She got her feet under her and stood. When she swiped at a lock of hair that had fallen over her brow, she left a trail of mud. “I almost had it.”
“What you almost had was a face full of mud. You could have ruined my crime scene. As an anthropologist, I’d think you’d know that falling into the middle of a find would contaminate it.”
“I wasn’t falling.”
“The hell you weren’t. What were you after?”
“I’ll show you.” She lifted her chin and walked imperiously over to the edge of the shallow hole.
Wyatt tried not to smile as he followed her. She had no idea that she looked like a tomboy, with mud streaking her face and wisps of hair flying everywhere.
“Damn it,” she muttered and turned back toward him.
No. He corrected himself. With the curve of her breasts and the delicate bones and muscles of her shoulders and collarbone showing, not to mention the outline of her nipples under the red camisole, a tomboy was the last thing she looked like.
“What is it?”
“I don’t see it now.” She patted her pockets. “I need my flashlight. It’s in my hoodie.”
Wyatt clenched his teeth in frustration as he bent down and retrieved her hooded sweatshirt.
“Here. You need to put it on, anyhow.” He couldn’t stop his eyes from flickering downward, to the top of her breasts.
“What? Why?” She looked down, made a small distressed sound, thrust her arms into the massive sleeves and wrapped the sweatshirt around her.
With an effort, he turned his attention away from her to study the general area where she’d been reaching.
She pulled out her flashlight and turned it on.
“What were you trying to reach?” he asked again, hearing the frustration in his voice.
She aimed the beam. “Something bright.”
“Bright?”
“Like metal. I think it might be a piece of jewelry.”
“Or a gum wrapper.”
She shrugged, still searching with her flashlight. “Oh. There!” She held the light beam steady.
“That clod of dirt?” Wyatt squinted at the unsightly clump of mud and something fuzzy and tangled. “It looks like it came out of a sewer pipe.”
“Can you get it? I want it intact.”
“Let me have that stick.” He put his weight on the branch, bending it slightly to test it. Then he leaned on it.
“Use this.” She handed him a small tool.
“What’s this?”
“A trowel.”
He sent a glare sideways toward her. “Keep the flashlight on the clump of dirt.”
Bracing himself, he reached. Her prize was farther away than it looked. She’d have definitely ended up facedown in the mud.
By stretching his shoulder nearly out of joint and straining his biceps, he managed to slide the blade of the trowel underneath the clump. Holding his breath, he lifted it. Then he eased backward until he was balanced on his own two feet on dry ground.
“Hold on,” Nina said.
Wyatt froze. “What?” he snapped, his arm muscles quivering with effort.
“Just stand still for a minute.” She held her flashlight in her left hand and a pair of tweezers in her right. She probed the clump cautiously.
Finally, she found what she’d been looking for, judging by the hiss of breath he heard. She fished a small plastic bag out of her pocket, slid her find into it, sealed it and marked it. Then she retrieved a larger bag and held it out for Wyatt to drop the clump into.
“What was that you put in the small bag?”
“That was what I saw. I think it’s a necklace. Let me seal and mark this, and we’ll look at it.” He heard the nervous excitement in her voice. She quickly sealed the bag containing the clump of dirt and wrote something on it. Then she held up the small bag. “Hold the flashlight for me?”
Her fingers trembled as she held the bag under the beam. She turned it this way and that, and used her fingernail to maneuver the object inside.
Wyatt watched, trying to make sense of what he saw. A narrow chain of some kind. Shiny, like fine gold.
“Oh, dear heavens,” Nina breathed. “It is…” Her voice broke.
“Is what?”
Nina looked up at him. There was enough light for him to see a suspicious brightness in her eyes. “It’s Marcie’s necklace.”
Her words slammed into his chest like a physical blow.
Marcie’s necklace. He hadn’t realized that he’d held out hope that Marcie could still be alive. That somehow, against all odds, and despite his failure to keep her safe, she’d managed to survive.
“Marcie’s? How can you be sure?” He held his breath, dreading her answer. She’d been Marcie’s best friend. If anyone could positively ID Marcie’s possessions, she could.
But she didn’t answer him. Her attention was on the contents of the bag, and her hand was trembling.
“Nina?”
“Look at it.” Nina held the bag so the flashlight beam sparkled off a cluster of tiny diamonds embedded in the clump of dirt.
Wyatt squinted. “Wait. Is that hair?”
She nodded and took a shaky breath. “Human. Long. Blond. And see the diamonds? They form an M. I know this is Marcie’s necklace because…” Her voice broke. “Because I gave it to her.” She took a shaky breath and straightened.
Wyatt met her eyes and found them stone cold and filled with hostility.
“That means,” she said harshly, “that one of those thigh bones is Marcie’s.”
Chapter Five
“Let me have the necklace and the hair. I’ll give it to Sheriff Hardin and then get you back to town. You’re obviously freezing.” Wyatt’s voice was gruff, disapproving.
“No,” Nina said through chattering teeth. She clamped her jaw and consciously relaxed her hunched shoulders. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m keeping the evidence. You called me in to do the collecting and analyzing, and I’m going to do it.” She kept her arms folded, so he couldn’t see her shivering.
Her hoodie was only slightly better than nothing. It was damp from where she’d dropped it on the ground, and she could feel a glob of cold, slimy mud sliding down between her shoulder blades. In spite of her determination, she shuddered.
Wyatt’s jaw tensed. “Technically, my captain called in your boss, not you.”
Nina lifted her chin and glared at him. His gaze narrowed, as if he was tired of dealing with her.
She studied his rugged features. He wasn’t handsome. Not by Hollywood standards. His jaw just missed being too prominent. The cleft in his chin bordered on too deep. His wide, straight mouth barely kept his nose from looking too long. And his eyes were a clear, dark blue that she’d never seen in eyes before.
And those eyes were on her.
“I tell you what,” he said. “The Ranger lab has DNA on file for Marcie. Divide that sample with me, and I’ll have the lab test it against Marcie’s.”
Nina’s fist tightened around the evidence bag. His suggestion was entirely reasonable, so why was her instinctive reaction not to let one single hair out of her sight? As soon as the question popped into her head, she knew the answer. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the Rangers, or even Wyatt Colter. It was that she held in her hand the answer to the question that had haunted her for two years. Was Marcie dead or alive?
Wyatt raised a brow.
Nina nodded. “We’ll need a witness to oversee the transfer of evidence.” She glanced over at Tolbert’s pickup. “The doctor.”
Wyatt fetched Doc Hallowell, and within minutes the division and transfer of evidence were taken care of. Wyatt made a short phone call, then came back over to watch Nina lock her evidence bag in her forensics kit, along with the record of transfer.
“The courier will be here within an hour,” he said.
“Thank you.” She folded her arms, feeling the chill of the early morning seeping under her skin. “You know, Marcie was my friend. All I came here for wa
s to find out what happened to her. I can’t abandon her until I know.”
Wyatt’s eyes darkened, like storm clouds obscuring the sky. “Your involvement borders on conflict of interest.”
She held his gaze. “If that’s true, then you being head of the task force is definitely a conflict.”
“Come on,” he snapped. “Let’s get you into the Jeep.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I never should have left the site. I’m staying here until my students can build the platform and erect a fence.”
Wyatt’s blue gaze narrowed. “Like hell you are,” he growled. “You’ll be frozen solid long before daybreak. The sheriff’s got it covered.”
“The sheriff may have the crime scene covered, but the burial site is my responsibility.”
“Nope. It’s my responsibility. You are a member of this task force—at least for now. I’m the head of it. Do you understand what that means?” He looked down at her from under the shadow cast by the brim of his Stetson.
She pressed her lips together and stared back at him, losing a little bit of credibility when she couldn’t keep her chin from trembling with cold.
“It means I can have you replaced.”
“On what grounds? I’m perfectly capable of handling this job.”
“You’re of no use to me if you can’t follow orders.”
“Orders?” She bristled.
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Orders. Now get in.”
She stood her ground. “I’m the forensic anthropologist—”
He took a step forward. “Get in the vehicle.”
She backed up. “I have a perfect right to stay here if I want to.”
“Get. In.”
Nina realized everybody had stopped talking and was staring in their direction. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Wyatt, though. No telling what he’d do.
“What are you going to do?” she snapped. “Make me?”
“If I have to.”
“How?”
He lifted a hand to the brim of his hat and pushed it back about an inch, enough to chase the shadows away from his eyes. “I could shoot you, I guess. But that would be messy.”
She kept her chin up. “I’ve already lost one thigh bone. I don’t want to lose another.”
Suddenly he was in her face. “You risk losing a lot more than a thigh bone if you stay out here all night. Now, do I have to pick you up and put you in the vehicle myself? Or are you going to go on your own?”
She darted a quick, involuntary glance around. Everyone was watching them. She felt the sting of heat as a flush rose to her cheeks.
“I’m a Ph.D. You can’t just pick me up and put me anywhere. Everyone’s watching.”
Wyatt inclined his head, and his eyes sparked dangerously. Obviously he didn’t care.
Anger sent blood rushing to her ears and scalp. “Fine,” she snapped. “If you trust the sheriff to keep your crime scene safe until daybreak, I suppose I do, too.” She tossed her head. “No reason for everyone to stick around until then.”
She felt Wyatt’s eyes on her back as she trudged over to his Jeep and climbed into the passenger seat. He’d left the engine running, and the warmth hit her chilled skin like the first blast of a hot shower. She shivered uncontrollably for a few seconds.
The temperature gauge on the dashboard computer read forty-nine degrees. Not exactly freezing. But her sweatshirt was damp, not to mention the knees and seat of her jeans. And that slimy mud was beginning to dry on her back. The temperature didn’t have to be freezing to cause hypothermia.
She looked out the window and saw that every eye was on her. And they were all smiling. Even Tolbert. Her face flushed with heat.
Then, as she watched, Wyatt aimed his intimidating glare at them, and one by one, they turned their attention back to what they were doing.
She felt an absurd gratitude toward him, and that made her mad. He didn’t deserve her gratitude, for two reasons. First, it was his fault the men had been staring in the first place. He’d been out of line threatening her, even if he was in charge. Second, her oldest, dearest friend was missing and presumed dead because of him. She wasn’t sure what he could have done to stop the armed kidnappers who’d grabbed Marcie, but he was a Texas Ranger. He’d sworn to protect her.
As for herself, she intended to have him at her side when she analyzed those thigh bones, but not because she trusted him to protect her. In fact, her reasoning was just the opposite.
She wanted him there because if one of the bones was Marcie’s, she was going to need somebody to blame.
WYATT GLANCED back at the Jeep as he headed over to talk to Sheriff Hardin. There was a glare on the rain-spattered windshield, but he could make out Nina’s black hair. He didn’t have to see her face to know her accusing eyes were following him.
He supposed it was fitting that he was saddled with her reproachful presence as he worked to get to the bottom of Marcie’s disappearance. After all, he’d lived for two years with her voice in his head.
It’s your fault.
“What did your bone collector find?” Hardin asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“A clump of hair and a necklace that may have belonged to Marcie James.”
“Where are they? Get them to me and—”
Wyatt shook his head. “Nope. Nina’s tagged them. She’s got the chain of custody.”
“Are you sure she ought to be doing that? She was Marcie’s best friend.”
Wyatt’s hackles rose, but he knew the sheriff had a valid point. It was the same point he’d just raised to Nina. “I trust her for that very reason. She’s determined to find out what happened to her friend.”
Hardin sent Wyatt a telling look. “Word is she’s already decided who’s responsible.”
Wyatt shrugged as if that fact didn’t concern him. “Maybe. Can’t say I disagree with her. Besides, whether we like it or not, these are cold cases. And with the state of the remains, it’s more up her alley than CSI’s.”
“What did you need the doc for?”
“We need to positively ID the hair as Marcie’s. So the professor divided the evidence into two bags, with the doctor witnessing the transfer of some of the evidence from her to me. I’ve got a courier coming to take it to the Ranger Forensics Lab. We have Marcie’s DNA on file. If the clump of hair is a match, we should know within twenty-four hours.”
The end of his sentence was almost drowned out by the sound of a four-wheeler roaring up. Wyatt looked across the road and saw Trace Becker, Jonah Becker’s son, climbing off the vehicle and heading their way. He remembered Trace mostly because of his hair-trigger temper and the two-by-four chip he carried on his shoulder.
There was a reason Wyatt had recommended Becker’s daughter Jessie instead of Trace to work with them on the task force.
Trace stomped toward them, his chin stuck out pugnaciously. “What the hell’s going on, Reed?”
Hardin held up a hand. “Now, Trace, calm down.”
“Calm down?” Trace stormed. “This is the second time I’ve been disturbed tonight. Around ten I saw so much light out here that I thought we had a fire. Now there’s another commotion on my land, and nobody bothered to contact me to let me know what was going on.”
His land? Wyatt opened his mouth, but Hardin beat him to the punch. “Did you come down here earlier, Trace?”
Trace took a split-second too long to answer. “Earlier? What do you mean?”
“When was the last time you were here?” Wyatt broke in, narrowing his eyes as he studied Trace’s cowboy boots. There was mud clinging to the sides.
Trace scowled at Wyatt for a couple of seconds, as if trying to place him, then turned back to Hardin. “I ran out here this afternoon to check on the burial site. Spoke with Deputy Spears for a bit, then headed back to the house to finish up some paperwork.”
“And later, when you saw the lights?” Hardin asked.
“I stepped outside to see what was going on and realized they
were spotlights, not a fire,” Trace replied.
“Yeah? And then?” Wyatt broke in.
Trace cocked his head. “And then I went back inside.”
“You weren’t curious? Worried about what was going on up here?”
“I told you I had paperwork.” Trace growled. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m asking if anyone can vouch for you.”
“Vouch for me? What the hell? You’ve got a lot of gall, standing here on my property, telling me I need someone to vouch for me.” Trace turned to Harding. “Who the hell is this guy, anyhow?”
Wyatt took a step forward. “Lieutenant Wyatt Colter, Texas Ranger. I’m in charge of the task force looking into the remains that were found on your father’s land.”
Trace turned on him, only to be stopped by Hardin’s hand on his arm.
“We’re just trying to find out what happened,” Hardin said. “Now, if your dad or Jessie can confirm that you didn’t leave the house—?”
“They can’t,” Trace broke in. “Jessie’s out of town, and Dad…” Instantaneously, his whole demeanor changed. “He’s not doing so well. And all this isn’t helping.” He swung his arm in a sweeping gesture. “Reed, I asked what’s going on.”
Wyatt studied Trace. He was barely holding it together. His fists were clenched at his sides, and despite the chill in the air, he was sweating. Was he really worried about his father, and indignant about the intrusion on the Becker spread? Or was he afraid of what the Ranger task force would uncover?
Hardin sent Wyatt a telling look, then stepped over and patted Trace on the back.
“Somebody hit Shane over the head. He called us as soon as he woke up. When Doc finishes sewing his head up and we check out what his attacker was after, things will calm down out here. You know we’ve got to do our jobs.” As he talked, he maneuvered Trace toward his four-wheeler. “Why don’t you get back down to the house and make sure your dad’s okay? We’ve still got a lot of work to do here, but don’t worry. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Wyatt bristled at Hardin’s kid-glove handling of Jonah Becker’s belligerent son. He was half-inclined to grab him and run him in for making threats against law enforcement. But while this was his jurisdiction, Comanche Creek wasn’t his town and these weren’t his neighbors. He was an outsider, so he needed to maintain a cordial relationship with Sheriff Reed Hardin.
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