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  From his point of view, that would be a shame. He would have liked to get to know the attractive Dr. Hamilton better. He could even imagine working the site with her. He would not work it with Scarr or Zac Doyle.

  Mike was a realist. He was pretty sure that as soon as Liz provided Scarr with the GPS coordinates of the bone bed, the man would head right out to the site. He might even get there before Don had a chance to set up.

  That wasn’t going to happen. “I’ll meet you there,” he said to Don.

  Don laughed. “I thought you would.”

  Chapter 8

  Liz drove Alfred Scarr and Zac Doyle to the washout using Scarr’s truck. He sat shotgun. Zac wedged himself into the extra seat behind. She didn’t bother with the long detour that would have brought her back onto Mike Edmond’s permit land. Instead she took Highway 25, from the place where it met up with the road leading into Scarr’s camp, all the way to the giant rift.

  She parked well away from the edge, then turned to face the two men. “The washout is about six feet deep. The skeleton is on this side. We’ll have to find a place to climb down, then I’ll show it to you.”

  Scarr stared out the windscreen. “Why don’t we use the path you found earlier?”

  Did the man not listen? She dragged patience out from somewhere and kept her tone pleasant. “I was on the other side of the rift. To get there from our camp, we would have had to detour about fifteen miles. I thought you wanted to get here before Mike Edmonds came back and staked out his side.”

  Scarr considered that, then he nodded. “Good point. Okay, let’s go look.” He opened his door, then paused, shooting her a dismissive look. “You realize that this may all be for nothing.”

  Now what was he on about? “I don’t understand.”

  Scarr shrugged. “You may have got it wrong. This may be a few bones from a previously well-documented species. It may not be the big deal you think it is.” With that he climbed out of the cab, leaving Liz staring after him feeling a mixture of outrage and concern.

  What if Scarr was right? What if she had discovered the skeleton of an iguanodon, or a hadrosaur, or some other well-documented species with plentiful finds? She watched Zac work his way out of the back seat and crawl out of the cab. Sure, it was almost a full skeleton and from her initial review it was well preserved. There would be useful information to be found, even if it was just a garden-variety hadrosaur. But it wouldn’t be the find of a lifetime. A career-making find that would get her a teaching position at a reputable university and a guaranteed position on digs like this one for the rest of her career.

  She watched the two men walk toward the rift and decided she should get moving. She slipped out of the truck and followed them along what was left of the road.

  Scarr could be messing with her head. Priming her, so that she wouldn’t put up a fight when he nominated Zac to supervise the excavation. Not that Zac Doyle needed the glory of the major find this skeleton could be. He was already on his way to a high-flying career. But Scarr would want his name associated with Zac the golden boy, not with a plodder like Liz Hamilton.

  The men had stopped at the edge of the rift, where the highway was no more. Zac had his hand to his forehead, shading his eyes from the harsh sun, looking, she supposed, for a way down into the crevice. Scarr had his hands in his pockets and his head was bent. She couldn’t see what he was looking at, but from his stance she thought he was tense. When she came up beside them, she saw the reason why.

  There was a man in a hard hat standing in the bottom of the rift. His bright orange vest was blindingly bright in the harsh midday sunlight. He was looking up, presumably because he had heard Scarr and Zac’s footsteps. Beside him were two other men, also wearing hardhats and vests, holding what appeared to be surveying equipment.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” Scarr said, as she came up to stand beside him. His gaze never left the men in the rift.

  “Mike Edmonds’ survey team, I guess,” Liz said.

  As if to confirm her statement, the man who wasn’t busy setting up equipment shouted, “One of you Alfred Scarr?”

  Beside her, Scarr nodded. “That’s me.”

  The man in the hard hat nodded. “I’m Don Conway, county surveyor. I’m here to see how bad the damage to the road is.” He pointed to what must be the skeleton, though from where she stood, Liz couldn’t see it. “Looks like there’s a nice little dino here, waiting for you or Mike to excavate it. I’ll take readings while I’m here and let you know the exact location.”

  “The dino is mine,” Scarr shouted back. He gestured toward Liz. “One of my diggers found it.”

  Diggers! How dare he! She was the site supervisor and she’d been keeping Scarr’s bevy of beauteous undergrads in line since she joined the dig after she’d defended her Ph.D. and become Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton, not just plain old Liz Hamilton.

  Temper boiled and she brushed past Scarr, taking herself away from him before she said anything she would later regret. She saw Zac begin to move along the edge of the rift. He must have seen a path. She followed him and was rewarded when she saw him scramble down the rocky wall.

  When he reached bottom she was already halfway down. He paused to wait for her. “Where’s the skeleton?” he asked.

  She pointed toward the surveying crew. “There.”

  Zac nodded. He was all business now and there was nothing of the innocent in his face. His expression was set, his eyes coldly assessing. He strode off to view the find, or maybe to confront the surveyor. Liz wasn’t sure which, but she had no intention of being left behind. She hustled after him.

  Don Conway glanced over at Zac and Liz as they neared. He nodded toward the skeleton and said, “Amazing what nature will throw your way, isn’t it? I came out here thinking I had a pain in the ass problem, and what do I see? Something amazing.”

  And he was right. The find was amazing. Liz stared at it again, the sight reassuring her that her initial assessment had been correct. This was a career-making find. Now she just had to make sure it was her career it made, not Zac Doyle’s.

  Zac stepped closer to examine the exposed bones and she heard his intake of breath. Did he think it was a new species, as she hoped? Oh, how perfect it would be if it was!

  She heard the rattle of sifting gravel and looked up. Scarr was no longer at his position on the lip of the cliff, so the sound must be him making his way down the path. Sure enough, when she looked over, he was down in the bottom and moving quickly toward them.

  When he saw the skeleton, he sucked in a deep breath too. This was getting better and better.

  Don Conway had moved off to instruct his crew, leaving Zac, Liz and Scarr examining the exposed bones. “Do you trust this local surveyor?” Zac said in a low voice. He was looking at Scarr. In fact, the two men were huddled closely together, with Zac’s back toward Liz, excluding her from their conversation.

  Scarr said, “He’s a county official. I think he’s all right.”

  Zac nodded, but his voice was tense as he said, “There’s a lot riding on what this guy comes up with. We don’t want to be shafted by some stupid yokel.”

  Honestly, Liz thought. Talk about a paranoid jerk. The conversation continued on in the same fashion, both men speculating on what would have to be done to get rights back if Conway put the skeleton on Mike Edmonds’ side of the line. She listened idly, scanning the rift for the head of the great beast they were standing in front of.

  Heads tended to get detached and drift away from the main skeleton. If they were lucky they would find it not far away from the neck, safely on federal land. She scanned the rift, looking for clues, hoping against hope something would catch her eye and tell her that the skull was close by, waiting for her to discover it.

  No clues. No heart-stopping discovery, only the sound of Zac and Scarr, droning on, as they plotted how to secure the site. Suddenly she heard the rumble of an internal combustion engine.

  Conway looked up from his computations. “Th
at’s probably Mike Edmonds.” He grinned, evidently pleased by this development. “Looks like we won’t have to have a meeting in town. We’ll be able to discuss who gets what part of this skeleton right now.”

  “Road repair, my ass,” Scarr said. Loudly.

  Conway raised his brows over the dark sunglasses he wore. “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out, Dr. Scarr. I’m a straightforward guy. I don’t like hints and innuendo.”

  Scarr shot him a look of loathing. “Do you work for Discovering Dinos?”

  The truck engine stopped and in the ensuing silence Conway’s voice was hard. “I told you when I introduced myself. I’m the county surveyor. I work for the good people of this county and no one else. Understood?”

  She thought Scarr understood perfectly well. Mike Edmonds was one of the good people of Twisted Butte County. Dr. Alfred Scarr was not.

  There was another rattle of shifting dirt and gravel. She looked over, not at all surprised to see Mike Edmonds making his way down the path on his side of the rift, the one they’d used that morning.

  The confrontation between Conway and Scarr was about to become a three-way battle.

  Chapter 9

  Mike eased his way down the rocky side of the rift, taking his time as he evaluated the scene before him. Liz Hamilton was standing to one side of Scarr and the man he thought must be Zachary Doyle. The two men stood closely together, clearly unified, while Liz was excluded from their pairing. That, he thought, was something he could work with. She’d have no reason to feel loyalty to Scarr and Doyle, so she’d be impartial. At least he hoped she would, because he had no intention of working with Zachary Doyle to excavate the skeleton.

  Don’s team was working near the road, so it looked like Don himself was taking the measurements of the bone bed. That was good. For all his apparent lightheartedness, Don was precise in his work, meticulous in his documentation. His findings could be relied upon.

  Mike was very aware of Liz Hamilton’s gaze on him as he slithered down the hill, even though she was wearing sunglasses. On the drive from town to the washout he’d had plenty of time to think about last night, the find, and what to do about both. He’d decided that the find took precedence over the lingering desire left from a night spent in close proximity to a woman he couldn’t have. At the same time, he knew he would have to work with someone from Scarr’s camp. The kind of complications Liz Hamilton would bring would be easier to deal with than the narrow-mindedness of Scarr, or the arrogance of the wonder kid, Zac Doyle.

  When he reached the bottom of the rift, he ignored Scarr and Doyle, a deliberate move on his part, and strode straight to Don.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself a fine set of bones here, Mike,” Don said, tilting his head to indicate the find. His sunglasses hid the expression in his eyes, but from his words, Mike guessed Scarr and Doyle were approaching. Don raised his brows, pitched his voice a little louder, and the corner of his mouth twitched, ever so slightly. “Have you got a buyer for the bones yet? Going to break up the skeleton? Hell, if you sold it piece-by-piece you’d make a killing.”

  “Don,” he muttered, though he was resigned to his friend’s antics. Don had an engineering degree from a top-notch university, and he was no country bumpkin, but Scarr and Doyle would expect a county employee in a rural, ranching area to be unsophisticated and ignorant, and Don knew that. He’d be quite happy to poke them until they were riled up and fit to burst.

  Don flashed Mike a grin, then his expression became thoughtful. “There was that gentleman from China who was by some weeks ago. I bet he’d be right glad to learn of this here find.”

  Mike resisted the urge to shake his head. “This here find? Get real, Don.”

  Don choked off a laugh that he turned into a cough. Behind Mike a throat was cleared. He shot an impatient look at Don, who returned it with an innocent one. Then he slowly turned.

  Scarr and Doyle stood shoulder-to-shoulder, presenting a unified front. If the expression on Scarr’s face was anything to go by, Don had done a good job of irritating them. Scarr wasn’t wearing a hat or sunglasses—stupid, in Mike’s point of view—so Mike was able to see the disdain lurking in his eyes, as well as the pursed lips and flared nostrils that clearly showed what he was feeling.

  Zac Doyle was younger looking than he’d expected. Mike kept up with the latest in his field, reading all the journals and published papers, so he knew of Zac through his published works, but he’d never seen a picture of the man. Unlike Scarr, Doyle was wearing sunglasses, so his eyes were shielded and Mike couldn’t read the expression in them. His facial expression was neutral, but his stance and body language showed that he clearly sided with Alfred Scarr. It looked, though, that he was willing to let the older man take the lead.

  Liz followed the two men. Now she stood to one side, between Scarr and Mike, on her own, siding with neither party. “Dr. Scarr, this is Mike Edmonds,” she said, indicating Mike with a wave of her hand. “Mike, Alfred Scarr and Zac Doyle. Dr. Scarr leads the excavations on the federal lands. Zac just arrived to help him out.”

  When neither man offered his hand, Mike didn’t either. “Your timing is excellent, Doyle, since Liz will be busy here.”

  “Miss Hamilton—”

  “Dr. Hamilton,” Liz said. “I was granted my Ph.D. in May.”

  She said that rather grimly, as if it was an ongoing source of conflict between her and Scarr.

  “—will be leaving my team,” Scarr said, not acknowledging her interjection. “Zac Doyle will be working this find.”

  “Really?” Mike pushed his hat back and took off his sunglasses. He wanted Scarr to see his eyes, to understand the expression in them. “Here’s the thing. It was our find. Dr. Hamilton’s and mine. Zac Doyle has nothing to do with it. I’ll expect him to keep clear.”

  “You have no say in how this dig is run!” Scarr’s tenor rose to an alto squeak as he spat out the words. “This is an academic find, not one of your pirate sites. Zac will manage this excavation.”

  Mike had a sense of movement behind him. A quick glance told him Don had ranged himself beside him. He was about to reply to Scarr’s provocative statement when Liz Hamilton intervened.

  “I will ensure that the find is excavated carefully and is properly documented,” she said. Her voice was emotionless, but Mike thought she must be furious at being shunted aside so carelessly.

  Zac Doyle spoke for the first time. “You’re no match for a guy like this, Lizzy.” His lips curled in what he probably thought of as a smile, but was more of a smirk.

  The smirk and the deliberate use of a nickname was a classic strategy to undermine her credibility and her self-confidence. Contemptable, Mike thought, but it also confirmed to him that Scarr and Doyle wanted in on the excavation of this creature. These bones must be very special indeed.

  Liz Hamilton’s quick intake of breath indicated she was more angry than intimidated by Doyle’s little ploy. Her eyes flashed, but she clamp down hard on her temper. Mike was impressed.

  She shifted, moving her feet so her legs were set wider apart in a classic battler’s stance as she glared at Doyle. “Since we only met this afternoon I’m not surprised you don’t realize that no one—not my friends, not my sister, not my mother, no one—calls me Lizzy.”

  Beside him Don snickered. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Another thing to remember, Zac. You’re ABD, all but dissertation. One day you may be top of the heap, but right now? Right now, I out rank you.”

  She’d stuck home with that one, Mike thought, as Doyle’s round, cherubic features twisted with temper. Too bad that Scarr’s did as well.

  “I decide seniority on my dig,” Scarr said, outrage dripping from his voice.

  Time to intervene. “Good thing this is my dig, then,” Mike said.

  “Outrageous! Half, perhaps two-thirds of the creature is on federal land, where I hold the dig permit. I will manage it!”

  Mike allowed himself a smile. “Coop
eration is key.”

  Scarr narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean? How is that relevant?”

  Mike shook his head. He couldn’t believe Scarr would be so obtuse, but he supposed that the man thought so little of him that he’d wasn’t sensible enough to be wary.

  Beside him, Don said cheerfully, “China calling.”

  Mike’s lip twitched, but he didn’t give into laughter. “He’s right, you know. I could find a buyer for my part of the skeleton with a half-a-dozen phone calls. If I wanted to make a few more I could sell it one bone at a time.” He stopped, let the words sink in, the way they hadn’t earlier. Watched outrage take hold of Alfred Scarr, while Zac Doyle frowned. He almost had them.

  Liz Hamilton said, “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  She was not looking at him, or at her boss, but at the remains of the great beast. Her expression was not only possessive, but nurturing, as if she felt a tenderness toward this long dead creature and wanted to be sure its remains were treated with respect.

  He wanted to curse, because he couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, taunt her the way he was Scarr and Doyle. He kept a rough edge to his tone, though, as he said, “Not if you are the one I’m working with, Dr. Hamilton.”

  She looked back at him, blinked, then smiled. He had a sense that he’d just been played, though perhaps it wasn’t him she was manipulating, but Scarr.

  “I told you,” Scarr said.

  “I know, I know,” Mike said. “Dr. Hamilton is leaving your employ. Zac Doyle will handle the excavation.”

  “You understand me,” Scarr said tightly.

  “The thing is, Dr. Scarr, you don’t understand me. The kind of man I am.”

  “I know exactly what kind of man you are,” Scarr said. “You’re an uneducated maverick whose desire for wealth leads you to destroy priceless artifacts. You indulge and encourage the greed and ignorance of those you sell to and make the jobs of professionals in the field that much harder. I abhor the kind of man you are and what you stand for.”