Page 9 of Savage Seduction

I snatch my white lab coat from the bench and make for the exit. The lab is located three floors underground, only accessible by credentialed staff via the employee elevator. It takes less than a minute for me to arrive at a set of double doors. I swipe my keycard. The light changes to green with a beep. I pull the door open and hurry down the hallway to the elevator.

Again, I swipe my keycard, and the doors open. Once inside, I enter my badge number and hit the third button down. I tap my foot as I wait. The doors start to close when Bob peers out from the double doors at the end of the hallway. I stick my foot out to stop them from closing.

“Bob, you okay?”

Bob waves me away, dismissing my inquiry.

“Want me to hold the elevator?”

“If I wanted you to hold it, I would have asked you to.”

“Suit yourself,” I say and let the doors close. What a douchebag. I look up and smile into the camera embedded in the ceiling tile. I’ve met the security guards, decent guys, but definitely not someone I would have hired to keep theworld’s greatest treasures safe from possible theft and damage. Although it takes a special kind of person to work for and tolerate Bob.

What the hell is Bob doing? Weirdo. I shrug. Turn off your cop-brain and enjoy this moment. It’s not every day a junior curator gets asked to help with groundbreaking research, or at least that’s how the lead curator, Catherine Nakamura, presented it to me when she asked me to come in and work overnight. Not that I would ever consider saying no to the opportunity, but no one says no to Dr. Nakamura. That woman has her finger on the pulse of the worldwide museum community.

The elevator car stops, and the door slides open. I hurry into the brightly lit laboratory entrance. Through the glass door ahead, Dr. Austin stands hunched over a back-lit examination table.

“Good evening, Doctor,” I say after stepping inside. I wait a second and then move a few feet closer but hang back enough not to startle him.

Dr. Austin says nothing but keeps peering through a large magnifier attached to the table with a long flexible arm. I stand on my tiptoes trying to see what he has on the table. The room is filled with these large examination tables. It’s where artifacts are taken and with the greatest of care– examined, catalogued, and researched in an attempt to garner something new from them. To learn more about not only the item itself, but about the world that existed when it was made, used, or discarded. After a few moments of silence, Dr. Austin straightens up and turns.

“Come over here.” He waves me over to him. “Look through here and tell me what you see.”

I hurry over and clear my throat. I know this little test is important to our working relationship moving forward.Pushing back my mounting nerves, I adjust the magnifier and look through it.

“Bone,” I say. “Definitely non-human.”

“Be more specific if you can, Doctor.”

I retrieve the pair of latex gloves sitting on the table and don them. Without taking my eyes off the specimen, I pick up the bone and turn it over in my hand. “Felidae, Smilodon… metatarsal.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“Taking into account the discoloration—” I pull the magnifier closer to my face, “—Saber-toothed cat. I’d date it between fifteen and twenty thousand years old.”

“Showboating is not something to be admired, Doctor Salgado.” Hearing him refer to me as a doctor sends giddy little grin to my face I want to hide. Being a PhD has always been something I felt was out of reach for me, but here I am.Doctor Salgado.

I meet Dr. Austin’s gaze. “I would never presume to showboat. I based my findings on the examination. There are minute bits of asphalt seeping from the porous bone… it was no doubt unearthed nearby at the worksite for the future Los Angeles Subway System. As for the age—” I shrug. “I was providing an educated hypothesis to be proven true or false by a simple radiocarbon dating test. I believe we have access to an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer here at the museum?”

Dr. Austin raises an eyebrow, but the half-smile betrays his bemusement. He nods. “Fair enough.”

I take a step back from the table. “I wanted to thank you, Doctor Austin. I know you took a chance on me… being a junior curator and all that.”

“You’ve already proven yourself worthy of my time and attention. We have all started off our careers in the junior position. I find that in many ways, it’s those who still feel they have much to learn that perform the best and work the hardest.”

“I will definitely do that, sir.”

“Great.” He checks his watch. “Shall we welcome the exhibit?”

I smile. “Most definitely, Doctor.”

“Great, let’s get going.” Dr. Austin turns on his heel and marches out of the lab toward the elevators.

I can’t unscrew my smile if I tried. I hurry to catch up, and then we walk together to the elevator. Paul pushes the button and crosses his arms. “Damn thing takes forever.” He taps his toe in annoyance.

“It is rather slow.” Tearing my gaze away from my mentor’s shoes and up to the numbers as they scroll by impossibly slow, I hope we get to the floor we need soon.

“From what I understand, the Chicago Field Museum sent an expert to help us with some research.” He reaches for the button and pushes it another five times with a huff.

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