Chapter 22 #2
Charlie beams. “Just between us, Will has been doing some work in our research collection. We’re hoping for a great collaboration.”
“He was here?” Ripley exclaims, appalled. “Will Stone was in your research collection?”
She and James exchange a look. The Tyrrell has a collection of hundreds of thousands of specimens, many of which remain unidentified. If someone wanted to build a fake fossil, a research collection would be the perfect place to find the pieces.
“He visited once or twice, yes,” Charlie says, looking uncertainly at Ripley.
A wave of fear and fury crests in Ripley’s chest.
Will could have been planning this fraud for years.
There’s a decent chance he leaked his own abstract to solidify support for his frankenfossil.
He’s more than a step or two ahead of her and James—he’s miles away.
They’ll never catch up, and she’ll never dig herself out of the hole he put her in, and—
Words tumble from Ripley’s mouth: “We need to see what he looked at. Access your logs. Get into the collection today, if possible.”
“Actually,” James says, a little desperately, “we were hoping to discuss—”
“We think Will’s discovery might be a fraud. You and the museum might be involved.”
Charlie’s face flattens in a blink. “We are extremely vigilant for fraud here at the Royal Tyrrell.”
“And you have the reputation to show for it.” James’s words are smooth in the way only generations of inherited manners can make them. “If we could get back to—”
“I personally take great care to vet everything I put my name on,” Charlie says, stepping back.
“We know you have. We meant to say—”
“I don’t like being set up, Ripley,” Charlie says. He pivots toward steel doors marked Authorized Personnel Only.
“You’re leaving?” Panic grips Ripley like a fist. “But…your horn.” She holds out his slightly gross creation, as if this will lure him back.
“Keep it,” he calls. “I don’t feel like being funny right now.”
The shiny doors swing shut behind him.
By five o’clock, Ripley’s butt is numb from the pleather bench in the lobby, which looks padded but mostly isn’t. Charlie’s ignored six emails from them. Across the room, the guy at the info desk is staring at Ripley and James, psychically beaming the words Please leave.
“I thought Canadians were meant to be polite,” James says, giving the guy an arch look.
“So did I.” Ripley checks her email again, though it’s sucking her battery dry and probably costing her a fortune in roaming charges. Museum patrons flow around them like she and James are the still point in a time-lapse video.
“Ripley,” James says gently.
“Nope.”
“I know you’re upset. But we could be back at your dad’s place before nightfall if we leave now. If he doesn’t mind,” James adds. “If he doesn’t have plans with—”
“Don’t say it. I’m not yet adjusted to the whole casserole-and-chill situation with Mrs. Gunderson. And the museum’s open till nine,” she says. “Charlie will cool off.”
“It wasn’t your fault he left, Ripley.”
The kindness in James’s voice washes through her misery like salt water through a cut.
“Don’t be nice to me. Just say I told you so and get it over with.”
“He was always going to go round the bloody bend when we brought up the possibility of fraud.”
“I said don’t be nice. And it wasn’t we. I said those things. I just…I hate it when people walk away from me. I feel so bad. So bad, James.” She presses her palms to her forehead, hunching over her heart.
“First of all, Ripley, if someone walks away from you, they’re making a terrible mistake. Second, you should let them go. Your destiny lies elsewhere.”
She’s in no mood for wholesome memes. “Who said that, the Dalai Lama?”
“I believe it was Julia Roberts,” he says thoughtfully. “Although I’m paraphrasing somewhat.”
Despite herself, she laughs. “Julia Roberts?”
He shrugs. “I like her films. And you’re unstoppable, Ripley Adams. Your passion inspires everyone around you.
The things you’ve done, the community you’ve built…
I’ve said this before, and repetition grows tiresome,” he says.
“But would you spend your one precious time-machine trip—after you’ve dispatched Hitler—to get the people who left you to stay? ”
The pain in her chest eases enough for her to sit up straight. “No. But, James, you came to me for my connections. I just alienated my best one because I can’t keep my mouth shut.”
“Ba-dum-chhhh,” he says, drumming an imaginary rim shot. “Ripley Alien-ating people?”
She gives him an annoyed look.
“Come on, that was funny.”
“It would be hilarious if I were the kind of person who got second chances in this industry. If I had a powerful family or tons of money or even a big swinging dick.” She gestures at his lap.
James has a sudden coughing fit.
“I didn’t mean yours,” she says quickly. “I meant dicks in general. Yours is…”
Yesterday rises up, shimmering between them.
She’s hardly forgotten the feel of him. Judging by his darkening eyes and convulsive swallow, his memory is working fine too.
Curse her tell-all cheeks and her nonexistent verbal filters and every other way she just unintentionally told him From what I could surmise, your penis is very nice.
“Yours is very much not something we’ll ever talk about,” she finishes weakly. They look away from each other, Ripley toward the Late Cretaceous, James toward the exit.
“Well,” he says finally. “I suppose you’re feeling your usual urgency to do everything now, but we have time. No one’s digging until Tuesday, at the earliest. What do you want to do?”
Ripley wraps her fingers underneath the cold metal edge of the bench and imagines herself absorbing James’s forbearance. His calm. His steadiness. He’s very good at waiting for her, she realizes after a minute of silence.
“I like it when you don’t talk to me,” she says.
“Honestly, Ripley.”
“I meant like the way it helped you when I talked in the car. It helps me to have you here, even when you’re not talking.”
“Then I’m glad I came,” he says in a low voice.
“Me too,” she says. For some reason, her throat is tight. “I’ll ask somebody at the information desk to call Charlie. If he talks to us, okay. If he doesn’t, we make another plan on the way home.”
James stands, offering her his hand. She shouldn’t take it, but she does. It feels good to have his strength added to hers, to rise so easily it feels almost like flying.
Their movement draws the eye of a blond, fair-skinned docent who’s taking over the fossil-cleaning demonstration that’s set up between the lobby and the forest diorama. He pauses in the middle of adjusting a light source over his specimen, frowning at Ripley.
James’s body stiffens, his hand coming to her elbow as the tall, powerfully built man walks around his table and across the lobby.
“Xena?” the man asks tentatively.
Ripley blinks, her mind superimposing the man’s face on an old memory of a tanned, bearded friend with the same sweet smile. “Oh my God, J.D.?”
The docent breaks into a delighted grin, sweeping toward her with open arms.
There’s a lot of excited squealing and several rounds of “Oh my God, you look amazing!” before Ripley gets to the introductions.
“James, meet J. D. Oakes.” she says, glowing with the pleasure of J.D.’s easy affection.
“Xena?” James asks mildly, extending a hand to J.D. She’s never seen his face quite so polite and impassive.
“It’s short for xenomorph. You know—Ripley, Aliens.” J.D. releases James’s hand and slings his arm around Ripley’s shoulder. “Coincidentally not the huggiest organisms.”
James’s expression gets even blanker. “Ripley likes hugs. From select people.”
“James,” she scolds. “J.D. and I are old friends. We worked together for one weird summer six years ago.”
“Remember when Sheena got so annoyed with Anthony’s midnight singing that she lashed his guitar to the ceiling of the dining hall and nobody noticed it for like a month?” J.D. laughs. James scowls, brushing invisible lint off his jacket.
“ ‘Not my fault if paleontologists only look down,’ ” Ripley says, imitating Sheena’s grumpy growl. They kill themselves laughing.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” J.D. asks.
“We had a meeting with Charlie.”
“Oh, so you’re both in paleontology?” J.D. smiles at James. Pauses. Gapes. “Wait, are you James Smithson? Like, the James Smithson?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, wow. Wow. James Smithson, that’s wild.” J.D. sounds like he’s not quite sure this isn’t a dream. “I’m a postdoc, working on—actually, could I take you out for lunch tomorrow? I’d love the chance to pick your brain. You should come too, Ripley. I could show you two around Drumheller.”
Ripley casts an uncertain look at James. He shrugs as if to say, Up to you.
“Sure, we—” She stares at J.D., an idea forming. “We’d love to. Listen, I hate to ask, but we’re having trouble getting in touch with Charlie. Could you text him for us?”
“He was catching a flight this afternoon. You might’ve missed him.”
“Shoot. We were hoping to access the research collections tonight. James is, um, following up on something.”
J.D. looks from Ripley to James, clearly doing postdoc math: The job market is brutal, and he could score a meeting with a research luminary.
“You’re supposed to go through proper channels,” he says slowly. “But it’s you, so…just this once.”