Love on Loch Ness (9 page)

"Sure." Gail walked away, hoping the pig hadn't left a sweat stain on her blouse. Just the feel of his rough hand on her back had made her want to squirm.

Tom disappeared into his room, and she took the opportunity to get as far away from him as possible. Downstairs, Flynn was packing the rest of the stale doughnuts into the front pouch of his backpack. He winked at her. "Just in case this takes a long time. Is Tom coming?"

Just as Flynn said the man's name, Gail remembered the hairy swell of sweaty flesh. She rubbed her eyes as if they were dirty. "Yes, he's coming."

"Good. I want this on video too. We have to document everything to fight the skeptics. They'll find any reason they can to discount evidence." He flashed her an apologetic smile and offered her a doughnut. "No offense."

"None taken." She waved the treat away. "No thanks. I'll have a granola bar."

He regarded her with impressed affection. "Soup, granola bars. So, you're pretty healthy, eh?"

Gail blushed at the roundabout mention of their date. "Swordfish isn't that bad for you, either." She reached out and patted his tight abs through the T-shirt. "You look as though you work out."

"Just from running the boat." Flynn hefted the pack and turned to the cupboards, but Gail caught the hint of a smile.

"So, where's the party?" Tom waltzed in wearing a tropical parrot shirt and white shorts with stains all over them — from what, Gail could only wonder.

"Nice threads, man." Not only was Flynn colorblind, but he had bad taste in associates.

"Great to see ya, brotha!" Tom brandished his fist, and Flynn banged his against it.

Gail shifted impatiently. Tom's presence didn't improve the group dynamic, in her opinion. "Guy bonding time is great, but I seriously have better things to do."

"Just fooling around, Gail." Flynn gave her his charismatic smile, and his charm almost worked this time. He punched Tom in the shoulder. "Let's get a move on."

The night's chill clung to the forest, and Gail hugged her body as she followed the men. A light breeze made the leaves whisper sweet secrets as if the forest had something to hide. Her sneaker caught in the underbrush, and she couldn't help feeling like a little girl again on one of her father's Bigfoot hunts. She could almost see him in the lead, waving her forward. No, wait; that was Flynn.

The trees broke, revealing a small rocky beach with access to the lake. Flynn hunched over the sand while Tom pulled out his video camera and started taping. Gail checked to make sure the red recording light was on.

Flynn waved her over. "Watch your step. The rocks are sharp."

Gail picked her way across the beach and crouched beside Flynn. The impression in the sand struck her as something a little kid could have made with a boogie board, but this was out in the middle of nowhere and no warm-blooded soul swam in Loch Ness.

Flynn's eyes gleamed. "What do you think? You're the expert."

"Anyone could have made this with a surfboard or a boat paddle."

"But look here." Flynn pointed to an intricate crisscrossing pattern at the base. "Webbing."

"What if the paddle had a design?"

Flynn sighed, digging out his plaster mixing set. "Okay, so humor me. Let's say this
was
a fin imprint, just for argument's sake. What kind of animal does it resemble?"

Gail measured the length with her arm. The fin was way too long to be anything she knew of living today. "Judging by the bone structure that would have to match the size and shape, the only animal I can think of is a plesiosaur."

Tom moved the camera to her face. "A who's-a-what?"

"A long-necked reptile with two pairs of limbs that evolved into flippers."

Tom scoffed. "Never heard of 'um."

"That's because they're extinct. The last time they appeared in the fossil record was back in the Cretaceous Period."

Tom gave her a skeptical look. "What are you, a paleontologist too?"

Gail put her hand on her hip. "That was my minor in college."

Flynn's eyes gleamed. "So, you're saying one of these plesiosaurs survived and is living in Loch Ness today?"

Gail pushed Tom's camera out of her face. She didn't want to be on camera talking about this nonsense. "I'm not saying anything of the sort. You asked what the imprint resembled, and I told you. That doesn't rule out the possibility of a little kid walking around with a large paddle.

Flynn spread his arms. "At three a.m. in the morning in the middle of nowhere?"

She walked to the other side of the impression and touched the sand with her fingertip. "Seems more plausible than a dinosaur living in the depths of a lakebed."

As Flynn mixed the plaster with a paintbrush in a tin can, Gail ran her fingertips along the sand. Perhaps she could find some way to prove the impression was human-made by finding a human hair or sneaker mark?

A hard surface poked up from the ridge, and she dug her fingernail into the sand. "What the heck?" She pulled out a thin film with an oily greenish-blue hue.

Tom focused his camera on her fingers. "Looks like someone lost a nail."

"It's too big." Gail held it up to Flynn's hand. "Even for a man."

Flynn wrapped his fingers around her wrist and held it up to his eye. "It's a scale."

Tom leaned in, threatening to fall right into the impression. "No way."

"Watch the sand!" As Flynn pushed him back, Gail examined the surface.

"There's only one way to tell."

Flynn's eyes held hope. "How?"

Gail dropped the object in her pocket and stood. "Is there a microscope back in the cabin?"

"Yes. Why?" Flynn stood with her.

"Because she's gonna read the scale." Tom shut off the camera. "As a fish ages, its scales get larger. Also, the cold-blooded metabolism of fish restricts their growth to certain times of the year, which is reflected in their scales' appearance. You can even tell the length of a fish by the angle of the growth rings."

Gail stared at Tom as if seeing him for the first time. "How the heck do you know that?"

Tom shrugged and started packing up his camera. "Read about it on the Internet."

The way the videographer avoided her gaze made her think he was lying. Too much was going on to question him further. She needed answers, and the only way to get them was to go back to the cabin. Screw the plaster mold.

"Just give me ten minutes to set the mold." Flynn held up his pointer finger as the other hand poured the white plaster into the hole.

"I'll go back with you." Tom leered at her.

She remembered his crude comment when she'd knocked on his door. She could sue for sexual harassment, but she didn't think a complaint with L-PIB was worth her time. Still, she didn't want to enable any more gross advances.

"No thanks." Gail plopped down on a rock. "I'll stay here and wait for Flynn to finish."

"Thanks." Flynn smiled at Gail. His eyes had the same intimate intensity he'd shown her on their date, which made it worth the extra wait.

"No problem. Throw me over a doughnut." Gail wiped her hands on her pants, wishing she'd brought hand sanitizer. "I'm going to need it."

Reaching for the Stars

Flynn pulled an old, dusty cardboard box as heavy as a boulder from the closet under the stairs. L-PIB wasn't the best equipped organization, but he knew they had at least one microscope. He'd seen one when digging through old files about a month ago.

Judging from the derelict boxes haphazardly thrown on top of each other, he wasn't sure what condition it was in.

Perhaps L-PIB's lack of resources is the main reason they picked each one of us?
Tom brought all his top-of-the-line video equipment. Flynn had his boat, and Gail had brought her underwater sonar stuff.

No.
L-PIB wouldn't be that superficial. Surely they'd picked the best people for the job, whether they provided their own resources or not. Gail was certainly a top expert in her field. But Tom… it made him wonder.

"Tom, you want to help me drag these into the living room?" Flynn shouted over his shoulder while dusting off the top of the box. No matter Tom's abilities, two sets of hands were better than one.

A belch erupted from the living room. Tom strolled down the hall, sipping a ginger ale. "No can do, bro. Allergic to dust mites."

Flynn gave him a level stare.
More like allergic to hard labor.

"For heaven's sake." Gail pushed past Tom. She crouched by Flynn and slapped her hands together. "Which ones do you need taken out?"

"All of them. Until we find the microscope." Flynn reached behind a box and brought out a framed replica of the nineteen seventy-seven picture taken by Anthony Nicol Shiels. The long neck protruded from the rippling water in a perfect arc, with a shadow darkening the waves beneath it. The light on the tip of the snout almost made it look as though Nessie was smiling for the camera. That picture had always been one of his favorites.

"Look at this!" Flynn held the shot up to the light. "This picture should be mounted on the wall."

"I can take care of that." Tom pilfered the frame from Flynn. "There's a perfect place for it in my room."

Gail must have seen the look of disappointment on Flynn's face. She reached for the frame and wiggled her fingers. "Wait a second now. Your room? What about the living room, where we can all see it?"

"Visit my room and you can see it anytime you want, hon." Tom smirked.

"That's all right." Flynn positioned himself between them. As much as he liked Gail's willingness to fight for him, he could pick his own battles, and Gail and Tom had enough to bicker over. "I have tons of pictures. Let him have it."

"Thanks, bro." Tom smiled at both of them and walked up the stairs with his new prize.

"Glad he could find some means to help." Gail huffed as she pried open the lid of one of the boxes.

"Is that sarcasm in your voice?" Flynn helped her.

Gail's lips curved and she gave him a sneaky, sidelong glance. "Maybe a little."

They heaved together, and the lid came up with a waft of dusty, moldy air. Manila files of previous L-PIB expeditions lay inside the box, color coded by year. A sudden urge to read every single one came upon Flynn in a rush, but the lure of the scale kept him from distraction.

"Nope." Gail wiped her arm on her forehead. "Try the next one."

Scratchy black-and-white photos of the lake filled the second box. Spools of old videos fell out of the third, clanging and rolling on the wood floor at their feet.

"I wish I had a projector to play these." Flynn held up a string of negatives to the light. He recognized the shape of the highlands framing the lake. Unfortunately, the surface was undisturbed in every frame.

Gail peered over his shoulder. "Probably a whole lot of nothing." She pulled another box from the closet and yanked pieces of yellowed tape off the seams. "Some things never change."

"Or do they?" Flynn noticed the silver gleam of the base of the microscope in a clear box of Christmas decorations in the corner on a high shelf. Tinsel rained over him as he dug the edges out.

"Voila!" He handed the box to Gail, his body surging with anticipation. "Let's see what we've got."

"If it still works." Gail gave the microscope a skeptical look and blew dust off the lens. "Where did L-PIB get this? A yard sale?"

"Is it bad?"

"No. Just old. This scope has seen better days."

Flynn held his breath as she tinkered with the rusty knobs. He supposed they could go into town and buy another one with his profits from the weekend's tours if it came down to it.
Anything to find proof of Nessie.
"Well?"

"It's banged up, and the lens is scratched, but it should work." Gail gestured toward the living room. "Let's go where the light is better."

Flynn followed Gail into the living room and hovered over her shoulder as she set the microscope on the coffee table, sat on the edge of the sofa, and pulled the scale from her pocket. She placed it gently on a plastic slide that had been taped to the base.

"Here goes nothing." She leaned over the scope.

Silence. Her jaw tensed and she breathed in quickly as she focused the lens.

Flynn bounced on his toes. There was no way he could sit right now. "What do you see? Is it real?"

"It's a scale, all right." Gail's eye was glued to the lens. "The rings are clearly there, along with breaks in seasons. It's not like any scale I've ever seen."

Flynn squeezed his fists, his short nails digging into his calluses. Good thing his hands were tough. "What's wrong with it?"

"There's nothing wrong, it's just…" She adjusted the knob and the scope moved up and down. "If I'm reading this correctly, there have got to be hundreds, if not thousands of annuli marking the growth."

"What does that mean?"

Gail finally tore her head away from the microscope. Her features held disbelief, awe, and a hint of fear. "It means whatever this scale was attached to is possibly hundreds, maybe thousands of years old."

Bingo.
Flynn's stomach seized, and his chest felt like a balloon blown too big. The evidence corresponded with Gail's estimation of the fin size and his theory of how Nessie hibernated in twenty-year increments. After all these years, he'd finally found proof to back it up.

He dropped on the sofa next to Gail and threw his arms around her, burying his face in her blossom-scented hair. "Thank you."

She pulled back to gaze into his eyes. Her worried expression stole the joy from his heart. He had to remind himself every time she proved him right, she proved herself wrong.

"Hey, it's just a scale. It doesn't mean every single mythological creature is true. That scale could have washed up from a long time ago. Just because we found it today doesn't mean it recently broke off of a dinosaur."

"I know, I know. But it's something, right?"

Gail sighed. "I came here to stop everyone from wasting their time. Not to strengthen their beliefs."

He took a strand of her hair and put it behind her ear. "What's so wrong with dreaming, Gail?"