Into the Badlands

You were sound asleep before I put away your dinner tray. I took the liberty of leaving the alarm off in the belief that sleep is in your best interests. Please take some time off—let those injuries heal. I’ll tell James you won’t be at the quarry for a while.

Alex Blake

Susannah let the paper drop onto the bed. She would have to disappoint him. Taking time off was out of the question. She wanted to check on Matt, and she had a quarry to run. More importantly, she had to behave noticeably like a grown-up in Blake’s presence.

It was nearly noon by the time she was able to get to the museum. When she stepped off the elevator on the second floor, she heard animated voices coming from Diane’s office. Grasping her crutch, she made her way toward the sound.

“How about Coprolites Incorporated?” she heard Diane suggest. “It has an almost poetic ring.”

“Nah, nobody’ll know what we’re about. We need something catchy and to the point, like We Do Dinosaur Doo-Doo.”

“That’s awful, James. I want something with a little dignity.”

“Who needs dignity? We’re going to make our fortunes here.” James broke off, looking toward the door. “Sue!” He reached her side in one giant step. “What are you doing out of bed? Look at you!”

“I’d rather you didn’t. Not today.”

“You look better wearing bruises and bandages than most women look wearing silk,” James assured her. He kicked a basket of toys out of the way and guided her to a chair. “How’d you get here without your car? Don’t tell me you hopped.”

“Taxi. The driver acted like it was an international trip—all the way from town to my place, then here. I’ll have to make the payments in installments. A year should do it.”

Diane scooped a pile of textbooks from an extra chair and eased Susannah’s foot onto it. “Shouldn’t your ankle be bandaged?”

“Could you help me with it, Di? I couldn’t get the tensor back on after I showered, if you can call it showering. I stood there with my hands outside the curtain like a zombie, hoping the force of the water would be enough to get the grit out of my hair. What’s all this about coprolites?”

Diane took the bandage and started a couple of turns around the instep of Susannah’s foot. “Sophisticated collectors are paying big bucks for the stuff.”

“Really? What do people want them for? Bookends?”

“Or paperweights, maybe. Organic decor is in.” The tensor, just wound, was already coming undone. Diane sighed and started over.

“So we’ve decided the amateur bone hunters have the right idea,” James said earnestly. “Why spend all those years in university so we can make a living working with fossils when we can do better selling dung?”

“Can I join? I’d love to get rid of the last of my student loans.”

“You know I’d do anything for you, Sue, but this is my pet project and my loans come first.” James looked at his watch and jumped up. “Gotta go. I have a meeting with Alex.”

“Is it about Matt? Wait, I’ll come with you.”

“Thanks, Sue, but he asked for me. If I’m not back in half an hour, come looking for me.” James hurried out the door.

Susannah looked after him worriedly. “Poor James. It’s not the way you hope to start out with a new boss…in the middle of your biggest screwup.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience.” Finally Diane fastened the end of the tensor. “There!” She sat back to admire her handiwork. “Don’t ever take it off, Sue. I worked too hard to see it thrown away, as if it were nothing but a disgusting bandage.”

“Agreed. It feels great.” Susannah looked at Diane more closely. “You still look tired. What’s up?”

“I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. There’s too much going on around here.”

“I guess I didn’t help, dragging you out to the quarry.”

“You didn’t drag me.”

Cradling her arm, Susannah said, “I can’t believe I stalked off like that. Blake must think I’m a complete idiot.”

Diane shook her head. “He wasn’t even annoyed when he found out you’d gone to the quarry instead of the meeting. He just accepted that you were busy. Maybe you don’t have anything to worry about with him, after all.” She hesitated, then added, “Actually, I thought he was a sweetheart yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. He seems to have mellowed, though. So I’m going to apologize, and thank him, and be my usual professional self. The next thing you know we’ll be working together just like any two sensible people.”

SUSANNAH KNOCKED on Alex’s office door. After a moment it swung open, and he stood before her, only inches away.

“Dr. Robb,” he said lightly. “You’re never where I expect you to be.”

Her good intentions evaporated. She forgot she’d ever had any. “Don’t you mean I’m never where you’ve told me to be?”

He looked surprised, then cautious. “I suppose you could put it like that.”

“Wouldn’t it make your life easier if you just stopped telling me?”

“You might be right.” His voice had cooled. “In any case, I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to come to work. Would you like to sit down? It’s just a suggestion. You’re free to do whatever you like. I have a guest who’s been worried about you.”

Susannah craned her neck to look past him. Sitting on a hard chair in front of Alex’s desk was Matt, happily examining a plastic triceratops model. He didn’t look like someone who’d been called on the carpet, but Susannah’s protective instincts flooded through her anyway. “You have a list of people to deal with today, I see. I know James was here earlier. Flexing your authoritarian muscle?”

“I was going to leave you until you were feeling better.”

He was close enough that Susannah could feel his breath on her ear when he spoke. Eager to put some distance between them, she made her way to his desk and sank thankfully into a chair near Matt’s.

“Have you seen this, Dr. Robb?” Matt held up the triceratops model.

“Not that particular model, but in my office I have a wooden hadrosaur skeleton that I made myself.”

He nodded without much interest. “Look at this one. It’s really cool. You can take the skin off to see the bones. And Dr. Blake’s got a sand table where you can see how dead dinosaurs got covered up, and you can practice digging them up. Dr. Blake says the current in the river washes them downstream, and then they get caught where the river turns a corner, so that’s a good place to dig.”

Dr. Blake says…? She and James had said the same thing on the first day of science camp. She looked from the sand table to Alex, lounging against his desk. Her eyes followed the long line of his body, from the sandy hair and broad shoulders to the firm stomach and casually crossed legs. Strong, tanned arms were folded across his chest, seeming to cuddle a bloodthirsty tyrannosaur that glared out of a silk-screened subtropical forest. The shirt was more appropriate for a kid like Matt than a man in his late thirties. It suited him, though.

Alex’s attention was on the boy. “Where were we?”

Matt shifted uncomfortably. “You were talking about a…contract.” He clearly didn’t like the word. “For me to remember the rules.”

“How far did we get?”

“I’m supposed to stay off the hills and stay with the other kids.”

“Two things to remember,” Alex agreed. “Tough things, but I think you can do it. Now, my part of the contract is the consequences.”

His expression mutinous, Matt stared at the floor.

“Here’s the hard part. If you break the rules, I’ll send you home.” Alex waited for that to sink in. “But the flip side is that if you follow the rules, you can earn a reward. Would you be interested in spending an afternoon in the prep lab putting together a dinosaur skeleton?”