by Dana Cameron
After I got done washing my face, I found Brian in the kitchen, eating leftovers and reading a copy of Rolling Stone. I can’t stand the hipper-than-thou prose, but hey, music was his thing, and if it made him happy, more power to him. He looked up, and I guess it only took one glance at my face to realize that Tony was gone for good.
Brian came over and hugged me, tight as he could. He patted my head, and I kind of missed having long hair then, because it was so nice to have him stroke it all the way down my back when I felt this bad.
“It’s not you, it’s not your fault,” he said over and over, and I hated hearing it again, true as it was.
“I’ll get through it,” I said, finally, when I stopped crying. I hadn’t even realized that I had started again. Must have been some place between the sink and the stairs. Then again, I didn’t even remember much of the drive home. All I really remembered was trying to drive carefully, at the same time, rushing home, to the only place that seemed to help when I had to have these thoughts. School was good, I could work to banish stray thoughts there, but if I had to think about this, it had to be here. It was easiest to bear my thoughts here.
“I’ll get through it,” I said again, and pulled away, gently.
If I start right now, I thought, I can clear my head by bedtime. Fake it until you make it. Pretend to be normal enough, or well, work at it hard enough, and some of it is bound to rub off. Soon.
Soon enough.
A little more than a week after Tony died, I was back at the gym. Nolan wasn’t up to full speed yet, but pushing himself through recovery at what I thought was a hazardous pace. He was doing well enough to oversee my lesson this week, well enough to sit on the sidelines and add a brow beating to Mr. Temple’s when I screwed up. But I’d tagged Temple once, even working around my knee, so when the bruise comes up where he hit me back, I’ll wear it as a badge of pride.
I made the same mistake again, and Nolan gave me another dose of sarcasm that imprinted the correct move on my brain and muscles. Nolan’s got Temple calling me Red, now, so I’ll have to take that, too, for another week until Temple goes back. Between the two of them, it would be a hard week, but I nodded and took the criticism, and tried not to smile, thinking how good a day it was.
After I’d packed up my gear I saw Temple and Nolan talking to Erik Reynolds in Nolan’s office. I slowed and stared as I walked past, then, outside, dawdled near his truck, waiting for Erik to come out.
“Hey, Erik. You know Mr. Temple? And Nolan?”
“Hey, Emma. Yep.”
I tilted my head, glaring at him for his stupid answer, but he just smiled and unlocked the truck, opened it and rolled down the window. “I mean, how do you know them?”
“Oh. Well, Derek likes to eat.” He got into the truck and shut the door. “And Nolan lives around here.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t—” I began impatiently. Suddenly, I realized I had a lot of questions for Erik, like how he’d handled himself on the boat, for starters.
Erik smiled again. “Em, I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you.”
He said the words exactly the same exaggerated way everyone else does when they’re goofing around. I looked into his eyes and saw no threat there, but it struck me that he was wondering whether I’d push the issue.
“Maybe another time.”
“Another time, then.” He winked, and pulled away.
At home, my jog-bra hit the floor with a plastic clatter. Startled, Minnie bolted out from under the bed with a scrabble of claws on the hardwood floor. The one thing in the world that I hadn’t learned to fight is a sweaty athletic bra made even more rigid with breast protectors; the hooks in the back made escape considerably easier. I was surprised that my sweat-pants didn’t make nearly as much noise, and the knee brace and groin protection went next, with not so much as a clunk as a soft thud. I’d already taken out my mouth guard, put it in the pile of things to be washed, along with my sweaty hand-wraps, in which Minnie was already rolling, happily grokking the smell in the yards of black cotton. I hit the shower, feeling energetic and pumped and tired all at once. Although I knew that as soon as the water hit me, I would be done for the day, I thought about my moves at the gym and fancied that I could have gone another half hour. I knew it was the endorphins talking, but I felt great.
I turned on the radio and waited to hear the pre-game for the Red Sox as I got into the shower. They were doing amazing things this summer, and I allowed myself to fantasize that they would defeat the Yankee’s Evil Empire in time for my birthday in October. A pennant would make a hell of a thirty-fifth birthday present. Hell, why stop there? Why not wish for the Series?
It could happen. Everything in the world is possible.
I went downstairs to find the answering machine light was on. It was Stuart Feldman. My first forensic science class starts next semester. It would mean late nights, long hours, massive juggling, and the possibility of some seriously scary stuff.
I couldn’t wait.
Acknowledgments
I’D LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING, ALL OF WHOM contributed to this book: Ann Barbier, Pam Crane, James Goodwin, Beth Krueger, Peter Morrison, Anne Wilder, my agent Kit Ward, my editor Sarah Durand, Eileen Dreyer, Dan Hale, Steve Kelner, D.P. Lyle, M.D., Donna Andrews, Lois Reibach, and Suzi Thurmond. Many folks in beautiful downtown Beverly, Massachusetts also helped out: the gang at the Atomic Café, the folks at the Beverly Post Office, Karen and David at Barter Brothers, Inc. Flowers–Gifts, and J.G.M. Numismatics.
About the Author
DANA CAMERON is a professional archaeologist, with a Ph.D. and experience in Old and New World archaeology. She has worked extensively on the East Coast on sites dating from prehistoric times to the nineteenth century. Ms. Cameron lives in Massachusetts. Her web address is www.danacameron.com. Ashes and Bones is her sixth novel featuring archaeologist Emma Fielding.
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The Emma Fielding Mysteries
by Dana Cameron
ASHES AND BONES
MORE BITTER THAN DEATH
A FUGITIVE TRUTH
PAST MALICE
GRAVE CONSEQUENCES
SITE UNSEEN
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ASHES AND BONES. Copyright © 2006 by Dana Cameron. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition June 2007 ISBN 9780061738142
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