nine, I was always able to hold my own—but Hunter seemed to use his height advantage to look down on me
.

“Mr. Joseph,” I said as I approached, slapping on my
I’m a professional, yes I am
face and offering my hand for him to shake. He accepted, gripping it tightly and giving me a grim smile. “I’m Dr. Eisenberg.” And using my professional title wasn’t a mistake either. “How can I help?”

“I’m here to find out what you’re doing,” he said simply.

Joseph was the picture of casual outdoor elegance in tailored khakis and a navy-blue T-shirt. His long dark hair was pulled back from his face in a smooth ponytail, revealing a long line of muscled neck down to collarbones that peeked out from under the low dip of his shirt. Thick biceps caused the fabric to strain a little around the top of his arms.

I hated that he was exactly the sort of guy I normally went for: gorgeous, interesting, slightly dangerous…. He was far, far away from the concept of a
bad
guy—he wasn’t leather and motorcycles—but the reaction caused by our proximity to each other was not good.

I gave him a bland smile. “We’re digging up dinosaurs, Mr. Joseph. If you’re interested, I’m sure one of my grad students would be happy to tell you more.”

He blinked at me: game on.

“I’m a conservationist, Dr. Eisenberg,” he said slowly. “My mission in life, if you like, is to preserve areas of outstanding natural beauty from those who seek to destroy it.”

“That sounds like a very noble cause,” I said. “I’m sure if you take a look around, you will see that we’re taking very good care of the area and working within provincial and federal regulations on where we can dig.”

Joseph narrowed his eyes, telling me exactly what he thought of provincial and federal regulations. I didn’t blame him—they were sketchy at best. That worked in our favor, though, meaning the records we kept as part of our work already were more than sufficient if anyone wanted to find out more details of what we were doing.

“There are some who believe those regulations are insufficient—” he started, but I interrupted him before he could get any further.

“I know that to be true,” I said. “However, at present, it is within those laws that we are obliged to work, and we do. If you want to go about changing those laws, then you need to speak to people far more important than me. Unless I can help you with anything else…?”

He looked at me and scowled. Oh, it was on.

“Cut the crap, Eisenberg,” he said. “You know why I’m here.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “You systematically destroy the landscape when you dig and you make no effort to restore it when you’re done. You tear down trees and ruin habitats and landscapes.”

“If you have a problem with the way we dig, Joseph, then you need to take that to the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“I will,” he said.

“But they’ll want evidence,” I said, taunting him now. “And you’re not going to find that here. I run a clean ship, everything is done by the book, and you’re wasting your time. Now, get off my fucking dig before I have you thrown off.”

I started to walk away and managed a few steps before he called me back.

“Eric White didn’t, though, did he?”

I turned slowly to face him, noticing more than one of my undergrads was watching the exchange. Great.

“Eric White didn’t do what?”

“Didn’t run a clean ship.”

The last piece fell into place. Hunter Joseph wasn’t here to close me down, he was here to close
Eric
down. That made a lot more sense.

“Eric White is no longer in charge,” I said calmly. “I am.”

He stared me down, clearly attempting to regain some control over the situation. I wasn’t going to give it to him

“I’ve set up a petition,” he said.

I got the impression he was trying to get a rise out of me. I couldn’t figure out why. I gave him a hard, level stare. “A petition for what?”

“From local people, to apply pressure to those who destroy the landscape to adequately restore it before moving on.”

“How dare you.”

“How dare I what? Do my job?”

“No, sabotage mine!”

Joseph shook his head. “When you do your job properly, there won’t be any need for me to be here. The petition is only necessary to get you to do what you should be doing anyway.”

“And who are you to tell us how to work?” I demanded. “People have been digging up dinosaur bones for a hundred years now. Do you really think you’re going to change that on your own?”

“One step at a time, Dr. Eisenberg,” he said calmly.

“You’re unbelievable. You have no right to be here.”

“I have the same rights as you,” he retorted. “More, maybe. Who knows what sort of damage you would do to this area if it weren’t for me stopping you.”

I took a deep breath, reminded myself that my team was watching, and forcibly unclenched my back teeth. “I’d like you to leave now,” I said, forcing evenness into my voice.