Tres Leches Cupcakes Read online

  Caro’s phone rang, and she fumbled for her earpiece on the dashboard. “Hello,” she said brightly. Her voice was flatter when she spoke again. “Hey, Rex, yeah, we’re on our way home.”

  Sadie squirmed; she hadn’t ever come right out and asked, but she suspected Rex didn’t know what they were really doing on their evenings “out.” Not that Sadie would accuse Caro of lying to her husband, but Sadie couldn’t imagine that Rex would be okay with his wife sneaking around Santa Fe and Los Alamos, confirming addresses of the people Sadie worked with.

  While Sadie had hit it off with Caro as though they were lifelong friends, Rex hadn’t been nearly as personable. In fact, Sadie sometimes worried that he resented her being there at all. She hoped it wasn’t true and that Rex’s quiet demeanor and tendency to leave the room when Sadie entered was a type of chivalry. Pete thought a great deal of Rex, and so Sadie tried to keep her opinion of the man who owned the home where she was staying more in line with Pete’s opinions. She found Caro and Rex to be a rather odd couple. Caro was vivacious, outgoing, and engaged in multiple pursuits. Rex did little other than watch sports on TV, fish on the weekends, and go to work every day.

  Work.

  Sadie stifled a groan and glanced at the dashboard clock as her thoughts shifted. It was 8:52 p.m. which meant that in just over seven hours she would be parking her car in the vacant lot on Airport Road, loading up into the D&E Salvage vans, and heading out to the desert again. She knew it was important to start early in the day, when the ground was still cold and moist, and it was sort of nice to end before the day got too hot and dry, but it would be day nine of this horrible job.

  When Pete had presented her with the opportunity to do a little undercover work for the Bureau of Land Management in New Mexico, she could not have been more excited. She’d been in Santa Fe for about a month by then, and growing increasingly bored. She’d been flattered to be offered the job, and she’d stepped out of the van on day one brimming with enthusiasm.

  Unfortunately, working as an amateur digger at an ancient burial site hadn’t lived up to her Indiana Jones expectations. It was hot, it was dirty, it was tedious, her back was killing her, and no one working at the dig looked like Harrison Ford. Thank goodness there were only two workdays left in this week; at least she’d have the weekend to recover before going back out again.

  The other part of the job—the undercover informant part—was fairly straightforward. She was supposed to get to know the crew members and develop profiles for each one of them. She hadn’t been told why she was developing these profiles, which drove her a little crazy. Pete felt the secrecy was necessary so that she wouldn’t have any biases. Even so, she had a theory that her job had something to do with artifacts being sold on the black market.

  The BLM was the agency charged with enforcing the laws regarding antiquities, and there just didn’t seem to be many other reasons for the BLM to want information about a crew working an archeological site. Regardless, she was determined to prove to the faceless BLM people that she was the right person for the job. Who knew what it could lead to in the future?

  The actual archeological work, though, was awful. Day after day she chipped pieces of broken pottery out of the ground for hours on end, stopping only now and then to sneak a picture of her fellow crew members. The days seemed to last forever, and by the time she left the site each afternoon, she was coated with dust, her fingers were raw, and she was completely exhausted. The only relief was coming home to a hot shower.

  “Okay,” Caro said, sounding irritated as she spoke to the invisible voice in her ear. “We’ll be home in less than ten minutes. Bye.”

  Caro took off the earpiece and tossed it back on the dashboard before glancing at Sadie. Her face brightened immediately. “Want to stop at Keva and get a smoothie or something?”

  “I’d love to,” Sadie said sincerely, “but I’ve got to get up in seven hours.” She didn’t point out that Caro had told Rex they’d be home in ten minutes.

  Caro frowned. “I don’t know how you stand that job.”

  “Me neither,” Sadie said with a shake of her head. Caro had been the sounding board for all of Sadie’s complaints, which were plentiful.

  “How many more days?”

  “I should be done by Monday,” Sadie said, scanning her paperwork, and making a note of the nine people she hadn’t talked to yet. Three people a day for the next three workdays should finish it off.

  She hoped that once she’d turned in the profiles, she could stop working at the site; unfortunately, no one had told her as much. She needed to believe it for her own emotional stability, but deep down she feared she’d have to stay on the crew throughout the duration of the job in order to maintain her cover. If it came to that, she might have to break her own leg to get herself out of the work.

  She took a breath and tried not to fantasize about broken bones. One day at a time, she reminded herself. One hot, dirty, dry, miserable day at a time. Then, with a little luck, she’d wow the people who’d hired her and be extended better opportunities in the future. They couldn’t get much worse . . . at least she hoped not.

  Chapter 2

  You brought these cookie bar things?”

  Sadie looked up from where she was digging Thursday afternoon to see who’d spoken to her. It was Margo Kauffman—one of the nine names left on Sadie’s list.

  “I did,” Sadie said. Bringing baked goods every morning had helped her make friends at the site, especially with the young men who treated her like a favorite aunt, and therefore told her pretty much everything she wanted to know. Margo was in her late thirties or early forties, Sadie guessed, and she kept to herself enough that Sadie hadn’t been able to connect with her yet.

  “They’re really good,” Margo said. She popped the last bite of the dulce de leche bar into her mouth and wiped her hands on her pants, which would only make her hands dirtier since she’d been digging for hours.

  “Thank you,” Sadie said, not sure whether she should take a break to talk or finish the jar she was uncovering. It was the first intact piece she’d worked on so far, and she was being extra cautious in hopes of keeping it in one piece. A lot of the pottery the crew uncovered was as fragile as eggshells, often victims of hairline fractures. If handled too roughly, the item often crumbled in the hand of the digger attempting to preserve it. She decided to talk and dig, unwilling to abandon her project when it was so close to being out of the ground. “I love to bake.”

  “And I love to eat,” Margo said with a smile. “We’re a match made in heaven.”

  Sadie looked up at her and smiled while hiding her surprise at the inclusive comment.

  “Is this your first dig?” Margo continued as she sat down in the dirt next to where Sadie was working; a little puff of dust plumed when her bottom hit the ground. She pulled a crushed pack of Camel cigarettes from one of the pockets in her khaki cargo pants—basic uniform for diggers—removed a cigarette and lighter out of the crumpled cellophane, and lit up.

  Sadie was glad the breeze took the smoke away from her; if she had to be around cigarette smoke, she preferred it to be outdoors.

  “It’s my second dig,” Sadie said, sticking to the story Pete had helped her create. Her hands were getting sweaty inside the latex gloves she was required to wear. She considered taking them off until she was ready to pick up the pot but she didn’t do it for fear she’d forget to put them back on and touch the pot with her fingers; she didn’t want to get any oils from her skin on the artifact. “I went on a tourist dig near Phoenix last summer. I guess you could say I fell in love with it.” That was an absolute lie.

  “So now you’re an official dirt geek like the rest of us, huh?” Margo took a long pull off her cigarette and let it out slowly. Margo’s too-yellow-blonde hair hung behind her shoulders in two braids. A turquoise bandana was tied kerchief-style over her head, and she wore a men’s white dress shirt unbuttoned over a green tank top. She was slender and strong, and her overly tann
ed skin testified to a lot of time spent in the sun. “Dirt geek,” the nickname assigned to those who dug for a living, was a very good title for Margo.

  “I guess so,” Sadie said, feeling just a little bit proud to claim the title even if she despised the actual work. “Do I get a T-shirt or something?”

  Margo laughed as she exhaled another lungful of smoke. “We’ll have to talk to HR about that. Until then, the perpetual squint, uneven fingernails, and dust that never fully washes off will have to do.”

  Sadie smiled. Margo had seemed intimidating from afar, but talking to her now showed her to be more personable than Sadie had expected. “How long have you been digging?” she asked, chipping away at the solidified dirt clinging to the jar.

  “Eighteen years,” Margo said after exhaling again. “I graduated from ASU with a few years of fieldwork under my belt and never looked back.”

  “How long have you been with D&E?” D&E Salvage was a privately contracted salvage archeology company hired to clear archeological sites in the Southwest area of the United States—Arizona and New Mexico, mostly. Once hired, they were responsible for properly removing, cataloging, and warehousing the artifacts or repatriating them back to the tribes claiming contemporary heritage. This particular job was to clear out a burial site recently discovered by a construction company when they attempted to put in a road leading to a new Ranchette community northwest of Santa Fe.

  “I’ve been with D&E about two years,” Margo replied. “Since I moved to Santa Fe.”

  “And do you like working for them?”

  “Sure,” Margo said with a slight shrug. “They pay pretty well, and they let me do the bodies.”

  Sadie looked up quickly, surprised by the flippant comment. It had taken her by surprise to learn that so many members of the crew regarded this as just another job—like landscaping or washing cars. It was disappointing to think that Margo might be equally callous toward the work, especially since she’d just said how much she loved it.

  “Those monkeys aren’t careful enough for bones, and D&E knows I’ll do the job right.”

  Sadie felt better about that explanation and moved forward with the conversation. “Is that why you don’t work with the rest of the crew?”

  Margo nodded but her gaze drifted to a mesa in the distance. “I get priority for the women and children. You can usually identify the gender by what funerary is buried with them. The crew gives me my space so that no one gets in the way of my work.” She nodded toward Sadie’s jar, one of the many items buried with the people interred there. Sometimes there were jewelry or weapons, but Sadie was new and so she was given the pottery, something most of these diggers regarded as a dime a dozen. “The other crew members might end up doing more bone work if I can’t get it done on my own. But I’m fast. I like to be the one who brings people up.”

  “You take it pretty seriously, then,” Sadie commented, stealing glances at Margo while she kept working. She picked up her spray bottle and gave the jar a few squirts of water to remove the dust layer hiding the black-and-red design someone had hand painted almost a thousand years ago. It was like bringing the item back to life.

  “These were real people with real lives,” Margo explained, a bitter edge to her voice. “And their loved ones never expected them to be dug up in order to make way for some rich person’s swimming pool.”

  “So you make sure they’re treated right,” Sadie summarized. It seemed silly to compare her approach to the jar to what Margo did with the skeletons, but Sadie felt the same kind of reverence. She also had to admit to a little jealousy toward Margo’s work. Would she ever get to do a body? Maybe she’d enjoy the work more if she could do something that important.

  Margo took a final drag of her cigarette before snubbing it out in the dirt and rolling the butt into a tissue from her pocket. D&E had been very clear during orientation that no one was to leave anything at the site. Margo put the tissue back in her pocket and then looked hard at Sadie. “I could use an extra set of hands today.”

  It took a few moments to realize what Margo meant, but once Sadie understood, she sat up straighter—no small feat for her poor back that felt fused into a slouchy curve. “With the bodies?” she said quietly but with an eager tone she hoped wasn’t inappropriate.

  “I found a family plot,” Margo said. “They probably all got sick at the same time and were buried together. The bones are mixed in and it’s going to take me the rest of the day to separate them for proper cataloging. Bill said I could ask a crew member to assist me and, quite frankly, I don’t want to work with any of those guys.” She nodded toward a group of guys who’d taken a break to play hacky sack outside of the dig area. “I’ve been watching you. You do good work, even if you’re slow.”

  Sadie tried not to let the comment sting and instead focused on the compliment. “I’d love to help,” she said. “I’ll be over as soon as I finish this.”

  Margo nodded, thanked her, and then stood, not bothering to brush off her pants—what was the point when they all left the site covered in dirt anyway?

  When Sadie stood up fifteen minutes later, she did brush the dirt off her sleeves and pants, creating a miniature dust cloud in the process. Most of the dirt settled right back into her clothes, but she felt better for having at least tried to get clean. The shower she’d take once she got back to Caro’s was sounding better by the minute.

  She pulled a plastic bag out of one pocket of her cargo pants and a Sharpie out of another. Using her thigh as a solid surface, she wrote the grid number, time, and her name on the outside of the collection bag—all part of the cataloging process. She put the intact jar into the bag, removed the paper strip that exposed the sticky fold-over, and sealed the bag, satisfied with her work.

  It was a lovely pot, about four inches in diameter and six inches tall, the neck barely narrower than the body. She couldn’t help but think about what a fun conversation piece it would be if she could take it home and display it on her mantel—her very first intact pottery jar from the time she played archeologist. That would be illegal, of course, but it was still just a tiny bit tempting. She continued to admire the pot as she headed to the converted camp trailer where the artifacts were stored.

  Roberto, a big fan of her baked items, was in charge of cataloging. He typed all the information she read off from the bag into his computer before reaching down for the item—his workspace was a few feet above her.

  Sadie was handing it up, sad to see it go, when Cesar, one of the more boisterous members of the crew and number nineteen on her list, came around the corner of the trailer fast and bumped her shoulder. The slick plastic slid through her still-gloved hands. She fumbled to catch the pot. Roberto grabbed for it too, but to no avail. The pot crashed to the ground at her feet.

  Dulce de Leche Bars

  1½ cups flour

  1½ cups quick oats

  1 cup brown sugar

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 cup butter, softened

  1 (13.4-ounce) can dulce de leche

  1 cup Heath toffee bits or chocolate chips

  ½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until crumbly. Reserve ¼ cup for the topping, then press remainder of the mix into an ungreased 9x13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

  While crust is baking, soften dulce de leche in a small saucepan over low heat (about 5 minutes). Spread dulce de leche over hot crust. Sprinkle with toffee bits and the rest of the crumb mixture. Add nuts if desired. Return to oven and bake 25 to 30 minutes.

  Let cool 15 minutes and then run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen.

  Let cool completely and cut into bars.

  Makes 24 bars.

  Chapter 3

  Sadie gasped and quickly picked up the bag as though she could somehow undo the last three seconds. What had been a perfectly shaped jar with beautiful symmetry and design was now a bag of pieces. Sadie’s thro
at tightened, surprising her with the sorrow she felt.

  “Sorry,” Cesar said, making a face while handing over a plastic bag of his own. As soon as Roberto took his bag, Cesar hesitated a moment as though trying to think of what else to say, then left without another word.

  Sadie cradled her bag like it was a dead pet, telling herself not to cry. After several seconds, Roberto carefully took the bag from her hands. When she looked up at him, he smiled sympathetically.

  “Most of what we find is already broken,” he said, just a hint of an accent in his words.

  “But this wasn’t,” Sadie said, replaying in her mind the way she should have handed it up, more carefully or with both hands. “It’s stayed together for hundreds of years, and I’m the reason it’s in pieces.”

  “Cesar is the reason it is in pieces,” Roberto said, turning toward the shelves inside the trailer. She watched him put the bag on a specific shelf, then add some notes to his computer, probably changing the description from pottery to pot shards. When he finished typing, he met her eye again. “The Navajo believe that everything has a life: rocks, trees, pots. They think we should leave all of this in the ground and let it die too, rather than keep it alive somehow. Maybe this supports that belief more than the pot going to a warehouse, where it will sit until someone decides what to do with it or steals it in hopes of making money from the black market.”

  Sadie nodded, but his comments didn’t make her feel any better. Pete had educated her on the current state of antiquities when he told her about this job. So many artifacts had been taken from the ground in recent years, or seized from pothunters who dug them up illegally, that there weren’t enough museums to house them. Instead, there were warehouses and storage units all over the Southwestern United States filled with artifacts that were just waiting for a chance to be studied, or in some cases, displayed. There was also a multimillion-dollar black market that sold to private collectors or anyone else wanting to skirt the laws regarding ethical archeology. Sellers got rich, while buyers surrounded themselves with historical contraband. Were any of those options better than leaving an artifact to die, as Roberto had said?