Classified Cowboy. Mallory Kane
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done for the night. We’ll get started again in the morning.”
Wyatt turned and found Nina staring at him. “They’re done, period, Professor.”
This time her chin went up and stayed up. “We’ll see about that tomorrow, Lieutenant. And I’m not a professor. I’m a fellow.”
Wyatt felt a mean urge and acted on it before his better judgment could stop him. He shook his head. “No, Professor, you’re definitely not a fellow. I can attest to that.”
“Go to hell,” she snapped.
“Charming,” he muttered.
She turned away, so quickly that her ponytail almost slapped her in the face, and followed the students to the SUVs.
Wyatt took off his hat and slung the water off the brim, ran a hand through his hair, then seated the Stetson back on his head. The rain had settled into a miserable drizzle, the drops falling just fast enough to seep through clothes and just slow enough to piss him off.
He went back to the Jeep and got a roll of crime-scene tape. Obviously one thickness of yellow tape around the perimeter wasn’t warning enough. Not that twenty thicknesses would actually keep anyone from getting to the newly discovered grave, but the tape, plus the deputy, who was supposed to be here by midnight and guard the scene until morning, would be a deterrent.
At least for law-abiding folks.
By the time he was finished retaping the perimeter, three times over, most of the equipment was gone from the site and the two SUVs had loaded up and left.
He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. An hour until Sheriff Hardin’s second deputy arrived. He debated calling Hardin and reaming him and his deputy for leaving the crime scene unguarded. But he could just as easily do that tomorrow morning.
He crossed his arms and surveyed the scene. At least the rain had stopped for the moment. He took off his hat again and slapped it against his thigh, knocking more water off the brim, then seated it back on his head.
Propping a boot on top of a fallen tree trunk, he stared down at the shallow, jagged hole in the ground, his mood deteriorating.
The rain had released more odors into the air. The fresh smell of newly turned earth was still there, seasoned with the sharp scent of evergreen and the fresh odor of rain-washed air. Still, he couldn’t shake the sensation that he could smell death. Even if he knew bones didn’t smell.
A frisson of revulsion slid through him, followed immediately by remorse. He propped an elbow on his knee and glared at the hole, as if he could bully it into giving up its secrets.
Are you down there, Marcie?
So now he was talking to dead people? He reined in his runaway imagination sharply. If the remains unearthed here were those of his missing witness, Marcie James, at least her family and friends would have closure.
And he would know for sure that his negligence had gotten her killed. As always, he marveled at his unrealistic hope that somehow Marcie had survived the attack that had nearly killed him. Still, he recognized it for what it was—a last-ditch effort by his brain to protect him from the truth.
She was dead and it was his fault.
He heard the voices arguing with his, like they always did. His captain, assuring him that the Rangers’ internal investigation had exonerated him of any negligence. The surgeon who’d worked for seven hours to repair the damage to his lung from the attacker’s bullet, declaring that he ought to be a dead man.
But louder than all of them was the one low, sexy voice that agreed with him. The voice of Nina Jacobson.
My best friend is gone. She could be dead, and it’s all your fault. You were supposed to protect her.
He rubbed his chin and tried to banish her words from his brain. He needed to put the self-recrimination and regret behind him. Whether or not Marcie James’s death was his fault wasn’t the issue now.
Identifying whoever was buried in this shallow hole was. For a few moments, he got caught up in examining the scene. This was the first time he’d seen it. The kids had erected the canopy, so the area underneath was dark.
But Wyatt could imagine what had happened. The road crew that was breaking ground for the controversial new state route that cut across this corner of Jonah Becker’s land had brought in its bulldozer. It had dug into this rise and unearthed the bones.
The discovery of the bodies—combined with the fact that the ME couldn’t make a definitive identification of the age, sex or time of death of any of the victims—had reopened a lot of old wounds in Comanche Creek.
Marcie James’s kidnapping and disappearance two years before had been the latest of several such incidents in the small community in recent years.
About three years prior to Marcie’s disappearance, an antiques broker who had been accused of stealing Native American artifacts from Jonah Becker’s land had disappeared, along with several important pieces. Everyone thought Mason Lattimer had skipped town with enough stolen treasure to set him up for life. But none of the pieces had ever surfaced.
Then, less than a year after Lattimer’s disappearance, a Native American activist leader named Ray Phillips had vanished into thin air after a confrontation with Comanche Creek’s city council and an argument with Jonah Becker.
One odd character vanishing was a curiosity. A second disappearance was noteworthy. But a third in five years?
That the third person was an innocent young woman scheduled to testify in a land-deal fraud case connected to a prominent local landowner cemented the connection between each of the bodies and that landowner—Jonah Becker.
It had taken less than twenty-four hours to rekindle the fires of suspicion, attacks and counterattacks in the small community of Comanche Creek. The warring factions that had settled into an uneasy truce—the Comanche community, the wealthy Caucasian element and activist groups on both sides—were suddenly back at each other’s throats.
Wyatt straightened and took a deep breath as he surveyed his surroundings. The moisture in the air rendered it heavy and unsatisfying. He unwrapped a peppermint and popped it into his mouth. The sharp cooling sensation slid down his throat, and its tingle refreshed the air he sucked into his lungs.
Jonah Becker and his son Trace had both protested the state’s acquisition of this corner of their property for a newly funded road, although the state of Texas had paid them. From what Wyatt could see of the area, the fact that they wanted to keep it despite the generous compensation was suspicious on its face.
To him, the land was barren and depressing. Anemic gray limestone outcroppings loomed overhead. The worn path that served as a road was covered with more limestone, crushed by cow and horse hooves into fine gravel, which sounded like glass crunching underfoot. Scrub mesquite and weeds were just beginning to put on new growth for spring.
Wyatt knew that in daylight he’d see the new blooms of native wildflowers, but a splash of blue and yellow here and there couldn’t begin to compete with all that gray.
He pushed air out between his teeth, thinking longingly of his renovated loft near downtown Austin. The houseplants his sister had brought him for his balcony were much more to his liking than this scrub brush.
Just as he started to crouch down to take a look at the area Nina Jacobson had been photographing, he heard something. He froze, listening. Was it rain dripping off the trees? Or a night creature scurrying by?
Then the crunch of limestone from behind and to the left of him reached his ears.
In one swift motion he drew his Sig Sauer and whirled.
“Whoa, cowboy,” a low amused voice said.