Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow by Kathryn Le Veque

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    Burton didn't believe her and she was overwhelmed with the urge to prove it to him.  Only when a security guard said something to a dig worker, who in turn said something to his foreman, who then in turn said something to Dr. Reams, did Kathlyn’s team come running for her.
    She had been bloody to the elbows. It had been a struggle to get her away from the hillside and she agreed to leave only when Mark convinced her that she was creating a scene. While Debra Jo washed, Juliana had wrapped. Half a tube of antibiotic ointment later, her hands were swathed, appropriately, like a mummy.  McGrath had called a doctor from the resorts on the other side of the Nile in Luxor but the man couldn’t come out until the next morning, which was fine with Kathlyn. She didn’t want to see anyone, anyway. All she wanted to do was sleep and forget.
    “Mark and the guys want to come in and see how you’re doing,” Juliana said after the last white strip had been laid. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
    Kathlyn shook her head, lying down on her cot. “I just want to sleep. Tell them I’ll see them in the morning.”
    Juliana stood over her, hands on her slender hips. “They feel really bad, Kat. Like they should have been there to either help you or prevent you.”
    Kathlyn laid a bandaged hand across her forehead. “They couldn’t do either. It was a spur of the moment thing.”
    “Burton pissed you off that bad?”
    She didn’t say anything. Then, she rolled onto her side and exhaled as if the weight of the world was pressing on her. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m usually so much more level headed about things. We go all over the world doing things that take nerves of steel and I’m just fine. Then I come to the Valley of the Kings, the most picked-over archaeological site in the world, and I come apart at the seams. I must be losing what’s left of my mind.”
    Debra Jo sat on the ground beside her. She, too, had known Juliana and Kathlyn since high school. The three of them used to sit around in the ninth grade and plot what they were going to do for the rest of their lives. Debra Jo had been the brains, Juliana had been the dreamer, and Kathlyn had been the mover. What had once been a teenage dream of a hair and beauty salon business had turned into one of the most ground-breaking archaeological teams in recent history. Debra Jo was still the brains, Juliana was still the great dreamer, and Kathlyn moved so much that she soared.
    “Look,” Debra Jo began. “I’ve been sitting with my nose crammed into a computer screen for the past two days, so I’m not sure what’s going on in the field, but I’ll tell you this - Marcus Burton seems to be the common denominator for all of your woes.  It’s like he brings out the very worst and the very best in you, and you’ve only known the guy forty-eight hours. What’s going to happen to you if you spend any length of time here?”
    Kathlyn knew that. As much as she tried to ignore, obey or provoke him, Burton weighed heavy on her. He had since the moment they met and she had no idea why. He was like a monkey on her back she couldn’t shake, a shadow she didn’t want to be rid of. The situation was, at best, baffling.
    “This isn’t healthy for me,” she said after a moment. “I've got to get out of this place. It’s making me crazy.”
    “What about the tomb?” Debra Jo asked.
    Kathlyn shrugged. “I’ve done my job. I can guarantee it’s under that slope, or at least something is. If Burton wants to dig there, that’s fine. If not, that’s his loss. I was only asked to locate it, not excavate it.”
    “They’re going to want proof before they let you off the hook.”
    “Keep digging where I was digging and they’ll find it. They’ll find something.”
    Juliana was still standing over her, hands on her hips. “So we leave?”
    “McGrath has his equipment coming in three days. Burton can direct the earth sampling if he wants to. I