Jurassic Heart (8 page)

Of course, there was no way of keeping it from the rest of the team. They all had TVs, and I couldn’t exactly tell them not to watch the news. I was conflicted. Either I brushed it off as unimportant and got on with the job, or I addressed it, brushed it off as unimportant, and got on with the job.

I wasn’t one to ignore a conflict.

“I doubt the press will call any of you directly,” I said, standing on the steps of the trailer with the team gathered loosely in front of me. “If they do, refer them to Sam and don’t make a comment. I spoke with Sam last night. He’s going to issue something formally, and the last thing any of us want is to get in his way.”

That drew a few chuckles from people who had been in Sam’s way before; it wasn’t a nice place to be.

“Okay, let’s get going,” I said and hopped down from my perch.

I fell into step alongside Raven as we headed out over the dig; she had caught the news like everyone else, but unlike the rest, she didn’t seem too bothered by it. Suddenly there was a prickle of something uncomfortable at the back of my neck. I grabbed Raven’s arm, and she startled.

“Shh,” I warned her.

It was probably only an animal. We were working in a nature reserve, after all. One of the first jobs I’d taken care of when recreating the dig as my own was installing a tall perimeter fence to keep wildlife off the site, for the benefit of the animals as well as for our safety. The site had definitely been disturbed, though—the mud had been kicked up. To the untrained eye, it probably just looked like dirt, but I was used to keeping a mental track of what a site looked like. And I hadn’t left it like this.

“What’s wrong?” Raven asked in a low voice.

“Someone’s been out here,” I murmured. “Look.”

To her credit, she didn’t move, observing from where I’d left her so as not to disturb the area. I checked my trench first and forced anger and disgust over the top of the ripple of fear.

An Indiana Jones action figure lay faceup in the bottom of the trench, a crude noose tied around its neck. Some kind of red dye had been smeared over the plastic to look like blood. I didn’t dare touch it. After a lifetime watching cop shows on TV, I knew enough about fingerprints and preserving a scene.

“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked Raven.

“Yeah,” she said. “Nick, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

“Call the cops,” I said. “Someone’s decided to leave me a little present.”

She dialed the number and spoke to someone on the other end, quickly recounting the details of where we were. I hoped the cops had enough sense to get hold of a park ranger; getting lost up here would be a nightmare.

“Who would do this?” Raven said wearily, leaning against me.

“I don’t know,” I said and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder. Her inky dark hair was soft through my fingers. “But I hope they find out.”

Boner had obviously noticed something and came down to our area, then stood close to me and sighed. I remembered, from a distant corner of my mind, that one of his digs had been sabotaged before. It wasn’t a good time to ask him what had happened, but I had a feeling someone had flooded it.

Two cops in uniform arrived to take statements from the team; my planned afternoon of work went out the window as I once again coordinated nonresearch activities that caused my head to hurt.

When the police asked, I admitted Hunter Joseph had been on the site and that he was well-known to the archaeology and paleontology communities due to his opposition to the way we worked. A part of me felt uncomfortable about turning his name over to the police; as far as I knew, he’d never made any actual threats to me or my colleagues in the past.

Boner called Sam to give him an update, and once the police had finished questioning us, for now, at least, I told everyone to go home or back to their hotel or apartment or wherever they were staying, because I had plans to get trashed.

According to Boner’s in-depth research, there were two bars in town worth frequenting. He picked one at random, and we went there once the site had been secured for the night. For the first time in a long time, I felt pretty desperate for a drink.

Joe’s was a proper old saloon bar, and I loved it on sight. We ordered a pitcher of beer, found a booth, and kicked back.

“Wow,” Boner said as he relaxed against the deep red leather. “What a fucking day.”

“Seconded,” I muttered.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. The tone of his voice made me meet his eyes, even though I didn’t want to.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Work with the police, keep everyone calm, keep digging. This isn’t the first time someone has tried to make a fuss on a dig, and you can bet your ass it won’t be the last.”

He nodded, and I could finally see the weariness in his face. It pissed me off. Boner didn’t let stupid shit like this get to him. He moved through it. He was supposed to be on top of it.

“Hey,” I said. “Come on. We’ll be fine. Have a fucking drink.”

My swearing made him smile.

We had more than one fucking drink. In fact, we had several. The atmosphere in the bar was good, as was the music, and the waitress understood Boner’s frequent calls for more beer. The next day was Saturday, meaning the volunteers were under no obligation to turn up if they didn’t want to, and most of the paid staff would come in late. It was an easy decision to get drunk. Very, very drunk.

Then I noticed Hunter Joseph at the bar.

He was sitting alone, making notes in a leather-bound notebook and drinking from a bottle of beer. I was annoyed he was here—in my bar, in my town, on my dig. Those first two didn’t make sense, but my alcohol-riddled brain didn’t seem to recognize that.

The little flutter of lust in my stomach could easily be blamed on what I’d been drinking. I’d vowed to stay away from his type: the big arrogant men who were all muscles and swagger. Muscles and pretty faces and swagger. And big, soulful brown eyes.

The little angel sitting on my shoulder told me to walk straight past him in my quest for the bathroom. Unfortunately, I had a little devil on the other shoulder, and he was shouting a lot louder.

Joseph looked up, caught sight of me, and looked away with a roll of his eyes. I decided this was an invitation to start an argument.

“Why are you here?” I demanded as I stalked over to him.

“Same reason you are,” he retorted.

“There is no reason for you to be here,” I said. “You—you should just… go away. Leave my dig alone.”

“Your dig, huh?”

“Yeah. Mine. My dig, my diggers, my dinosaurs. You can’t force me out of town with a stupid toy—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The Indiana Jones toy?” I said, not bothering to keep the accusation from my voice. “Yeah, I know about it.”

“Seriously, Eisenberg, I don’t know anything about a toy. And you need to get out of my fucking face. I’m here doing my job. Maybe you should concentrate on doing yours.”

“My job would be a lot easier if you left.”

Joseph gave me an indulgent smirk. “I’m not leaving, so fuck you.”

So I smacked him in the face.

Punched him in the face might be more accurate. My fist came in contact with his jaw. It hurt my hand. I could only imagine what it felt like on the face side.

I had an errant, unwelcome thought that his face was actually too pretty to be messing it up, all those strong cheekbones and sultry lips covered in silky smooth bronzed skin. That thought was chased out of my head when Joseph’s fist collided with my cheekbone, causing sparks to explode behind my eyelids.

Before I could retaliate further, strong arms wrapped around my chest and Boner heaved me backward and away, proving he was actually stronger than his skinny ass looked. Joseph too was being hauled away by one of the barmen, and the deathly silence that had descended over the bar when the first punch had been thrown lifted into a cacophony of noise.

“What are you
doing
?” Boner hissed into my ear as he dragged me outside and pushed me against a wall. “Fighting Hunter Joseph? Are you fucking crazy?”

“He provoked me,” I protested, although even to my ears it came out as a whine.

Boner sighed. “Just… stay here while I go settle up. Don’t move.”

I nodded, feeling sorry for myself and the twin pains in my hand and cheek. Boner was inside for about five minutes, which turned out to be plenty of time for me to start berating myself for being an absolute idiot and wonder if Joseph was going to press charges.

When Boner came back, he had my jacket slung over his shoulder and a plastic bag full of ice.

“Here,” he said, “stick that on your face.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. It was already starting to throb, and the ice was a cool relief.

Without further discussion, we started to walk toward the motel. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away. Even more thankfully, Boner seemed to be in a forgiving mood, and his initial grumpiness soon turned to incessant mocking.

“You are going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow,” he crowed as we approached the motel. I tossed the bag of ice into a trash can outside before walking through the lobby, heading for the staircase.

“He’s such a fucking douche,” I said as we stomped up the stairs that led to my room.

“Joseph?”

“Yeah. Who else am I going to be fucking talking about?”

“I think you’ve got a crush….”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Boner?” I opened the door. My temples were starting to thump in time with my cheekbone, and I wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit.

“I think you’ve got a crush on Hunter Joseph,” Boner repeated, more slowly this time. “I think you like him. He’s got one of those pretty, pouting faces that you always go for, and it’s all playground hairpulling and name-calling….”

“I have a headache,” I said before he could get any further down that particular line of thought. “If you’re going to watch TV, be a considerate fucker and put it on low.”

“Sure thing, toots.”

I took the bathroom first, washing up and brushing my teeth and determinedly not looking at myself in the mirror as I did. When I crawled into bed, Boner washed up too and joined me, to my surprise. He didn’t curl around me, maybe appreciating I wasn’t open to his particular brand of nighttime cuddling tonight. I wanted some fucking sleep and a shit-ton of painkillers.

“N
ICHOLAS
A
BRAHAM
Eisenberg, what the motherfuck are you doing?”

“Morning, Sam,” I muttered, not bothering to ask why he knew my middle name or why he had chosen to use it. I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear and kept my eyes firmly closed while he shouted at me.

“Are you an idiot?”

“I try not to be.”

“No, you’re not an idiot. You’re a fucking doctor. You hold a motherfucking PhD. So why, in the name of all that is holy, are you getting into bar fights in the early hours of the morning?”

I switched my phone to the other ear in an attempt to save my hearing.

“It was only one bar fight. And he provoked me,” I said petulantly.

“Are you serious? You’re serious. Jesus H. Christ, Nicholas, you are beyond.”

“Are you even going to ask how I am?”

“Like hell,” Sam said. “You need to stay away from Hunter Joseph, Nick, and this time I’m not fucking with you. If anything else happens, I’ve got a gun and a shovel and believe me, I know enough about bones to figure out how to hide a body.”

I was about to tell him he sounded like a gangster when he hung
up.

“Was that Sam?” Boner asked. He was already dressed and had gone out to get me coffee and a bun from the Tim Horton’s the next street over.

“Who else is it likely to be?”

“Are we going to work today?” he countered. “Come on. Get dressed.”

I did, reluctantly pulling on my jeans and heavy work boots and wandering around the room in circles until Boner threw me a T-shirt and I pulled it on too. Took it off, turned it right way round, and put it on again.

“Let’s hope you don’t find anything today,” Boner said. “You barely know your own name right now.”

“Sam has just been screaming it down the phone to remind me.”

“How kind of him.”

I made the decision to leave my corner of the dig alone for the day, instead working with the others and doing a bit of the teaching I so loved but rarely had time for any more. I felt it was my responsibility to pass on as much as I could to the people who worked for me—especially the volunteers—and my slightly hungover postfight headache could be gently tended to while overseeing the others.

Two of the park rangers came out to check our perimeter fence and found a small gap between posts just big enough for someone to squeeze through. That made more sense than someone trying to get over the top. The fences were pretty high and the ground very uneven from all the trenches. They offered to fix it for me, which was nice, and I left them to it.

The police didn’t seem overly concerned about a few kicked-in trenches and a stupid action figure, and I didn’t really blame them. It was easy to brush it off, lay the responsibility for that sort of thing on teenagers, and we were working in a small town with not a lot for the kids who lived here to do.