Birthright

like your approach. And you’ll note, I got more out of him with a littlecomfort and sympathy than you would have with your macho bullshit.”
    His head ached. His heart ached. “Why is it women automatically link macho with bullshit? Like they were a single word.”
    “Because we’re astute.”
    “You want me to say you’re right.” Weary, he dropped down on the thin cushions of the sofa. “You’re right. I didn’t have what you had to offer him. We’ll both agree comforting isn’t one of my finest skills.”
    He looked exhausted, Callie noted. She’d seen him blitzed with fatigue from the work, but she wasn’t used to seeing him simply worn out from stress, from worry.
    She had to rein in an impulse to put her arms around him, as she had with Digger. “You didn’t know about the comment he made before Bill walked off. I did.”
    “Christ. He’ll never be able to put that completely aside. For the rest of his life he’s going to have that careless remark stuck somewhere in his head along with the picture of that kid floating.”
    “You don’t think Bill fell into the water.”
    Jake lifted his gaze from his cup, and his eyes were as careful and cool as his voice. “Everybody said he was drunk.”
    “Why didn’t they hear the splash? He weighed what, a hundred and sixty? That much weight falls, it makes a splash. Clear, quiet night, you’d hear it. I could catch pieces of the conversations going on with the cops in the woods. Why didn’t he call out when he fell? Digger said he’d had two beers. So he’s a cheap drunk, fine, but a guy that size isn’t likely to pass out cold, cold enough so he doesn’t revive when he falls in water. Water’s cold, too. Slap you sober enough, quick enough to piss you off if you fell in.”
    His expression didn’t change, face or voice. “Maybe he had more than beer. You know drugs slip into a dig now and then.”
    “Digger would’ve known. He’d have said. That kind ofthing doesn’t get by Digger. He’d confiscate any drugs and stash any joints so he could fire one up himself when he was in the mood.”
    She walked to the sofa, sat on the other end. She knew what they were doing—playing both sides. She found it interesting they weren’t doing it at the top of their lungs. “Two men end up dead in the same little body of water outside the same town, on the same dig within weeks of each other. Anybody thinks that’s just a coincidence is nuts. Hewitt doesn’t strike me as nuts. I know for sure you’re not.”
    “No, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
    “And you’re not subscribing to the popular local theory that the site’s cursed.”
    He smiled a little. “I kinda like that, but no. Someone killed Dolan for a reason. Someone killed McDowell for a reason. How are they connected?”
    Callie picked up her coffee, tucked up her legs. “The dig.”
    “That’s the obvious link. That’d be the connection most easily reached. Go a segment over and there’s you.”
    He saw by her face she’d already gotten there, and he nodded. “Fan out from you and you’ve got the dig, the development, the percentage of locals who are a little miffed at having their paychecks cut. So you could theorize that someone was miffed enough to kill two people in order to scare the team off the dig, or put the authorities in the position of shutting us down.”
    “But that’s not your theory.” She reached over, relit one of Digger’s candles.
    “It’s a theory, but it’s not the one I’m favoring.”
    “You’re favoring the one that fans out from me to the Cullens, Carlyle, all those names on the list, and a black-market ring that specializes in infants. But the connection to Dolan and Bill is very weak.”
    “Remember this?” He opened his hands, turned them palms out, palms back, then flipped his wrist. He held a quarter between his fingers. Another flick and it was gone.
    “You could pick up some extra pay playing at kids’ parties,” she commented.
    “Misdirection. Trick your eye into looking over here . . .” He passed his right hand in front of her face. “And you miss what’s happening here.” And tugged her ear with his left, giving the illusion that the quarter had popped out of it.
    “You think someone has murdered two people to misdirect me?”
    “Hasn’t it worked, to a point? Aren’t you so distracted now that you’re not thinking about what you learned only hours ago about Barbara Halloway? Everybody on the team