Page 12 of Never Stay Gone
Shane blinked. Dakota had just rattled off a whole lot of technical details. Was this the same guy who’d struggled in science class junior year? “CP?”
“Conjunctival petechiae. Burst blood vessels. Happens due to the rise in venous pressure durin’ compression of the arteries and veins in the neck and throat. It’s a forensic sign: says strangulation or compression.”
Shane nodded. Didn’t he use to have to quiz Dakota on biology terms before their seventh-period tests? Hadn’t they sat in the parking lot with the textbook between them, collecting fake points for each review question they got right as they tossed the football back and forth?Whoever had the most points at the end, well—
“We’ll have to wait and see how the structures of the neck come back, but based on what I saw on some of the skeletonized remains, I think we’ll see broken hyoid bones and fractured larynxes.” Dakota squeezed his eyes closed and tipped his head back.
The scent of him—leather, gun oil, a musk that reminded Shane of hot desert nights and the taste of forbidden skin on his lips—hit Shane like a punch. He tried to lean away.
“I gotta get out of here.” Dakota sighed. “I been up almost two days straight. I’m gonna go get somethin’ to eat and then hit the sack. We’ll start fresh in the mornin’ with the pathologist’s report and hopefully more information.”
Dakota asleep. Dakota shirtless in the moonlight. Dakota lying naked inside Shane’s old sleeping bag, propped up on his elbow. Watching Shane, starlight reflected in his pupils as one of his long fingers trailed lazy designs over Shane’s ribs and the curl of hair on his belly. Shane had always felt like he was someone special when Dakota looked at him like that. Like he was worth something to somebody.
If he were braver, he’d ask if he could take Dakota out for dinner. They’d never done that. The closest they came to it was drive-through or fast food grabbed from the truck stop. He’d never sat down with Dakota at a table with real silverware, a server handing them menus and bringing drinks and entrees, a little candle flickering between them.
Now hardly seemed the time.
Shane nodded. “I need to finish this report.”
Dakota grabbed a file folder and his hat from Heath’s desk before heading for the door. His bootheels landed heavy on the old wood, hammer strikes that went right through Shane. He felt the impact of each, watched the broad line of Dakota’s shoulders as he strode away.
Another time, another place, another memory: Dakota walking away. Back then, as now, he didn’t turn around. Didn’t look back at Shane.
Shane exhaled. Spread his fingers over his keyboard. His hands were trembling. Too little sleep, too much adrenaline. What was the bigger shock, finding six bodies in the desert or seeing Dakota again?
“At approximately 1000 hours yesterday morning, I received a report from…”
He blanked his mind as he summarized the events that led to him and Heath unearthing the grave. His all-night vigil too. “Nothing made contact with or disturbed the crime scene.At 0800 hours, Texas Ranger Dakota Jennings arrived on scene—”
He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached.
“—and assumed command of the investigation.”
He gave the arrival time of the El Paso team, then detailed the excavation of the bodies. The process was slow, labor-intensive. The bodies were pulled out with as little disturbance as possible, though that got more and more difficult the deeper into the grave they went. In the end, one of the El Paso techs had stood at the bottom and dug for finger and toe bones like he was playing jacks, holding them over his head and calling out excitedly every time he found one.
Six body bags with six corpses, like a timeline of decay and decomposition.
On the bodies that had enough tissue left, the techs thought there was bruising on the necks, though it was difficult to say with the decomp discolorations. There were abrasions on some of the bodies too. Drag marks, Dakota had said, and the tech had nodded in agreement. “Looks like.”
“I’d bet all of ’em are female,” Dakota added, standing in front of the line of body bags. “Won’t know until the autopsy, but those pelvises look wide enough. The angle looks right.”
Shane had hooked his thumbs in his belt and stared at the sun.
Damn it, he could still hear Dakota’s voice—that same low growl, that same rumble deep down in his chest. At a gangly eighteen, Dakota’s voice had been too big for him, but at thirty-one…
Past and present jumbled in Shane’s head, and he heard Dakota talking about decay rates and football passes, evidence of broken bones in delicate necks and how much he missed Shane’s touch. His deep sigh: of exhaustion, of contentment. How he’d groaned the first time Shane put his hand around him, or put his lips—
He stood, rushing down the hall to the bathroom. He grabbed the sink in both hands and bent over until his burning forehead rested against the cold, cracked mirror. He breathed out, squeezed down.Dakota.
No.Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him.
Thirteen years was a lifetime ago.
They were just kids.
Dakota.
He stayed like that, breathing in and out as deep as he could, listening to the crackle and hum of the air conditioner and the drip of the leaking faucet. He heard his cell phone ring, back on his desk. Heard it vibrate across the surface as the stock jingle that came with the phone trilled down the hallway.
