Classified Cowboy

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.

Chapter Two (#ulink_2428ac9f-0235-55e6-b820-ee74990473da)

“Whoa, cowboy,” a low amused voice said.

Wyatt carefully relaxed his trigger finger.

Nina Jacobson. Son of a …

He blew out breath in a long hiss and holstered his gun. “I told you to get out of here.”

“No. You told me to—and I quote—'get them out of here.’” She lifted her chin and stared at him defiantly. “I did that. For now.”

He set his jaw. “Great. So we’ve established that you can follow directions. Good to know. Follow this one. You get out of here. Now.”

She shrugged. “No can do. No transportation.”

His gaze snapped to the empty road where the SUVs had been parked. Then back to her. First her face, then her left shoulder, which was weighed down by a heavy metal case, and on down to her right hand, where it rested on the telescoping handle of a small black weekend bag.

Oh, hell. He raised his gaze to meet hers.

Her eyes widened, and like before, he was grimly pleased that he could so easily intimidate her. He knew the effect of his glare. He’d seen it in the faces of suspects, subordinates and, occasionally, friends.

“Then you better start walking,” he muttered, turning and propping his boot up on the fallen tree trunk again.

“Not a chance, cowboy. I’m staying with my site. I need to get some more pictures.” Her hand moved from the bag’s handle to the camera around her neck.

“It’s not your site. It’s my crime scene.”

She didn’t answer. Wyatt felt a cautious triumph. Maybe he’d won. Of course, he knew he was going to have to take her back to town, so she scored props for that. But there was no way she was going to turn his crime scene into a field trip for a bunch of students.

No way. He set his jaw and got ready to tell her to get into his Jeep.

“The ME said he thought there were two bodies.” She spoke softly, but her tone got his attention.

Reluctantly, he slid his gaze her way. “He thought? Does that mean you don’t?”

She stepped over the crime-scene tape and dropped to her haunches at the edge of the hole. He started to stop her, but she’d piqued his curiosity, so he followed her and crouched beside her, sitting back on his heels.

She slid her narrow, powerful flashlight beam over the clods of dirt and debris left by the road crew. After a couple of seconds he picked up on the pattern she was tracing.

Across, up, down and back. Then she moved the beam back to where she’d started and traced the pattern again. “What? What are you showing me?” he asked.

“Look closer.”

“If I look any closer, I’ll fall in.”

She laughed, a sexy chuckle that impacted him like a bullet straight to his groin. Surprised at his reaction, he shifted uncomfortably and swallowed hard to keep from groaning aloud.

“See this?” She shone the beam on her starting point and slid the light back and forth, over what looked like a ridge in the dirt. “That’s a human thigh bone.”

Adrenaline shot through him again. “That?” He pulled his own flashlight out of his pocket. “How can you tell?”

“I’m a forensic anthropologist. Bones are my business.”

“What else can you tell about it? Is it male? Female?

Child? Adult?”

She shook her head as she fished a brush out of her pocket. She telescoped the handle of the brush and leaned over to run the bristles across the surface of the bone. The dirt covering the bone was a mixture of dust and mud, so brushing at it didn’t accomplish much.

“It’s not a child. But making all those determinations is never quite as easy as the TV shows make it seem. Now look at this.” She swept the beam of light across and up, then back across.

“Another thigh bone?”

“Go to the head of the class, cowboy.” The beam moved again.

“And a third,” he said, tamping down on his excitement—and his dread. One of those bones could be Marcie’s. “Three thigh bones? Everybody has two, so was the ME right? There are two bodies in here?”

“Not so fast. These closest two may be similar in size, but the three femurs are all different,” she said, with the same lilt in her voice that he was trying to keep out of his.

“Three? You’re saying they’re from three different people?” He looked at her, dread mixing with excitement under his breastbone. Three sets of bones. Three people gone missing in the past five years. Was it going to be that easy? “That’s three different thigh bones, laid out like that?”

She met his gaze, her dark eyes snapping. “Yeah. Exactly. Look at that placement. They’re crisscrossed in a star pattern. I suppose it could be chance that they ended up like that.” He shook his head, but she wasn’t looking at him. She had turned back to the bones and was brushing at them again. She gasped.

“What is it?”

“I think this largest bone has a piece of pelvis attached. That could definitively tell us if it’s a male or female.” She leaned a fraction of an inch farther forward and brushed at the far end of the bone. “Damn it,” she muttered.

“What now?”

“The ground’s too wet. I’m going to have to wait to unearth the bones.”

“I guess you can’t just pick them up.”