A proposal for the training had crossed her desk just days after the site was looted. Upset by the damage to the site, she would admit she’d viewed the proposed exercise with a jaundiced eye. What if she approved it, and then the SEALs harmed the historic or prehistoric sites that dotted the lakeshore? Sites were everywhere around the lake. For thousands of years, Lake Olympus had been an important gathering place for Indigenous people. If SEALs playing war games hurt those sites after she’d given them the green light, it would be her fault.

She’d never be able to look George in the eye again.

She sent the proposal back, asking the Navy to resubmit in the spring after they did a proper assessment of potential impacts to cultural and historical resources. Perhaps with more information and after extensive consultation with local tribes, they’d be approved for the following year.

It was standard procedure for a substandard—and clearly rushed—proposal.

It turned out Xavier didn’t take rejection well, so he turned to the park superintendent to override Audrey’s finding. When Jim refused to ignore the finding of his subject matter expert, Xavier insisted on bringing it before the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation—the ultimate governing body for her profession—to put pressure on the superintendent. But Xavier’s complaint wasn’t a simple objection to her findings. No. That she could understand and even forgive. He had his job; she had hers.

But that wasn’t what he did.

When he couldn’t win with the facts, he smeared her, claiming she wouldn’t agree to sign the Finding of No Significant Impact because of their personal involvement. Because he’d slept with her and then rejected her.

The accusation was ridiculous—she hadn’t even known Xavier was in the Navy until she saw him in uniform at park headquarters—and she certainly hadn’t known he had anything to do with the proposed training. But the truth hadn’t mattered to ACHP. They’d believed him.

His accusations nearly got her fired. She was still a little surprised she hadn’t been. Her boss, at least, had believed her, which was why Xavier had to turn to ACHP in the first place. But that didn’t mean her job wasn’t hanging by a thread in the fallout of the success of his ploy. And that this had all happened on the heels of the looting? Not a great month for ONP’s park archaeologist. A month later, her job remained on shaky ground.