Will turns and takes a startled step back. His radioactive smirk falters as he clocks the hard set to James’s mouth, not to mention the drill in his white-knuckled hands.
Will’s over six feet tall. He can’t be too used to confronting someone who outstrips him in height and breadth and possession of power tools.
“S-Smithson,” he stutters. “Wish I could say I’m surprised.”
“Go. Now.” James steps forward, tightening his grip on the drill.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Will says, raising his hands like he’s the victim. Ripley should’ve expected him to take that role. “I hate to think what the APS would say about the director of the theropod stream threatening the incoming Othniel Marsh Chair.”
Ripley would give anything to take back the small, woundedsound that tears from her throat, but she can’t seem to stop betraying her secrets. “You’re getting the Marsh Chair?”
Will lays a finger across his lips. “Shh. It hasn’t been announced yet.”
The Marsh is worth two hundred thousand dollars a year, renewable for five years. With a million dollars in peer-reviewed funding plus Maury as a backer, Will can do anything he wants, go anywhere he wants, work with anyone he wants. He can cut a deal with someone who’ll “test” his frankenfossil in return for a cushy collaboration.
He’ll be bulletproof.
Ripley turns to James. “You knew about this?”
James’s cheeks pale. “I’m sorry, Ripley. I thought telling you might hurt our—” He breaks off, glancing at Will.
A dark flame ignites behind Will’s eyes. “Hurt your what?”
She and James stay silent.
“Hurt your what, exactly?” An oily smile slicks across Will’s mouth. He backs a few steps away, looking the pair of them up and down contemptuously like it’s his decision to leave. “I should be going. See you at the APS, Smithson.”
After twenty minutes of silence punctuated only by the downshifting of the Charger’s engine at the last stop sign on the way out of Hercules, Ripley finally breaks.
“You should go back to Berkeley,” she says dully. “It’s not safe for you at Clever Girl anymore.”
James turns in his seat, one long leg canted against the console. His face is solemn. “Are you sending me away?”
“Well, you’re not working on your taxonomy, and we’ve gone as far as we can go with the investigation. There’s nothing keeping you here.”
“I disagree,” he says. “Finding Beauty and Beast—finding thetruth—is an extremely effective way to disprove Will’s lies. I’d argue we’re still working on the investigation.”
“Okay, but Will’s about to hold extraordinary influence over the global paleontology community. As he’s figured out, you nosing around his abstract looks like a pretty serious conflict of interest with your role at the APS.”
“The organizers know I have concerns about his research. If they don’t like what I’m doing, they can accept my resignation from the planning committee.”
“They don’t care aboutconference planning,James. You arguably misused confidential information. You could be charged with academic misconduct. Your career is on the line here.”
“No,” he says with simple, breathtaking confidence. “I have tenure, Ripley. The sensationalized accusations of a middling academic at a minor university are not to be taken seriously at Oxford,” he says in a sonorous tone like he’s quoting a press release.
“But they will be taken seriously in certain circles. You haven’t published in three years, and he’s a hot new prospect. Maybe he can’t take you all the way down, but he can hurt you. He can—he can say you’re sleeping with his competition.”
James’s eyes burn. “And what things should we risk our reputations for, then? Do we stand up for truth and honor and science? Or do we give up on what’s right and take on only the battles we know we can win?”
“It’s not the worst strategy in the world,” Ripley says quietly. She’s fought ill-advised battles and discovered pride doesn’t pay the bills.
“Did I ever tell you how much I admire you, Ripley?”
“James—”
He raises a gentle hand. “Hear me out, if you please. I’ve been very, very successful, but I’ve never been brave enough to blaze my own trail like you have. I’ve never felt the thrill in my own career that I’ve felt even as a secondhand participant in yours.Youwill show people what is possible for citizen scientists to achieve, and you will do it to a degree that has not been seen since Mary Anning sold seashells by the seashore.
“And that scares certain people. They will try to obstruct your progress regardless of the cost to paleontology. And though it pains me to say it, you and Cara and a few thousand dollars in funding will not be able to stop them.” His fingers twist an invisible signet ring.
