Mallory Kane - Classified Cowboy

The town was split. Half of the people thought Marcie had been killed. Her kidnapping had never resulted in a ransom notice. She and her mysterious kidnapper had just disappeared.

The other half figured she had got cold feet and arranged the kidnapping herself to get out of testifying against Jonah Becker, one of the most powerful men in the state of Texas. But if Marcie were alive, why hadn’t she contacted anyone in all this time?

Of course, Nina wanted Marcie to be alive and well, but there was one huge obstacle to that theory. If Marcie had arranged her own kidnapping, that meant she was responsible for shooting Texas Ranger Wyatt Colter.

And Marcie wouldn’t have done that. Nina couldn’t see her shooting anyone. Not even to save her own skin.

Through the glass front door of the Bluebonnet Inn, Nina saw Wyatt glance back toward her. With a wry smile, Nina opened the passenger door and climbed out, leaving her forensics kit on the floorboard at her feet. She hefted her weekend bag by its handles.

Wyatt was disappearing up the dark polished stairs by the time she got to the front desk.

“Hey there,” the round-faced woman said on a yawn. She’d obviously been asleep until Wyatt had slammed the front door. “I’m Betty Alice Sadler. Welcome to the Bluebonnet Inn. Can I help you?”

“Nina Jacobson. I have a reservation. I apologize for getting here so late.”

“That’s all right,” the woman said, tapping the keyboard with her index finger. “I’m always happy to have a guest. Let me just look here.”

Nina sighed. “Oh, I forgot. The reservation is in the name of George Mayfield, Texas State University Anthropology Department.”

“Ah. Of course.” Betty Alice eyed her curiously. “This is about those bodies on Jonah Becker’s place.” In Betty Alice’s Texas drawl, the word bodies sounded sinister. “Will Mr. Mayfield be joining you?”

“No.” Nina didn’t see any need to explain.

However, Betty Alice obviously thought she deserved an explanation. She waited for a few seconds, hoping to get one, but Nina just stood there calmly.

“Well,” Betty Alice drawled finally and hit a few more keys. “I’ll need your ID.”

Nina handed over her driver’s license and glanced at her watch. Betty Alice yawned again and sped up the check-in process. Apparently she was ready to get back to sleep.

She handed Nina a room key—a real key, to room 204 on the second floor. “If I’d known you would be here instead of—” Betty Alice glanced at the computer screen “—Mr. Mayfield, I could have given you the pink room. I keep it for my female guests.”

Nina winced inwardly as she pictured how the pink room would be decorated. She didn’t need a pink room. She just needed a room. She was exhausted, and eight o’clock was going to come very early.

“That’s very nice of you, but I’m sure room two-oh-four will be fine. Do you have Wi-Fi?”

Betty Alice beamed at her. “We surely do. My niece hooked it up—or whatever you do with Wi-Fi. And it’s complimentary.”

Nina thanked her and headed up the stairs.

“Say, Nina Jacobson.”

She turned around to find the woman pointing a finger at her. “I thought I recognized you. You were Marcie’s friend. I remember you were staying here when she disappeared and that Texas Ranger got shot.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Nina said, forcing a smile.

“Oh, my goodness.” Betty Alice’s hand flew to her mouth. “I remember him, too. Lieutenant Colter was the one who got shot.”

Nina nodded, doing her best to suppress a yawn.

“Oh, honey, run along. Here I am, just talking away, and you’re asleep on your feet.” Betty Alice shooed her toward the stairs and turned around to head back to her own room behind the desk.

When Nina got to the second floor, Wyatt was holding a full ice bucket in one hand and pushing his key into the lock of room 202 with the other.

He turned his head and his offhand glance morphed into annoyance as his eyes lit on the key in her hand.

“That’s right,” she said, brandishing the key with a gaiety she didn’t feel. “Howdy, neighbor.”

He scowled. “Good night,” he said and went into his room and closed the door.

“Good night, cowboy,” she muttered.

After an ineffectual attempt to get mud off her black hoodie and jeans, and a defeated glance at her favorite work boots, which were beyond any help she could give them tonight, Nina took a hot shower.

By the time she had slipped on a bright red camisole and panties and was ready for bed, her mind was racing with her impressions of the burial site.

She settled into bed with both pillows behind her back and the pad and pen she always kept in her purse. She rested her pad on her bent knee and wrote the date, the location and her name. Beneath that she jotted a note to herself.

Ref: report of State Highway Dept regarding unearthing of remains. Attach copy.

Then she let her thoughts float freely. She’d type up an official report later on her laptop, but right now what mattered was getting her first impressions down before she lost them.

Incredible find. Texas Ranger Lieutenant Wyatt Colter has claimed it as his crime scene, but it’s likely to be of archeological significance. Appearance consistent with indigenous burial grounds.

Important to note that condition of the find suggests a possible hoax. Three unique thigh bones, laid out in a star pattern. Accidental? Or placed by someone? All three femurs appear to be of recent origin. The largest is certainly male. But I need to measure and examine all three to estimate gender.

Nina stopped and closed her eyes. Bones were her business, but that didn’t mean she was immune to the idea of handling remains that could turn out to be those of her best friend.

A wave of nausea slithered through her, and her eyes pricked with tears. What if one of the bones was Marcie’s?

Marcie. Sweet and kind, but impulsive, and maybe even a little bit self-destructive. Definitely not the best judge of character.

“Oh, Marcie, what did you get yourself into?”

Nina shook off the renewed grief over losing her friend. She couldn’t afford to get emotional. She needed to concentrate on the bones.

She reached for her camera and viewed the flash photos she’d taken.

She tried to view the three thigh bones in close-up, but the exposures were too dark. She’d have to send them to Pete, the graphics expert at the university, to have them corrected and enhanced.

She glanced at her laptop. She ought to send the photos tonight so Pete could get to work on them as soon as he got in tomorrow. The sooner she got the enhanced photos back, the sooner she could make more specific determinations of age, sex and time of death.

Still, in the morning she’d be able to look at the bones themselves. She glanced at her watch and yawned. Tonight it was more important to get her first impressions down on paper.

She continued writing.

Bones too covered with dirt and mud to tell much more. Already dark when we arrived at the site at 8:30 p.m.

History. (See fax from Ranger captain.) Two days ago road workers were breaking ground for a state route on land owned by Jonah Becker when they unearthed bones, which the foreman suspected were human.

The foreman stopped the ground breaking and called Sheriff Reed Hardin, who called the county medical examiner. The ME found the bodies “too decomposed and mixed up to identify” (i.e., skeletonized) and requested help from forensics experts.

Because of the state of decomposition and the fact that three people have disappeared from the area in the past five years, Sheriff Hardin called in the Texas Rangers, who were responsible—