Duval watched Jack and Blue wondering what it was about them that got his spidey sense tingling.
His cell phone rang and Duval pulled it out of his pocket and answered it after a quick look at the screen. “West?”
“How is the dig going?”
Duval looked back over at the dig site and nodded. “So far so good. They’ve taken out about seventy-five percent of the skull. Most of one arm has been recovered. Half of the other. The bones in the torso look like they’re mostly there-”
“The expert? Miss Garcia? What has she said?”
Duval put his sandwich down and reached for a bottle of water. “When the techs clear us to remove the skull from the scene, can I take it with her to her workplace?”
As soon as he asked the question, he could sense that it was going to be a no.
He understood why, too.
They had to preserve the chain of evidence.
Even though the higher ups had already told them that the body would likely end up in the unsolved case files, at least they were recovering it and doing the basic investigation that anybody deserved.
Anybody, his mind corrected.
He’d do his best to find out who it was.
He knew that even though his mother seemed to be dealing well with the mystery, he knew that it was unsettling for her.
His father had been a Texas Ranger who’d lost his life on the job.
It had worried his mother to no end when he’d decided to follow in his father’s footsteps.
She wanted him to love his job, but she didn’t want him to meet the same fate as his father.
“Duval? Are you still there?”
He shook himself back to the present. “Yeah. I hear you.”
“All right.” West cleared his throat. “I was trying to tell you that you can’t take the skull anywhere that’s not controlled by law enforcement. I’d like to keep it at the Ranger Station we work out of.”
Duval nodded. “Okay. I can see that.”
“Hmm.” West agreed. “Are you okay to take point on this?”
Duval hesitated. “Are you sure? This is connected to my family.”
He swore he couldhearWest shrug.
“Are you going to cut corners in the investigation or go off half-cocked?”
Colt and Oxy snorted laughs and Duval realized they could hear the conversation.
It was fine.
He wasn’t hiding a damn thing from anyone.
“I’ll follow the rules and policies. I don’t want whoever did this to come back and claim that we fucked up.”
“Then I have no problem letting you take point on it?”
Duval felt the weight of West’s trust weighing on his shoulders. “Okay. I’ll take care of it.” He looked back towardthe house, nodding. “I’ll keep you up to date on all of the developments.”
