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“What? Why are you shouting?”
He looks back at me again. “You fell asleep on me, try to stay awake. What’s your plan for after the dig’s done?”
“Try to find funding for another one.”
“Always more dinosaurs to find, right?”
“I guess so.”
“What made you want to be a paleontologist?”
“Not telling you.”
“Come on. There must have been something.”
I shake my head. “Are we there yet? I’m so cold, Leo.”
“Beach is right ahead. You did good, Anna. You stayed awake. I’m proud of you.”
“Go me.”
There’s a jolt and then the boat slows, coming to a stop against the side of the jetty with a dull scraping sound. Leo is already lifting me into his arms, carrying me over to the side, holding me out toward someone else.
“Who are you?” I ask as a man with graying hair looks down at me, pointing something that looks like a white gun straight at my forehead. It beeps an instant later.
“Ninety-six. Low but not fatal,” he says. “Get her up to the house asap.” He puts an oxygen mask over my face. “Breathe steady,” he says to me. “In and out. Stay calm.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Leo says, breaking into a jog. I look over his shoulder and notice a strange looking carved rock sticking out of the sand near the cliff to our right.
“What’s that?” I ask, unable to point with my arms trapped in the blankets. The question is muffled in the mask but Leo looks where my eyes are fixed before looking away again, moving faster toward the house.
“Nothing,” he says with a coldness to his voice that I don’t like. “Nothing at all.”
6
Leonardo
Anna is still fast asleep, tucked up in several layers of blankets. She’s been like that for nearly twenty-four hours. Sleeping with a little help from the doc.
“How long?” I ask as he clicks his case shut.
“The sedative kept her under a while longer while she warmed up. She’ll wake up any time now and by noon she should be on the move. I’ll stay until then to be sure.”
“Thanks, Nicky. I appreciate it.”
“She got lucky, Leo. You were dumb to send her out in a leaking boat just to prove a point.”
Anyone else talking to me like that would earn a broken jaw, but the doc gets away with it because I need him onside. Two types of people you always want to keep sweet. Doctors and cleaners. One saves your life, the other can ruin it. Cleaners see what shit you throw out, know what it might do in the wrong hands. I pay my doctors and my cleaners good money. Money that will vanish if I don’t get married to Anna in good time.
At least I’m only losing a day. The priest can hang out in the guest rooms, wait another day to carry out the ceremony. The important thing is that she’ll live. She has to if I’m going to make sure I don’t lose everything.
“I didn’t send her out on the boat,” I tell him as he takes the glass of brandy I offer him. “She stole it.”
“Sergio said you guessed she would. You should have disabled it, stopped her going out on open water. It’s a death trap.”
“Well, it’s at the bottom of the ocean now so we’re good. Do I need to do anything?”
“I’ve taken some blood and I’ll get it checked when I get back to the hospital, let you know if there are any problems. Keep her warm, keep her rested, she’ll be all right.”
