Deadly Promises

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  "Yes, but--"

  "Good. Now stay here." He reached down and switched on the radio clipped to her belt. "And keep this on. I'll be right back. Try not to shoot me."

  Then he disappeared.

  Kelsey huffed out a breath of annoyance. But she stayed put.

  The engine noise drew closer and closer until it was almost on top of them. It sounded like a truck, and it was moving fast. She heard the skid of tires on gravel as it took the bend in the road.

  The noise faded and Kelsey waited for Gage to reappear. Something fluttered behind her. Bats? Oh God, she hated bats. Spiders, snakes, bugs, no problems, but bats she could not abide. She closed her eyes and tried to push away the fear. Whatever bats lived here were probably out feeding. She'd probably just heard a bird. She took a deep, calming breath, which didn't work because she recognized the pungent smell of guano. And then a high-pitched squeak, like fingernails on a blackboard. She squeezed her eyes shut as she imagined millions of bats lurking behind her in the dark.

  Her radio squawked to life and she snatched it off her belt. "Where are you?" she demanded.

  "I'm almost there. Holster your weapon."

  She'd never unholstered it. "Hurry. I'm starving and I want to get home."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She detected the sarcasm in his voice. Maybe he thought she was a pain in the butt. It was late, and Joe Quinn's spoiled niece was getting cranky without her dinner.

  Kelsey didn't care what he thought. She just wanted out of this damn mine shaft and away from these bats.

  "Hi."

  His warm, low voice brought a wave of relief.

  "What was it?" she asked.

  "I'm not sure."

  He took her by the arm and led her into the open air again. It felt dry and warm and smelled like mesquite trees instead of bat droppings.

  "So you didn't see it?"

  "It was a truck," he said, releasing her arm. "I saw it and then it disappeared."

  "What do you mean it disappeared?"

  "One second it was there. Then a cloud passed in front of the moon and poof, nothing."

  "Poof? You mean like Harry Potter poof or is this some SEAL term I don't know about?"

  "It was just gone," he said, and she heard the wonder in his voice. "It was the damndest thing."

  He got quiet then, and for a few moments all she could hear was his breathing. It had been a long time since she'd been this close to a man in the dark. And then it was back again, the question that had been dogging her since this afternoon. The same question that had been in the back of her mind as she'd directed students and talked to Sattler and sat alone in her camper, hunched over the mandible with a magnifying glass. The question of the decade, or at least of the summer.

  Just where, exactly, was Gage Brewer planning to sleep?

  Four

  Gage awoke with a crick in his neck and a rumble in his gut. He squinted at the light streaming through the windshield and checked his watch. O640. He looked at Kelsey's camper. If he guessed right, she'd be up shortly, getting ready to crack the whip on her soon-to-arrive students.

  As if on cue the door swung open. She stepped out and scanned the campsite, and her gaze met his across the hood of his truck.

  He pushed open the door and got out. His stomach growled again, reminding him of the bowl of homemade chili he'd refused last night, not just once but twice. He'd needed something to eat, yeah. But what he hadn't needed was another minute alone with Kelsey Quinn and her strawberry-scented shampoo. He needed that torture like he needed a hole in his head.

  She walked over and planted her hands on her hips. "You slept in your pickup?"

  He shook out his stiff legs and stretched his arms over his head.

  "Don't you at least have a tent or something? You weren't even lying down!"

  Gage didn't bother to explain. He was a SEAL. He could sleep anywhere.

  He nodded at the purse slung over her shoulder. "Where're we going?"

  "I've got some errands in town."

  "Okay. Mind if I borrow your shower?" He glanced over her shoulder at the camper. He could have sworn he smelled coffee, and his nose was usually pretty accurate.

  "Help yourself," she said. "There's coffee in there, too. I won't be long. I just have to meet with Sattler and get this bone sent off to the Delphi Center for testing."

  He reached into the truck and grabbed his seabag off the floor. "Gimme five minutes."

  "You really don't need to come. Why don't you just take your time showering and help out around the dig until I get back?"

  He gazed down at her and for the first time he noticed the freckles dotting her nose. They'd been hidden yesterday underneath all the dust. Besides the same khaki shorts she'd worn yesterday, she had on a thin white T-shirt that was definitely going to mess with his head all day.

  "I'm not here to guard the dig," he said. "I'm here to guard you."

  "It's broad daylight, and I'm going to a police station, for heaven's sake. What could possibly happen?"

  "Nothing," he said. "Because I'm coming with you."

  Gage double-timed it in the shower, and they made the forty-mile journey into Madrone in half an hour. Kelsey wanted to get there bright and early for some reason, and he was happy to oblige her. But once in town his morning turned into an endless wait in the parking lot of the Seco County sheriff's office. Gage wasn't patient by nature and got especially antsy waiting around for women to do things. He minimized the boredom by people watching and adding to the intel he had on the area.

  Madrone occupied a semiarid patch of land about a hundred miles west of the Pecos River. This was cattle country--hard, dry, rugged--and the people he saw in town seemed to mirror the land they worked. Despite being the county seat, Madrone was barely a spec on the map. It had three stoplights, two gas stations, and one bar, and the only motel looked to be a rundown hunting lodge on the south end of Main Street. The entire place had a parched feel to it, as if the blazing west Texas sun had sucked out all its energy.

  Whatever Kelsey had wanted at this cow town sheriff's office, Gage doubted she was going to get it.

  Finally, she exited the little building, looking frustrated. It seemed to be her default expression, and he wondered if she was always this way or if it had been a rough summer.

  She yanked open the passenger door and slid in.

  "Where to?" he asked, firing up the engine. Hot air shot from the vents as he pulled onto Main. He glanced at the woman beside him. "Kelsey?"

  She blinked at him, as if surprised by the question. "What?"

  "Where to?"

  Her eyes searched his, and he got the impression she still hadn't processed his words. "Does it seem reasonable to you that in all of west Texas there isn't one available cadaver dog?"

  He gave up on getting any direction.

  "I mean, how can that be possible?"

  "I don't know," he said.

  "It isn't possible. It's crap. Sattler's just too lazy or too stubborn to get me someone, even after I showed him evidence we're probably dealing with a murder here. I get a deputy. That's it. A few hours of unskilled labor from one of his rednecks, then I'm done."

  Gage pulled into a space in front of the town's only restaurant, and Kelsey's brow furrowed as she looked around.

  "What are we doing?"

  "Getting some lunch." He pushed open his door.

  "But I need to get back. Dr. Robles--"

  "Can manage fine without you. Come on, I'm starved."

  She joined him on the sidewalk and glanced at the sign in front of them, then shot him a look. "You know this place is a grease pit, right? I think everything on the menu comes with a side of eggs."

  "Sounds perfect." He pulled open the door to the diner and enjoyed the rush of cool air.

  A waitress with big blond hair seated them at a booth near the window and handed them some menus. Kelsey tucked hers behind the napkin dispenser without looking at it, then proceeded to order the tuna melt. G
age scanned the menu and ordered the Cowboy Breakfast Platter.

  When the waitress was gone, Gage settled his attention on Kelsey. She'd been in here before, obviously, probably grabbing a bite to eat with some of her students. Or was there one student in particular? That guy Aaron was very territorial. Gage could feel the man watching him whenever he got within ten feet of Kelsey, which was pretty much all the time. Aaron's preoccupation seemed to go beyond professional interest, but from what Gage could tell it was a one-way street. At the dig site, Kelsey was completely wrapped up in her work, much like right now.

  "Okay, spill it." Gage rested his arm on the back of the seat. "What's the problem?"

  She blew out a sigh. "Sattler's the problem. He's not taking this seriously."

  "What's to take seriously?"

  "I think we're dealing with a homicide. He should be all over this. The rest of the remains need to be recovered, and he needs to launch a murder investigation. Instead, you know what he's doing today?"

  "What?"

  "Speed traps between here and I-10."

  "He told you that?"

  "I overheard one of his deputies talking while I was waiting to meet with him."

  Their drinks came and they both downed half the glass in one gulp.

  "How can you be sure this is a murder case?" Gage asked.

  "I can't, especially not until I have the other bones, but I definitely found signs."

  Gage lifted his eyebrows and waited.

  "Tiny flecks of metal embedded in the mandible," she said. "Probably the result of a bullet fired through the skull."

  "And you showed Sattler?"

  "Whipped out my magnifying glass and everything. He wasn't convinced."

  "So forget the cadaver dog. Why don't you get a metal detector out there, see if you can find the bullet? If he was shot on site you might even get a shell casing."

  She leaned back against the booth and blinked at him.

  "What?"

  "You ever thought of becoming a cop?" she asked.

  Gage glanced away. Life beyond the navy wasn't something he talked about. But Spec Ops was a young man's game, and he'd just turned thirty-two. He'd been doing a lot of soul-searching lately, especially since Kandahar.

  Kelsey stirred her drink with a straw. "I sent the jaw off to the lab for testing. Before they run the metal, I'm going to have my friend Mia take a look at it. She's a DNA tracer, and I'm hoping she can get something useful from the tooth pulp."

  "Don't you need something to compare it to so you can get an ID?" Gage asked.

  "There could be something already in the Missing Persons index. If there is, we'll get his remains turned over to his family. If there isn't, we'll enter the DNA profile in case someone comes looking for him someday."

  Gage watched her, intrigued by the way she talked with so much emotion about a little chunk of bone. Obviously, to her, it represented a lot more than that.

  Their food came and she immediately dug into her sandwich. She had an appetite, which didn't surprise him given the amount of time she spent working outdoors. Gage had never cared much for skinny girls, but this one actually had some meat on her--in all the right places.

  She caught him staring. "What?" she asked and took a slurp of Diet Coke.

  "You keep saying 'him.' You're sure it's a man?"

  She shrugged. "Mia can tell me for sure, but it looks that way, given the shape of the mental protuberance."

  "The who?"

  She motioned him closer. He hesitated a second before resting his elbows on the table and leaning in.

  "The mental protuberance." She rubbed her index finger over his chin. "It tends to have a square edge and be thicker for males." Her finger moved to the side of his jaw. "And the gonial angle here? In males it's usually more flared."

  She dropped her hand away and picked up a french fry. "Anyway, we'll know the sex for sure when Mia runs the DNA. I also found some interesting dental work."

  "Oh, yeah?" Not that he gave a damn whatsoever. Gage forked up a bite of eggs and tried to shut out the thoughts racing through his head.

  "Two porcelain fillings. It goes a long way toward disproving Sattler's theory."

  "And what's Sattler's theory?"

  "That we're dealing with an illegal immigrant, maybe a drug runner who got himself into trouble down near the river. It would be surprising for someone like that to have this sort of dental work."

  Kelsey checked her watch and signaled the waitress. "Do you mind if we go soon? I really want to get back before that deputy shows up." She smiled slightly. "Robles hates idle hands. If he sees him just sitting there, he's liable to put him on bucket duty."

  "I know all about bucket duty."

  The waitress reappeared and Gage took the check. He reached for his wallet but Kelsey deftly snatched away the bill.

  "Don't even think about it," she said. "You slept in your truck last night. The least I can do is feed you."

  SATTLER'S DEPUTY HADN'T shown up by the time they made it back to camp, so Kelsey went ahead without him.

  She cherry-picked a team of her most capable students and started them at the highway. Their skeptical expressions told her they thought she was off base, that the search should have focused on the place where the mandible had been found. But when she'd mapped the area last night, she'd decided to start with a swath of land about a hundred yards north, her logic being that whoever had brought the victim here--dead or alive--had probably come via the highway and wouldn't have wanted to stray too far off course. Scavengers could have moved the bones, whether they'd been left in the open or buried in a shallow grave.

  And so it began, the painstaking process of combing the ground, inch by inch, beneath the blistering Texas sun. At the outset energy was high. The students seemed to welcome a break in their routine, and Kelsey was counting on their enthusiasm to make up for their lack of formal training. This wasn't a search and recovery squad, but she'd worked with volunteers before, and she knew what to expect.

  And as expected walking at a snail's pace, head down, in the scorching heat eventually lost its appeal. Muscles ached. Eyes burned. Minds began to wander. After four hours of fruitless searching, she could tell everyone was ready to get back to the relative comfort of the caves and tarps.

  Everyone but Gage. He worked doggedly, without complaint, looking totally undaunted by both the climate and the task.

  For the millionth time this afternoon, Kelsey checked her watch. Still no deputy. Her temper festered. What could be keeping him? And why hadn't Sattler so much as put in an appearance today? Kelsey didn't understand how he could be so blase about a potential murder within his jurisdiction.

  "Whoa, check it out!"

  Kelsey's head snapped up at the gleeful words. Rohit, a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology, had dropped to his knees beside a prickly pear cactus.

  "I think it's a femur."

  Kelsey and the rest of the team rushed over. It was, indeed, a femur. But was it animal or human? She would need to examine a cortex sample under a microscope to be sure. But the size looked good, as did the joint surfaces.

  A shadow fell over her and she glanced up to see Gage.

  "You look excited," he said.

  "This is good. A femur will tell us a lot. Stature, sex, probably PMI."

  "PMI?"

  "Postmortem interval. The time since death. I can look at a cross section and get an idea." She turned to Rohit. "Could you get my camera bag?"

  He sprinted off, and the rest of the team wandered away to find shade and break out their canteens.

  Gage crouched down beside her, shielding her from the sun with his body. "You sure it's not from a cow or something?"

  "We'll find out. But my hunch says it's our guy. Now we just need the rest of him." She glanced around. They'd crossed over to the west side of the road, but they weren't far from it, maybe sixty yards. She was gaining more confidence in her roadside execution theory.

  Gage stood up and shrugged
out of his backpack. "Nice work, Dr. Quinn." He unzipped the pack and handed her a bottle of water. "Now, drink up. You look like you're about to pass out."

  She stood up and swigged, then passed back the bottle. He took a long gulp, and her stomach fluttered as she watched his throat move.

  "Thanks for helping," she said. "You don't have to do this, you know."

  He screwed the cap back on. "Now you tell me."

  She felt a pang of guilt. "You could knock off for the day. If you're tired--"

  "Who says I'm tired?" The side of his mouth curled up.

  "You're sweating."

  "It's hot."

  "Yeah, well, I'd think you'd be more into water sports."

  He gave her a quizzical look.

  "You're a SEAL. We're in the desert."

  "Sea-Air-Land, SEAL." He smiled fully now. "Didn't your uncle teach you anything?"

  His eyes twinkled with amusement as he gazed down at her. It was the first time he'd smiled at her, and for a moment she couldn't breathe.

  Don't do it, Kelsey. Don't you dare fall for this beautiful man who has to leave in a few days.

  She looked away--at the ground, the road, the cactus. Anything but Gage.

  And that's when she spotted him.

  "Sattler's guy showed," Gage said.

  Kelsey set off toward him. "It's about goddamned time."

  Five

  It was the perfect night. Clear. Breezy. The temperature had even dipped below ninety. It was an ideal time to be out with friends, sitting at one of the riverfront bars, laughing and drinking margaritas.

  Instead, Mia Voss was headed home to an empty apartment, and the computer bag slung over her shoulder was stuffed with unfinished reports.

  She reached for her keys just as her purse started to glow and sing. She checked the number on her phone. Darn it, she'd forgotten to call Kelsey.

  "I'm so sorry," Mia said, juggling computer, purse, and phone as she slid behind the wheel of her Jeep. "Yes, I got your message. And yes, he brought the bone."

  Silence on the other end.

  "Kelsey?"

  "Who brought the bone?"

  "The sheriff's guy." Mia backed out of her space and nestled the phone in her lap so she could shift gears. "He had a ten-gallon hat and everything. Very Lonesome Dove."

  "You're telling me Sheriff Sattler had someone personally deliver my package to the Delphi Center?"