Page 70 of Never Stay Gone
“One more thing: Carly Hurst was our victim who was mutilated. I wasn’t optimistic I could ID her, but it turned out she’d had very expensive, and very well done, breast implants. Those come with serial numbers, which are tracked by the doctors and the manufacturers in case of a recall. Part of the casing that held the serial number on one of the implants had melted into a rib bone and transferred the numbers into a layer of ash left behind. Frankly, I’m surprised those implants weren’t cut out of her before the killer set her on fire. He was so thorough about removing all other traces of her identity. It takes a lot of work to pull out a full set of human teeth. Even more work to burn a body all the way to calcified bone. Thank God implants are made to last.”
“He didn’t know ’bout them,” Dakota mused. “You said they was pretty good?”
“The best you can buy. Good Dallas implants. Very natural.”
“If the killer went to the trouble to try and erase her, then she had to have meant somethin’ special to him. She’s different, in some way, from the others.”
“It does seem like the actions of a spurned husband, doesn’t it? A type of jealous rage. I’ve seen it before.”
“Possibly.” Dakota ran his fingers over each other again and again. “But why kill Carly and Sophie at the same time?”
“I can’t answer that, sorry.”
He grunted, his mind a thousand miles away, churning through evidence and facts from the case. Timelines, last known locations. The truck stop. The highway, a ribbon of road that ran north from the border before turning east, going from Mexico to Odessa to Abilene and then on to Dallas.
“Lastly, the bones.”
Dakota slammed back into the present. His vision narrowed, focused on the hood of his truck. “Tell me you got an ID on those too.”
“Sorry, no can do. I said I only hadsomeinformation. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything on her. I can tell you the bones belong to a woman between sixteen and thirty years of age. That she was Caucasian. That she was buried in East Texas, disinterred, and reburied in that grave in the desert. I can tell you she most likely died of strangulation, though there is also a blow to her skull that might indicate blunt force trauma as well. Those bones have been in the ground twice and for a very long time. They’re not in good shape, and there’s not much to go on.”
“Damn it.”
“I’ll send you the updated autopsy files over email. Shall I send the file to Captain Carson again too?”
“Ahh, no, you can leave him off.”
“Big Bend Sheriff’s Department not making it to the short list for department of the year?”
“He’s my partner.” Dakota left off all the permutations ofthatphrase’s meaning. “And he’s not really a fan of dead bodies. I’ll take care of that part of the investigation from now on.”
“Sure thing, Ranger. And you’re still on for fajitas the next time you’re in El Paso.”
He smiled. “Lookin’ forward to it, Doc.”
“You ever been to El Paso?”
“Not once, ma’am.”
Dr. Trevino laughed, the sound throaty and warm. “I won’t wait up for you, then. I’ll call you if anything else comes up. Otherwise, you have my number, Ranger.”
He hung up. For a long while, he stared out the windshield, watching the clouds build hammerheads over the desert and tumble through the ocean-blue sky. He pressed his phone case to his pursed lips, trying to make sense of it all.
But he was too distracted. Every thought veered from the case and swerved back to Shane.I understand you’re sending me another dead body, Ranger.Shelly, Shane’s Shelly. A beautiful, smart woman, dealt a bad hand. She’d loved a man and had gotten hurt by that love. God, he could sympathize with that.
How was Shane holding up? He thought of Shane crumpled beneath Heath’s window, begging Dakota to find Shelly’s killer. Telling him he loved him as Dakota swore he would.
He froze as he looked at his phone. Jesus, he didn’t have Shane’s phone number. Everything they’d done, and he didn’t get Shane’s damn number. He called the department number instead, clearing his throat as he braced his elbow on the window.
Shane answered, his voice ragged and rough. “Big Bend Sheriff’s Department.”
“It’s me.”
An exhale. “Dakota.” Had his name ever sounded so weighed down, so full of a hundred different emotions?
“I, uh. Wanted to check on you.”
“I’m…” Silence that built, and grew, until it felt like it was crawling inside Dakota.
