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NEL STARED OUT THE window. The air was warm, the sun high, and the sky clear. She suspected if it were any other day, it would have been called beautiful. The fact remained, however, that it was the day after her best friend died. Such a day could never be called beautiful. Martos had once said she and Mikey were a perfect pair, one the energetic version of the other — driven and patient, passionate and caring.
Martos had been right in his descriptors, but he had been wrong in one thing. She wasn’t driven. She wasn’t passionate. She was angry. It wasn’t the hot, sudden anger of adolescence, or the tired trope of the lesbian, angry at being misunderstood. It was the slow, steady heat of the earth’s core. It drove her studies and fueled her curiosity. Mikey’s death punched a hole through the thick shell she carefully curated to contain her rage. It spewed, unchecked and aimless into every thought and action. Mugs and plates and the case for the total station’s back-up battery dotted the floor, victims of her fury.
There were a thousand things she had to do, she supposed. A thousand things that would burn the minute she touched them. So, instead, she sat.
It took three attempts before she realized the pounding was not the pulsing of her anger, but Chad’s knocking. She cleared her throat. “What.”
His words were shapeless humming through the wood, and when she didn’t answer, he cracked the door and tried again. “We need to talk to the crew. I’d do it, but they know you better. Or, at least, it’s your job and not mine.”
She heard the door open farther and the sigh of the bed as he sat. “Please, Nel. This sucks, but they don’t know what’s going on and they’re scared. The cops want to talk to you and Martos called and said you weren’t picking up.”
She cleared her throat again. It was tight and her eyes stung. I must have caught a cold. “We’ll have to send them home. If the cops let them.”
“Yeah. I know.” She surged from her chair. “I’ll text them to be home for lunch.” Her fingers stilled their tapping across her phone’s keyboard. Chad still waited in the doorway. “What?”
“They’ve shut down the dig. Pulled your permits for auditing.”
Nel froze by her desk. It was the obvious outcome. She had known the moment Munoz said “homicide” their work would stop. Hearing it in Chad’s soft, careful words, a voice more disposed to joking and beauty, made the reality sharp. “I’ll call the precinct, ask when the kids can leave, then I’ll talk to them.”
•
A TERSE CALL TO THE police and several swigs of cold coffee later, Nel was closer to being prepared than before. She flipped open her phone and sent a mass text:
Meet me in the kitchen in an hour. Please don't be late. Mandatory.
Chad gathered the chairs and stools into some semblance of seating. Nel stood behind the counter, staring into the mug of coffee before her when they arrived. She couldn’t bring herself to look up until the conversation had died and the shuffling of sandals and seats had ceased. “Thank you for being prompt. This hasn’t been a good weekend. I have some bad news and some worse news. I appreciate if you save questions until I have finished.” I won’t get through this with interruptions. She cleared her throat, making sure her gaze moved from one student to the next, not really seeing them.
“The volunteer student program at the site is terminated indefinitely. Tomorrow each of you will need to go down to the local police department. I will be driving us all. None of you are in trouble, but you will need to answer some questions about Friday as well as other things, I imagine. Please be honest. They don’t care if you’ve been drinking, if you’ve hooked up with the local boys or girls. You will all leave for home by the end of the week. I’ll help arrange your tickets and cover the cost of any issues. I will call your families this evening to explain things to them myself and answer any questions, but I suggest you call them first. They’d like to hear that you’re safe from your mouths.”
Her gaze fell to the counter top. “I thought I’d start with the bad news, to ease you into the worse. Friday night, Mikey stayed behind at the site to fix the calibration on the total station. He never made it home. His body was found on the side of the road yesterday morning. I know many of you were closer to Mikey than you were to me, and I’m sorry that you’ve lost a valuable mentor. If you need to talk about it, Chad or I will gladly listen. If you would feel more comfortable, I can help you find someone on campus back home.” Her voice echoed monotonously in her ears, drowning out all other sounds save for the roar of blood in her head. “Please meet me down here at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning. We’ll get coffee before we arrive at the precinct. That’ll be it.”
No one moved for a moment, and Nel cursed inwardly. She didn’t want to look at their bewildered faces. She wanted to be alone. Tentative steps approached and suddenly sunburnt arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“Dr. Bently, I’m so sorry.”
Nel stiffened. She wasn’t a hugger and embracing students was something they were strictly warned against, but she couldn’t bring herself to push away. “Thanks, Annie.”
She stepped back and gave them all an awkward nod before heading for the stairs. She wasn’t ready for a wave of emotion and sympathy to break over her head. She wasn’t ready for much of anything.