Free Tres Leches Cupcakes by Josi S. Kilpack Page A

again.
    Margo’s eyes whipped to Shel, a triumphant look on her face. “So you did hear Bill say to stop.”
    “So what if I did?” Shel said, leaning back in his chair as though wanting to appear casual. He failed, though, due to the tension still radiating from him. “I’d noticed that hill earlier in the day, and then after the first body came up, I thought we ought to check. It wasn’t a big deal.”
    “Actually it was a really big deal,” Margo said. Her words were calm, but intense. “If you’d have left it alone, Bill wouldn’t have told us to open up every grave like that.”
    “So what?” Shel said, shrugging. “We dug ’em up faster.”
    “Except we didn’t dig them up,” Margo snapped, losing her cool. “We opened them up, which is totally different. We completely compromised the cataloging, and now they’re sifting the bones instead of letting us do it right. You really screwed it up, Shel.”
    “Those bones are worth less than the dirt they’re covered in.” Shel’s words lacked the bravado Sadie expected though, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. If he didn’t believe it, why did he say it?
    Sadie looked away from Shel’s duplicitous expression and took another sip of her Coke while trying to think of something—anything—to say. She wasn’t much of a wingman so far.
    “We are hired to preserve them,” Margo said, her eyes as focused as a laser beam on Shel. “That means treating them with the same care and respect we’d give our own family.”
    Shel looked down at his beer bottle, his jaw tight with anger.
    When Margo spoke again, Sadie could tell it was taking all she had to keep her voice calm. “And then you were hired back on the dig. That seems a little strange too, doesn’t it?”
    Sadie considered excusing herself to the restrooms. The tension was getting to her, and she had half a Xanax in her purse which would keep the rising anxiety from getting the best of her. Yet the confrontation was a tiny bit exciting too.
    “It’s all about who you know, isn’t it, Shel?” Langley muttered.
    “Shut up, Langley.”
    “What does that mean?” Margo demanded, looking between the two men.
    Neither of them answered, though Sadie noticed that Shel tried to strike an even more casual pose. She wasn’t buying it, and she doubted anyone else was either. Rather than hiding whatever it was he wanted to hide, he was making it even more obvious that he had something to hide in the first place.
    “I’ve been with D&E for years,” Langley said. “I don’t think there’s any question as to why I got called back.” The implication that there was a reason other than seniority that got Shel back on the job sat in the center of the crud-encrusted table. “Maybe you ought to tell them why you kept digging. Maybe you ought to tell them who told you to dig in the first place.”
    “Langley,” Shel said between his teeth. “Shut. Up.”
    Margo pounced on this new information, leaning further toward Shel. “So you went against a direct order from Bill because someone else told you to dig? Did you know there were fresh bodies at the site, Crossbones?”
    Crossbones? What did that mean?
    Sadie saw Shel clench his fist on the table. She felt her heart pounding from the growing tension, and her hand tensed around the Coke bottle in response. She watched him closely. Garrett shifted in his seat and glanced around the bar as though considering the other occupants and wishing he were at their table instead of this one.
    “He sure did,” Langley said, fast and crisp, suddenly confident. There was a challenge in his eyes. A pushing. A threat?
    Sadie watched as his words registered on Shel’s face, triggering a new level of anger and . . . fear?
    Shel suddenly lunged across the table toward Langley, but Sadie had been watching the coil of anger behind his eyes. With a flick of her wrist, Sadie turned the Coke bottle in her hand sideways, jumped forward, and bashed it onto the