With Me Now Read online

  “I want to get this over with so we can get back to just being us.” Madison fell into step next to him. Toliver House, despite being a restaurant, still carried the façade of a turn of the century mansion. The exterior was hewn in stone, with tall, lead lined windows reaching into pointed peaks to the slate roof. The greenery on the outside seemed overgrown and rambling, yet at the same time looked to be carefully cultivated to complete the picture of a somewhat dilapidated English manor. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed out of place pressed up against a Civil War battlefield.

  The interior of the building had the same, strange elegance. The front room was sparsely furnished with nothing more than a chaise lounge and several ceiling high bookcases, jammed full of dusty, cloth covered books and what appeared to be several, thick Bibles. The room was lit with electric lights, but they seemed like they were set to emit no more light than a candle.

  A man in a dark suit stood behind an ornately carved stand. He regarded them. “Do you have a reservation?”

  Madison cleared her throat. “We’re part of a larger party. I’m assuming it’s under the name Kornick. Jack Kornick.”

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Kornick.” He motioned through an archway leading into the heart of the house. “Right this way.”

  They followed him down a hallway and to a small alcove. A heavy oak table was crowded up against a fireplace, with equally heavy looking, straight-backed chairs spaced around it. Although there was electric lighting well hidden in the corners of the room, most of the light came from the fireplace and thick, pillar candles in the center of the table.

  She recognized Jack immediately, his blond hair pulled back into a short ponytail and scruffy beard somewhat unkempt looking compared to his black button down shirt and black leather jacket. He looked like he belonged in a rock band, not a top reporter with Archeology Magazine. He was attractive and he knew it.

  He looked up as they approached, quickly standing and extending his hand to Madison. “There she is, Madison, it’s great to see you!”

  “You really didn’t have to do all this.” She smiled. “I’m just a college kid with simple, no-frill tastes.”

  “Shut up, you’re being too modest.” He motioned to the man seated next him, an equally trendy dresser with thick, spiked brown hair and black plastic glasses. “This is Ed Agosti. He’s with National Geographic and, let me tell you, they want you to order whatever you want. Everything is extravagant and frilly for you tonight, my dear.”

  She made a noncommittal noise in her throat and shook Ed’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Thanks for agreeing to come on such short notice. This asshat thinks the ambush technique gets him better interviews, whereas I prefer scheduling and reservations.”

  “Either way, we’re here.” Madison stepped backwards and nudged Mike in front of her. “This is Mike Caldwell and Liam Stanish. I’m part of their team. We excavated the remains together.”

  Mumbled greetings ensued and Madison was fairly sure Mike and Liam were only there because she had insisted on it, not because either reporter was interested in what they had to say. She took a seat next to Mike, sliding into the chair rather than trying to drag the ornate carved monstrosity away from the table. “We’ve driven past here several times, but never stopped. It’s…it’s ostentatious.”

  “It was a private residence until the mid-90s, when an art director bought the place from the original owners and turned it into a restaurant.” Jack motioned to the paper menu on top of her plate. “Order whatever you want; appetizer, dessert, everything. I recommend the pan seared sea bass.”

  Madison glanced at the menu and almost choked. Eleven dollars for a cup of lobster bisque? Mother of god.

  She heard Mike exhale next to her. Obviously, his impression was the same as hers.

  “So, off the record Madison,” — Jack leaned forward — “do you think you’ll finish school after this or just start looking for a job? I’m sure the bid wars to get you on an established team will be insane.”

  “You’re a reporter. It’s never off the record.”

  Jack chuckled and glanced at Ed. “All the same.”

  “Well, Jack, I’ve put a lot of time and a lot of dollars into my education. It’d be a little silly to quit now, when I only have two semesters left.” She shifted in her chair. “I have to repay my student loans either way.”

  “What about graduate school?”

  “What about it? It’s an application process and I still have to submit my portfolio.”

  “I thought there was talk of you going on an international dig?” Jack looked up as the waiter stopped next to the table. “Drink orders, anyone? Madison, I’m sure they have a list of chocolate or fruit mixed drinks, unless you’d rather wine. Ed and I already started a tab.”

  “I’ll have a scotch.” Madison chewed on her lip. How was she going to explain the Normandy dig? “Better make it a double. And the lobster bisque.”

  Once the waiter had taken drink and appetizer orders, Jack turned back to Madison. “Anyway, when we chatted about the Pittsburgh Fire last summer, you’d mentioned applying for an international dig this year for field experience. What happened with that?”

  “It fell through.” She shrugged casually. “These things happen.”

  “Not often.”

  “Well, it’s not often that human remains are found on a Civil War battlefield, but as the last few weeks demonstrated, that happens too.”

  “Now that the remains are excavated, studied, analyzed, tested, the whole works,” —Ed paused and pulled out a small notebook and pen — “what do you want done with them? If it were up to you, of course.”

  “I’d like to see them buried, properly, either back on the farm or in a formal cemetery.” Madison adjusted the lineup of three forks and two knives next to her plate. “Honestly, I don’t think it matters if she was a soldier or a civilian. She was a person. She deserves to be buried.”

  “I think you’ll lose that wide-eyed innocence the more digs you’re on. You have to separate yourself from the human aspect; otherwise you won’t be able to handle the sheer nature of it. Think of the archeologists pulling out the bog people in Europe. Those remains are mummified; you can still make out the detail of their faces, even down to their eyelashes.” Jack held his wine glass to his lips, but didn’t drink. “Though, I’ll say there’s something inherently seductive about someone so strong in their opinions.”

  Mike cleared his throat. “I don’t think sensitivity to the human ‘aspect’ as you call it, is necessarily a bad thing. I think we become desensitized to our profession. We see femurs and skulls and bits of bone and see them for their individual pieces. She sees the bigger picture. That’s not a mark of inexperience, it’s a mark of maturity to remember the grand scale of what happened here.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re who again?” Jack narrowed his eyes. “Why does the name Caldwell sound familiar to me?”

  Liam waved down the waiter. “Sweetie, bring the lady another scotch. I need gin and tonic, easy on the tonic.”

  Ed tapped his finger against the edge of the table. "Unlike this junior reporter to my left, I actually did a little research prior to this evening. First Lieutenant Michael Christopher Caldwell, enlisted as a private at age seventeen, rose through the ranks at a rapid pace due to a higher than average deployment rate, what, the Balkans, the Middle East, even a stint in Korea? Went to Officer Candidacy School when you were twenty-four and awarded both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for a combat incident in Fallujah two years ago and, if memory serves correctly, you resigned.”

  “They offered me promotion to Captain and I turned them down.”

  “Anyway, it looks like somewhere in between Officer Candidacy School and being awarded the Bronze Star, you got your degree and started working with Bradley Emerson.” Ed paused. “As a side note, does that guy have any other experience than literally falling into those cartridges?”

  “He’s led a lot of
digs, actually.” Liam took a drink of his gin and tonic. “Mostly down in Virginia, but we work in Maryland and here in Pennsylvania on occasion. It’s a private operation, not one of those public free for alls.”

  “You, I couldn’t find anything about.” Ed consulted a slim tablet next to him. “Not even as much as a speeding ticket.”

  “I’m an enigma, bitch. I like to keep my name out of the papers.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?” Madison picked up her scotch and held it, half temped to toss it squarely in Ed’s face. “I mean, so what if he’s got a Bronze Star and Liam, possibly, leads a double life? I thought this interview was about the remains and the dig site.”

  “Should you really be drinking so much, Madison?” Ed raised an eyebrow. “I found some interesting information about you in the criminal court system. Seems you have a record.”

  “I have a citation for underage drinking.”

  “Is that what happened with your international dig?”

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Mike’s voice was soft, but firm. “I think if you don’t want to talk about the site or the remains, we can just leave. Liam can stay, but she and I will split.”

  Jack held up his hands, almost in a defensive position. “I have to agree with Mike, that’s not really why we’re here.”

  “Sure it is, she found the remains.” Ed shrugged. “Look, sweetheart, you’re playing in the big leagues now. This isn’t your little survey of some lame fire that no one’s heard of in a city no one cares about. Like it or not, everyone knows your name right now and they’re going to know everything about you. Even the bad things, the things you think you left hidden in the back of the closet or buried somewhere. If you think people won’t find out, you’re wrong; they’re going to find out and they’re going to hold you to a completely different standard than they’re going to hold someone else against.”

  “What do you want me to say then, Eddie?” Madison leaned back in her chair and took another sip of scotch. “I stole my neighbor’s bike when I was twelve. I kissed a girl in eleventh grade. Last month, the cops found me sloshed at a fraternity party and issued me a citation which, yes, got me thrown off the Normandy Dig and almost got me put on academic probation no doubt in part to the fact my step-father is the school president and already holds me to a different standard than the twenty-five other students who got citations that night. The chair of the history department took pity on my poor, pathetic soul and got me put on this dig, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, I’d scrape together enough field experience so I can get into graduate school.”

  “I’d say you’ve got enough experience for graduate school now.”

  “I’d say you’re damn right.” She threw back the rest of the scotch and set the glass on the table. “Don’t try to bully me, man. I don’t have any intention of becoming some kind of archeological superstar. All I want to do is dig in the dirt and try to piece together the past.”

  Ed nodded, looking somewhat impressed. “You hold your own pretty well.”

  “It takes a lot more than inappropriate questions to scare me.”

  The waiter returned to the table with a refill on drinks and took their entrée orders. Madison stared at the menu for several minutes, realizing she’d been too busy staving off questioning instead of deciding what she wanted to eat. She ordered the prime fillet and Boursin potatoes and then ran her finger around the lip of her water goblet. Would it be inappropriate to order another drink? She needed something to get her through the next barrage of questions.

  Jack plucked a roll from the bread basket and then passed it to Ed. “Madison, I’m not sure you realize the scope of this discovery. I’ve interviewed some of the biggest names in the field and, let me tell you, they could have only wished for a start like this. You’re not going to need a degree. You’re the girl who found the first documented remains of a female soldier—and at Gettysburg, nonetheless. That’s like, the Holy Grail of Civil War finds.”

  “It’s only speculation she’s a soldier. She could have been a civilian.”

  Jack shook his head. “You don’t believe that. Look at you; you know she was a soldier. Why else was she buried at what is a documented military hospital site and covered with a military issued blanket?”

  “There could be a lot of reasons.” Madison pulled a warm roll from the basket and passed it to Mike. He ran his fingers down hers as he took it. “Granted, they aren’t good reasons. But we can’t officially call her a soldier if we don’t have official, hard evidence that she was.”

  “And off the record?”

  “There is no off the record.”

  “Humor me.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe? I just think if she was a civilian, they wouldn’t have just buried her in a pit. They would have left her with other civilians.”

  “Maybe she was a camp follower.” Ed reached across the table for the butter dish. “Maybe she wasn’t worth the trouble of hunting down a civilian who would help.”

  “Burying Confederates wasn’t worth the effort. They left them rotting on the field.”

  “What else did you find in the test pit?”

  “Our survey isn’t finished yet and we haven’t released the official report.” Mike broke in. “You can’t ask her that kind of question and you know it.”

  “Uh huh.” Jack ran his tongue over his teeth, as if preparing a decent response, and then tried again. “So, you didn’t think you’d find a body in the pit.”

  “Not a woman.” Madison caught herself. “That’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

  “But you’re insinuating you expected to find a man?”

  “I’m insinuating I didn’t expect to find anything.” Madison’s mind raced. She had to start watching her mouth. “Look, this was supposed to be a survey. We weren’t supposed to find anything and, if we did, it was supposed to be the typical battlefield finds: bullets, canteen spouts, maybe an errant bayonet or belt buckle. Not a body. And not as much as we found.”

  “Do you think this changes the game? For women I mean.”

  “Are you saying that archeology is an all-boys club?” Madison crossed her arms in front of her. “That’s pretty chauvinistic, even for you.”

  “Maybe, but think about it. When kids think of archeology, who do they think of?” Jack studied her, his eyes drifting from her face down to her shoulders and the cut of her shirt. “They’re thinking of Indiana Jones.”

  “He’s a fictional character.”

  “The point is, they’re not thinking of women.” Jack finally looked back up into her eyes. “How many notable female archeologists can you name?”

  “Gertrude Bell, Harriet Boyd Hawes, Dorothy Bate—”

  “So you know a few.”

  “Dorothy Garrod, Virginia Randolph Grace, Alice Kober, Mary Leakey.” Madison paused. “I can keep going if you want.”

  Liam snickered from the far end of the table. “Bitch.”

  “So, put your name into that list. Now what?” Jack leaned forward. “You said you have a boyfriend. Is he going to let you run around unsupervised in the Mediterranean digging up entire cities and making all kinds of notable discoveries, maybe opening a wing dedicated to you in a history museum in London?”

  “I think you make it sound like he would be emasculated by me pursing my career.” Madison pointedly looked at Ed. “Is this the 1950s or something? I feel like you boys think a woman’s place is in the kitchen.”

  Jack shrugged. “Or the bedroom.”

  Madison rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You’re really going to go there? It’s the twenty-first century, Jack. I don’t have to pretend to be a boy to be an archeologist. I can get a degree and I can own property and, hell, I can even vote.”

  “You can do more than that.” Jack raised his eyebrow. “I’ve given you the chance once.”

  “And I told you I wasn’t interested. I’m still not.”

  “Your boyfriend doesn’t have
to know.”

  “That’s enough.” Mike set his water glass down hard on the table, the liquid sloshing over the rim and sinking into the white tablecloth. “Seriously, man, back off.”

  Jack’s eyes widened and then he checked himself, leaning back in his chair. He motioned between them. “Oh, I get it. You two are a thing. My bad, my bad, hey no offense meant, buddy. I blew my chance with her last year.”

  “How about you change the subject?”

  “We could talk about your Bronze Star.” Ed suggested, running his finger down the face of the tablet. “I’m looking at some press releases from the Department of Defense about what happened and, honestly, that looks like a story National Geographic would like.”

  “Off limits.”

  “It’s not a secret, the story’s right here—”

  “I said, it’s off limits.” Mike glanced at Madison. “Look, you invited her here for an interview on the remains. Interview her on the remains, or the Spangler Farm, or the articles she’s published, but stop with the questions on drinking and sex and, most off all, about my past. I won’t answer them.”

  Jack rolled his eyes to Liam. “What about you?”

  “I’m just here for dinner.” Liam dug another roll out from the basket. “But, I’ll talk about my sex life if you want. It’s like the Holy Grail: no one has seen it in centuries.”

  Madison turned her head slightly and caught Mike’s eyes with hers. She smiled.

  He smiled back and looked, somewhat, relieved.

  Before either reporter could start a new question, the waiter and an assistant returned with the entrees. She’d never been so happy to have a plate of food set in front of her and, for several moments, the table fell into complete silence as everyone tended to their meals. It was the best cut of meat she’d ever had, tender and juicy, with a delicious crust on the outside. The square serving of potatoes could only be described as potato lasagna: a layer of creamy potato followed by a layer of delicate cheese and then repeating. It was almost worth sitting through a horrific interview with two disgusting pigs.

  “Back to the Spangler Farm, how much longer do you think the survey will last?” Jack plunged his fork into a piece of sea bass. “Is it based on park service schedules or on the progress of the dig? The question is open to anyone.”