Alighting from the truck, Skylar walked toward the area where she had seen the bag or tarp. Spotting the disturbed ground ahead, she stopped and pointed. The man must have refilled the hole he had been digging.
“Stay back. I’m going to call in crime scene investigators.” The sheriff started to tape off the area around the disturbed soil.
Skylar rubbed her arms. Knowing a body wouldn’t be found, if that’s what the man had intended to bury, she couldn’t help but wonder. What would the sheriff find?
Julien waited in Cal’s parents’ spacious and bright kitchen. Cal had told him Jaslene was in her first trimester of pregnancy and had gone up to take a nap. He couldn’t stop looking at Skylar. He’d tried to keep his gawking to a minimum, but he found her so attractive that he feared she had already noticed. He knew Cal had—he’d glanced over during one of Julien’s “spells” and done something of a double-take.
It wasn’t often a woman captured Julien’s attention this way. Skylar appealed to everything he liked physically in a woman. Her long, thick black hair was up in a low ponytail and she had taken off her Stetson hat. In a flannel shirt, jeans and cowgirl boots, she may as well have been a in low-cut evening gown with all her curves. And those eyes... Damn. He could stare into their dark blue depths for an hour and still not get tired of doing so.
But he never mixed work with romance and he was ultra choosy about the women he did see. None of them ever lasted very long. He knew what he wanted in a woman and in a family. He would not get that part of his life wrong. He’d come close in the past. Never again... Not even if Skyler was one of the most alluring women he’d ever met—and in need of his help.
“What are you working on?” Cal asked. “Besides my sister?”
Cal would tease him in front of her. He noticed Skylar look at him.
Cal worked in a satellite office in Chesterville, West Virginia, and they hadn’t had time to catch up on their work lives. Cal and Jaslene had just arrived in Texas for a visit with Cal’s family today. Cal had invited Julien to join him and his wife. They picked him up after landing at the airport. Julien had joined them to save time. Cal couldn’t stay long.
“A missing person case. A fourteen-year-old boy didn’t come home from school three days ago. No leads. His grandmother hired DAI because she feels the police aren’t doing enough.”
“Maybe he ditched class and something happened,” Cal said.
“That’s what I thought. His parents said it wouldn’t be the first time he’d ditched. He’s a troubled teen, been arrested for robbery, and was suspended from school last year.”
“What’s his family like?” Skylar asked.
Julien welcomed the excuse to look into her beautiful eyes again. “Not very stable. The mother doesn’t work and the stepfather works when he isn’t fired from job to job. His grandmother said his stepfather drinks a lot of beer. She’s tried to get her grandson to live with her, but the parents refused.”
“That’s so sad,” she said. “Why hasn’t the state taken the boy away from them?”
“No evidence of abuse or neglect.”
A housekeeper had let someone in the front door. Julien turned with Cal and Skylar to see the sheriff approach. He and his team had been gone for about four hours. The sheriff took out a cell phone and showed them a photo of a simple trash bag sitting beside a hole in the ground—where Skylar had seen the man digging.
“Garbage? That’s not what I saw,” Skylar said.
“It’s what was buried there,” the sheriff said.
“I saw something wrapped in an elongated piece of black plastic, or a tarp, not a trash bag,” Skylar insisted, sounding upset.
Julien reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, an impulse that made him too aware of how much he wanted to protect her. And how attracted to her he was.
“We searched for other evidence and found none. No casings, no blood, no murder weapon of any kind.”
Sheriff McKenzie’s tone implied he didn’t believe Skylar.
“Someone shot at me!” she insisted.
“I didn’t find any proof of that. We looked.”
Skylar folded her arms in offense.
“He could have picked up the casings and buried the trash bag to cover his tracks,” Julien said.
“That may be, but without proof, there’s not a whole lot I can do at this point.” The sheriff turned back to Skylar. “I’m not saying no one shot at you, miss.”
He was just saying he couldn’t do anything. But Julien could.
“Thanks for checking,” Julien said. He glanced at Cal, who nodded.
The sheriff headed for the door.
“Wait a minute.” Skylar followed him. “So that’s it? Someone shoots at me and because there is no evidence, case closed? Are you serious?”
Julien came to stand before her. “I’ll take it from here, Skylar.” She sure was a feisty one.
She stared at him as though uncomprehending. He could hear her thinking, How the heck can he take it from here?
“Sorry I couldn’t do more.” The sheriff touched the brim of his hat in farewell, but gave Skylar a dubious look before he turned.
Cal walked into the entryway.
Julien watched Skylar pivot from the departing sheriff and look at her brother expectantly. She must know he was a good detective, he thought, and was waiting for him to tell her what he was going to do.
“We’ll find the shooter,” Julien said, bringing Skylar’s head toward him.
“We will, Skylar,” Cal reassured her. “Nobody messes with my little sister and gets away with it.”
“I thought you had to get back to West Virginia,” Skylar said.
“Yes, a case just came through. We need to fly back tonight.”
She seemed disappointed but apparently understood. “All right.” Next, she slid a tentative glance to Julien.
“You’ll be in good hands with Julien. He wouldn’t be working for DAI if he wasn’t
