Jurassic Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

too,” he whispered. “Good night, Nick.”
     
     
    I T TOOK nearly a whole week to get the badly twisted Orodromeus I’d named Torrance out of the ground, by which point the whole site had been transformed into areas of deep trenches and long ditches. Eric had responded to Boner’s presence with a grim nod, seemingly resigned to the fact that another paleontologist had turned up and trumped him in the experience stakes.
    The excavation of Torrance finally drew in some media interest, which was great, not least because my mom got to watch a segment on the news. Despite only being a short interview, it was enough to start drawing people to the site to look at what we were doing.
    I left it to Eric to organize the informal chats and tours―that was his job, after all, and I was happy playing about in the mud while he dealt with the locals. The warmth of the summer was starting to pick up, drying out the topsoil and making the process a lot dustier.
    Still, I’d worked in worse conditions and kept an old bottle of window cleaner filled with water next to me, ready to spray the dust away if I needed to. I was pretty sure I’d exhausted the grid reference I’d been working since arriving at the dig, but common sense told me to work outward from that area to see if I ran into anything else.
    It was an ambitious site to work, with the trees lining one side and the hill to negotiate as well. If I’d arrived here first, I would have contained the area away from the tree line and set base camp farther south. To my eye, it looked like Eric had just thrown the team into the area and told them to start removing topsoil. That in itself could take weeks—and expensive machinery that was hired by the day.
    I hadn’t seen the stratigraphic report of the site, but I knew one existed. Since Eric was so openly hostile of my presence, I’d started to go through Brad to get any information I needed. He was more than happy to send it over to me, and I only felt a little guilty at using him to satisfy my own curiosity. In return, I helped him with the excavation of the area where he’d found Mavis, showing him how to best work horizontally as well as vertically and talking through different theories about why only a partial skeleton had been found.
    After the intense week of excavating and documenting my find, I was exhausted. Ten-hour days with not enough breaks had taken their toll on my body.
    “Are you coming out to dinner tonight?” Brad asked as we trudged back up the hill toward the trailer to file our find sheets. “The whole team is going.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I did hear about it….” The team had talked about nothing else for days. “I’ve got a headache coming on. I might miss it tonight. Next time, I promise.”
    He nodded and gave me a smile before wandering off to find the rest of the team. I made sure my paperwork was signed and filed, and was washing out coffee cups when I felt Boner’s arms snake around my waist.
    “Not going out?” he asked.
    I shook my aching head. “You go, though.”
    “Nah. I’ll stick with you. Wanna get dirty takeout for dinner?”
    I laughed and leaned back against him. “Yeah. I really do.”
    Suddenly the prospect of a lazy night in front of the TV was much more appealing than having to be sociable with the rest of the team. That thought made me feel pretty shitty, but I intended to hang around for a little while longer yet. There would be other opportunities to socialize.

Chapter 4

     
    T HE LOUD banging on the motel room door woke me out of a groggy sleep. It was still dark. Next to me, Boner grumbled and rolled over, covering his eyes with his arm. The banging started again, and I called out to make them stop, for fuck’s sake, stop.
    “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
    “I’ve heard that before,” Boner mumbled.
    I pulled on loose pajama pants and stumbled to the door, rubbing my eyes. The pills I’d taken before I’d gone to sleep had really knocked me