Grave Consequences
Page 36
At long last, though it had only been a twenty-minute delay, the pilot announced that we would begin to descend. I happily went through the ritual of putting the tray in its upright and locked position, readjusting my seat, and miraculously, for the first time in hours, watched the dandruffy head of the person in front of me pull away. I found myself getting more and more excited, and that drove some of my worries away. I would never know, really, if things would have been better if I’d not gone to the police. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be known. Maybe the important thing was, I tried as hard as I could and was finally willing to take responsibility for what I’d decided. Maybe the important thing was trying and doing, finding yourself in a situation and trying to make some good come out of it at the end.
The plane seemed to take forever to land. My impatience grew exponentially, geometrically, until I was ready to go ask the pilot why he couldn’t move things along just a little faster. Surely a few more degrees of decline, a few hundred more horsepower, wouldn’t hurt any? I was already twenty minutes later than I thought I would be, and somehow, after more than three weeks, it seemed unbearable.
Finally, we bumped onto the runway and the effect of the plane braking—the rushing in our ears, being pushed back into our seats—was enough to reassure me that it would be soon, I would see Brian soon, in less than minutes. I could hold my breath if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to, because the way I was humming with anticipation, barely kept in check by my seat belt, was practically aerobic. Suddenly, the light went off, the little chime binged, and we were there, and the whole reason for traveling so lightly, the wedging of belongings into tiny bags, was again revealed to me: I grabbed my carry-on bags and threw myself into the aisle. No wasting time at the luggage carousel: I was going to see Brian.
But of course, the line of passengers took forever to move out of the cabin, and then there was the blast of salty Boston air—so refreshing after hours in the plane and the smoggy smell of London—before I was back in the terminal, heading for customs and trying to remember where I’d hidden my passport and forms, but all the time my heart grew lighter, my pulse sped faster and faster, and I knew it was just instants away.
I walked out of customs and then I saw Brian. I knew it was he even before I visually recognized him, it was the way he stood, the way he shifted when he craned to search for me. Then I really saw Brian, an instant before he saw me, and I loved how he was anxiously searching for me too. He was wearing the T-shirt that he knows I like best, and I could tell he’d run around the house cleaning things up so we would have time to play when I got home, fussing with things until he could legitimately go to the airport. The crumpled paper coffee cup in his hand spoke of more time killed at the airport, and my eyes began to well at the sight of that sign of anticipation too. Then he saw me and waved hugely, like a kid, not caring who saw, and his smile was like a lightning bolt that cracked my heart.
I pushed forward, as impatiently polite as I could manage, until I cleared the barrier and I could throw down my bags and wrap my arms around him, and he could fold me up in his. I could feel people forced to move around us and didn’t care. I could feel my shoulders relax for what seemed like the first time in a month. Next to Brian’s smell of newly laundered shirt, and soap, and shampoo, painfully familiar and so long missed, I could tell I once again was plane-grimy and smelled of prepared meals and plastic headphones and almond scented liquid soap and I didn’t care. I began to cry. I couldn’t hear what Brian was saying, it was just disconnected words like “love” and “miss” and “back,” and it didn’t matter that I was probably saying exactly the same thing back to him, over his words. It didn’t matter in the least.
Okay, fine. There are some questions that I can’t answer, some things I’ll never know for sure, and that’s okay. I can live with that. Because there are some things that I just know by heart.
Acknowledgments
I AM DEEPLY INDEBTED TO MILDRED JEFFREY, CATHY Bennett, Beth Krueger, Pam Crane, Peter Morrison, my agent Kit Ward, and my editor Sarah Durand, for their thoughtful comments on my work and their continuing support. My thanks to Professor John Hunter (who generously answered my questions about British forensic procedure), Jill Salter Plump and Heather Stewart (who kindly helped me give dimension to Morag’s professional and spiritual life), Ann Barbier (who gleefully helped shape Brian’s work day), and Kit Ward (who patiently served as my first source of information on all things chelonian): any errors are of course my own. My best thanks and love to my husband, who did everything to support and encourage me through this (and every) project: words seem too small.
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. Grave Consequences is her second novel featuring archaeologist Emma Fielding, following her acclaimed debut Site Unseen.
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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.
GRAVE CONSEQUENCES. Copyright © 2002 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 9780061744716
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