She shook her head. “No, it’s on back order. We might have to wait another month.”
“Sorry about that.”
She smiled. “You did save my life at the time, so no complaints.”
He studied her, enchanted as always by her unusual looks. Her hair was a thick, dark, rare reddish brown—a true auburn, which would make her intriguing on its own. However, her eyes were truly unique. One green, one blue with a starburst of green in the iris, heterochromatic within a heterochromatic eye. He’d read somewhere that heterochromia was a sign of intelligence, and, considering she had been a child prodigy who’d attended college in her early teens and now held multiple advanced degrees, he figured it must be true.
“How do you want to handle this?” he asked.
She chewed on her bottom lip, a sure sign she was thinking. “We certainly have problems.”
He barked out a laugh.
She caught herself. “Before we concentrate on the case, how are you?”
The question rocked him back on his heels. As a logical person, Laurel normally took a reasonable and rational approach and rarely asked about feelings.
“I have absolutely no idea,” he admitted.
“How certain are you that the victim is your mother?”
He opened his mouth to answer and then shut it, thinking things through. “Not sure at all.” The confession loosened the hot lump of coal that had settled in his stomach. “I’ve never met her,” he said. “I’ve seen pictures of her from years ago, and when I saw that woman’s face, I figured that’s what she’d look like now. But again, it’s been thirty-plus years since my father took pictures of her.”
“So it’s entirely possible that woman was not your mother.”
Huck nodded. “Yeah, I guess I should send a DNA sample to Dr. Ortega, huh?”
“Affirmative.”
Huck rubbed the back of his neck. “I have the report from Polar Paul. We didn’t find anything of interest in Iceberg River.”
Walter Smudgeon walked inside, several file folders in his hands. He tossed them onto the makeshift table. “What’s the plan?” he asked. “If that’s Huck’s mom, we have a conflict of interest for, well, both of you.” Walter stood to about five foot nine and had slimmed down recently, today sporting a new dark blue belt. He seemed to love buying belts these days. In addition, with his face thinner, he looked years younger than he had before being shot three times in the abdomen.
Huck had to protect his team. “Yeah, we’re talking conflicts of interest without question. Monty will handle things at Fish and Wildlife if the victim is my mother, and I can step off the case.”
The last thing Huck wanted to do was call in Deputy Chief Mert Wright from Seattle. The guy was a moron, and Huck had thankfully avoided him the last couple of months. He looked at Laurel. “Considering we’re dating, you might have to turn the case over to somebody else on your team.”
Laurel pushed her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve already notified Special Agent in Charge Wayne Norrs from the Seattle office, in case he needs to assume command of the investigation. For now, let’s proceed as if the victim isnotyour mother.”
Huck shook his head. “I’d rather we didn’t have to deal with Norrs. He worked the Broken Heart case with us well enough, but considering he’s dating your half sister, I’d like to avoid being in his orbit.”
“I agree,” Laurel said. “But proper protocol dictates that I at least notify him. His office is occupied right now with several RICO cases as well as multiple drug cases, so he didn’t sound eager to add to his caseload. For now, Walter, you need to get to Sea-Tac. You’ve earned this vacation.”
“I have an hour.” Walter pulled out a white leather chair and sat. “Nester,” he called out.
“Yo,” Nester called back, soon appearing in the doorway. “I heard we caught one at the base of Snowblood Peak.”
Huck moved around to take a chair at the table. “We did. There’s a chance it might be my mother.”
Nester jolted. “Dude, I’m sorry about that.”
Huck sat. “We don’t have an ID yet, and frankly, it’s probably farfetched. I never met her, so how would I know what she looks like now?”
“Good point.” Nester worked as the computer guru for the FBI team. In his early twenties, the guy was intelligent and insightful. Tall and slim, he liked to snowboard on his days off, and based on the mangled boards he’d mounted to his office walls, he enjoyed taking risks. Rumor had it that he also dated quite a bit, and with his dark eyes, dark skin, and contagious sense of humor, that rumor was probably true. His expertise in tracking the untraceable by computer made him invaluable on any case. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“I need you to do a deep dive on Huck’s mother,” Walter said.
“Delta Rivers,” Huck murmured. “I have no idea if she kept Rivers as her surname.”
