Free The Find by Kathy Page

say that?’ Sheila asked, and he looked at her, baffled.
    â€˜I’m just flagging it up.’
    Anna knew Pete was right. She had experimented briefly with the thought that she could walk away, let Mike have Big Crow, tell herself that the important thing was that it was excavated and prepared and who exactly did these things was irrelevant. But at the thought, the familiar surge of rage pushed through her: no, he’s not having this .
    â€˜Anna?’
    â€˜I think we have to go ahead. And I think the letter’s good.’
    Sheila, Anna knew, wanted her to share the whole story, to at least hint at it. But she avoided Sheila’s gaze, looked around the table at the rest of them as they studied the museum’s ultimatum, their faces variously furrowed and contorted. Jan’s pen clicked in and out. Pete yawned, pulled at his ear. It was as if, suddenly, they were back in grade one, struggling with the fundamentals.
    â€˜Well,’ Brian said in his deep, slightly hoarse voice, ‘not my department but it seems straightforwardly put. Let’s hope it works.’

9
    â€” ♦ —
    ANNA WAS IN THE BASEMENT WITH THE KIDS , watching first Frankie, in a tutu, and then Sam, as himself, walking along the back of a sofa and then leaping onto a beanbag that had to be moved farther away each time, when Vik appeared in the doorway and invited her to see his new toy. He led her to the garage with its polished cement floor and track lighting — large enough, the joke was, for an ordinary family to live in — and revealed a silver BMW, just weeks old and his alone, just for going to and from work. The very first of Vik’s fancy cars, Anna remembered had been a black Camaro bought to celebrate his negative test.
    They sat inside the car, inhaling the scent of its newness: leather, plastics, polish, pine. Vik demonstrated the seat adjustments, the computerised navigation system, the speakers; he flicked the lights on and off for good measure and then gave a summary of the vehicle’s vital statistics and performance data.
    â€˜Want to drive?’ he asked.
    The garage doors slid up. Anna eased out of the driveway, put her foot down once they hit some straight road. It was easy to slip over the limit; they both liked speed. Vik gave directions. The road rose towards the foothills, beyond which the peaks of the Rockies glowed violet white.
    They parked at the viewing point, gazed back down and across the flat expanse that stretched east to the city, fading now in a haze of dusty light. Vik touched her arm.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ he’d asked, and she was grateful that he had seen through her, that he still knew her better than anyone in the world.
    She told him: what Mike had done, what she had done, what Sheila thought of it, the dispute over the find: it came out easily enough.
    â€˜It’s driving me insane,’ she said, and then waited a few seconds for him to weigh up what he had been told.
    â€˜Yes,’ he told her, ‘it is a shame you didn’t report it.’ But there was no blame in his voice. No sense that she’d brought this upon herself, had been unreasonable — above all, no sense that he thought she was possibly suffering from increased aggressive impulses, irrationality, mood swings and impaired cognitive faculties. If anyone other than her would think that, it would be him, but there he was, perfectly matter of fact. Already, she felt stronger.
    â€˜I’d say find a way to go for him,’ he said. ‘At the very least fire a shot across his bow: might send him packing. Not my field. But I know someone—’ He hunted through his cell phone directory for the number, wrote it on the back of one of his own cards. ‘Here.’
    â€˜I don’t want to be aggressive about this,’ Anna said. He laughed, and a split second later, she joined him.
    â€˜You’ll talk to her?’
    Anna put the card on