Chapter 5 #2
His mouth twitches slightly, like he’s trying not to smile.
“Nice poster.” He angles his freshly shaven chin to indicate one of Ripley’s favorites, an artist’s rendering of theropods in their natural habitat.
The line work reminds her of the cover of a fantasy novel, the jewel-toned beasts romantic and dragon-like.
And it’s from one of his publications, which are as famous for their art as their science. Damn it.
“What do you want, Smithson?”
“I beg your pardon.” His accent turns to cut crystal.
“Like I said yesterday, you could investigate a fraud on your own. Why dirty yourself on the private side?”
He winces, the tops of his cheekbones blanching a little. “Are you quoting me?”
“Discover magazine, 2024.”
“I was wrong, obviously. Give me one moment,” he says, pulling out his phone. He types fast; thirty seconds later, there’s the sound of an uploaded social media post. He turns the device toward Ripley.
@jamesasmithsonofficial: Time for palaeontology to reconsider relationship w citizen scientists. Science happens everywhere!
“You pressed Post just like that?” Ripley says, unwillingly impressed. “People are going to scream at you in the comments. Oxford is going to scream at you in the comments.”
Something hot and unforgiving flares in his eyes, transforming him from mannerly to forbidding in the space of a breath. “Let them.”
Something about that cool, unflinching Let them is, unfortunately, very hot. Or maybe it was the I was wrong? Either way, Ripley realizes she’s tilting her head, reassessing a lot of things about Smithson.
Cut that shit out, Adams, she scolds herself, snapping her neck back into the full upright and locked position.
“Strong move, Professor. So what’s in it for you? And please don’t say it’s for science.”
He looks down again. “Yes. Well,” he says, putting his phone back in his pocket and shrugging his rather lovely shoulders. The dark curl falling over his forehead gives that proper exterior the barest hint of something secretly heroic.
“Dr. Stone’s specimen will disrupt, if not destroy, a taxonomy I’ve been constructing for the past three years. It’s been…very difficult work, and I find I’m loath to let it go. Therefore, I’m willing to sacrifice some time to verify his findings.”
Ripley narrows her eyes. “I don’t feel like that’s the whole truth, Smithson.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about your feelings, Adams,” he says archly.
Ripley barks out a laugh before she can suppress it. His mouth twitches again, like he knows he’s turning the tide.
He leans forward, his eyes serious. “Is there no reason you would like to proceed with this investigation? Nothing about it that strikes you as right or fitting? Because I thought there might be. I know who you are, Ripley Adams,” he says, a low thread of urgency in his voice.
A ripple of goosebumps washes up Ripley’s neck.
There’s no way he remembers their conversation in Atlanta the way she does.
The only things Smithson knows about her come from the gossip Will spread and the paper she’d sent him while still drunk, which, she later discovered, was not the polished version but a draft full of notes like Check reference FFS and Adams, were you high when you wrote this? ??
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He exhales, his shoulders dropping a fraction. “I understand that you know Will Stone. That you used to…work with him.”
Ripley makes a sound that can’t decide whether it’s a laugh, a scoff, or a sob. “You mean I used to sleep with him. Did you also hear the gossip that I ‘worked’ with him so I could steal his ideas?”
If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looks quietly furious. “I didn’t hear that, no. I’m sorry, Ripley.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” he says hotly. Ripley feels that same pleasurable, unwelcome flush of awareness she did with Let them.
“Whatever,” she says, determined to find safer ground. “But, yes, Will and I were in the same lab. We were also in a relationship. That could hurt your investigation as easily as help it.” She shrugs. “If you’re willing to take that risk, then I’m in—”
“Oh, that’s excellent—”
“With one condition.” She takes a fortifying breath.
“I need money. My sponsor pulled out this morning. If I don’t find a replacement in the next two weeks, I’ll have to shut down my dig.
For the next fourteen days, I have to get as many fossils out of the ground as I can.
The only way I’ll have time to help you is if you find me a new benefactor. ”
He draws back. “I don’t know that I’m the best choice for a fundraising role.”
“And I’m hardly a seasoned investigator.
You want me for my connections to Will and Montana; I want you for your connections to do-gooders with big checkbooks.
You get me enough money to get my bones out of the ground by the end of August, and I’ll move heaven and earth to expose your fraud before… when’s the conference start?”
“September twelfth.”
“The twelfth, then.”
She names the lowest possible figure that will keep the dig going and secure Beauty a spot in the oversize Department of Homeland Security CT scanner at the Bozeman airport. She’ll take a salary cut to zero if she has to.
Smithson’s face communicates his gloomy estimation of the situation. “It won’t be easy to find money in the summer. How did you secure your first sponsor?”
What she did was grit her teeth and channel her mother for once in her life, but that’s not what he means.
“I scoured the Christie’s catalog for months until I found an auction with decent fossils.
Then I maxed out my credit card on a plane ticket to New York, a Brazilian blowout, and a black Balenciaga minidress at Saks Off Fifth.
After the auction, I pitched myself to everyone who’d bid on fossils and didn’t get them.
” At his shocked look, she adds, “I clean up well enough for New York, if you were wondering.”
He looks flustered, his throat working. “I wasn’t wondering,” he murmurs, shifting his feet, a strange note in his voice.
She shrugs. “In any case, it’s not a practical strategy at this point.”
“Agreed.” Smithson looks out the museum’s tall windows, one hand stroking his chin, his index finger dragging across his mouth. His eyes rove the rolling Montana landscape, seeming to follow the dirt track leading to the canyon.
“Perhaps a few names come to mind,” he says. “Are you approaching anyone else?” He raises his eyebrows, his politely neutral expression reminding her of a movie character who’s about to pull a fast one in a negotiation.
“Yes,” she says, not falling for it. “I don’t have time to give you a window of exclusivity.”
“Well. In that case,” he says, his eyes narrowing with satisfaction, “I would have to see your dig, Ripley Adams.”