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massive landslide last summer. Since then my people have been finding all manner of ghoulish discoveries washing up on the bottomlands after the rains push the river from its banks. My sister is now an expert fossil collector.” He stepped back to allow her to view the packet.
    She stepped around the chair to better look at the bones and sundry other fragments, including teeth. The flash of a shiny bauble lured most women to men. Butnot Christine. Give her death and destruction and a bone yard to explore, and she was your friend for life. “Survey crew?” she asked.
    “I am building a levee. I intend to shift the river in an attempt to save a thousand essential acres of bottomland.”
    He watched the corner of her mouth crook as she looked up from her study. “Leave it to you to presume you can change the course of a mighty river.”
    He eased his hands into his pockets. “Actually it is my intent to push the river back to its original course before that bloody, incompetent crew blew up half a mountainside to build tracks through the southern edge of my property. The levee project I’m working on is essential to the survival of a dozen farms that will not withstand another summer of flooding.” He pointed to the loose pieces. “Work has practically halted since that was discovered.”
    She opened a top drawer in her desk and pulled out a large magnifying glass to resume her study. “Why? People are always finding such things. Britain is filled with archeological sites.”
    “Not like this one.”
    She peered up at him, her hair framing her face.
    “This is different,” he said. “During the past year two of my workers have simply vanished.” He cleared his throat and walked to the window. “It seems the Sedgwick dynasty’s curse now extends beyond my personal life.” He turned back and faced her. “I came here because I don’t have to worry about you believing in such supernatural rubbish. I need an opinion.”
    “I see,” she murmured and returned her attention to the bones.
    He settled his gaze on her profile. “I need answers.”
    “This is human and…” She held up the jaw fragment, to which all the upper teeth were still attached. She unwrapped the second specimen, raising it slowly to the light. “Obviously, not human.”
    Her interest piqued, she eagerly unwrapped the other pieces. “The explosion probably unearthed some ancient burial ground, which is why the two are mixed,” she said to explain the human remains. “Not only is the rest not human”—he watched her hand hesitate on what looked to be a single five-inch-wide flat-pointed tooth. Becca had found it six months ago after a flood deposited shale and rock all over the bottomland south of Sedgwick Castle—“they look…”
    “Like something never found before?” he said. “Something that might be found in your father’s book?”
    She raised her head. He glimpsed both the flush of confusion and excitement in her face before she tucked the emotion behind her blue eyes and straightened. “Where did you say you found these?”
    “Near a riverbank about two miles from Sedgwick Castle. The river empties from the higher elevations surrounding my land, much of it inaccessible.”
    “This is why the Fossil Society interests you.” Her gaze dropped to the human jaw fragment. “Yet why do I get the impression you aren’t just interested in the paleontology aspect of this find?”
    “True,” he said. “That is my sister’s passion.”
    “Then what is it you are after?”
    He faced Christine with the desk a barricade between them and stepped nearer. “Answers,” he said quietly.
    “You think you know to whom these teeth belonged,” she said.
    “I do not think anything. I know to whom that fragment belongs.”
    “Your second wife.”
    He peered at her intently. Elizabeth had been missing almost seven years. There would not be much left to identify. But teeth were distinctive. He knew in his gut that upper jaw belonged to