Free Bone Hunter by Sarah Andrews

neighborhood without a trace. I overheard police calls from officers’ radios that said they had found the car abandoned five blocks away, complete with two spent Wetherby .300-caliber rifle shells—belted Magnums, the kind of load you use for elk, or other large animals you want to stop with one shot—and a search was continuing throughout the neighborhood for pedestrians. “It’s as if they
just vanished,” one voice said. “No one saw anyone running. No one at all.”
    Officer Raymond slipped into the room and leaned against the refrigerator. I blearily realized that he was dressed in civvies—a nice pair of jeans, white leather running shoes, and a dark indigo shirt that matched his eyes. But even dressed in casual clothes, he was extraordinarily neat and tidy, as if those jeans had never seen real dirt and those running shoes had never contacted anything messier than dry pavement, or perhaps the well-groomed turf of a ball field. I looked down at my own battered clothes. He was a city boy, and I was a country girl. I thought of how homespun I must look to him, and felt slightly nauseated. I felt an urge to find a comb and a fresh shirt. “Can I get into the guest bedroom now and pack my bag, Officer?” I asked.
    “Not just yet. The detectives are still working. And you can call me Ray,” he said, coloring slightly.
    “Seeing as how we’re getting so well acquainted,” I replied dryly.
    He pulled his mouth up into a tight smile. “Well, and seeing as how we’re going to be seeing even more of each other.”
    I shook my head. “No. They haven’t sicced you on me again, have they?”
    “Looks like it.”
    “Lucky you. Don’t you ever get to go home?”
    “You’d think. My current assignment is to help you find other—safer—accommodations.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Well, at least they picked someone who likes to keep his suspects in one piece. I want to thank you for that tackle you put on me.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Football, too, then.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I’m trying to figure out all the sports you’ve played. Never
mind. My brain is bouncing off its own walls. Happens every time I get shot at.” When Ray’s eyes widened, I added, “That’s a joke.” I turned away from him and took a sip of my coffee, trying not to stare. It was one thing that he was good-looking—anyone would notice that—but I now knew what it felt like to have his body full on top of mine, and as hair-raising as that moment had been, it had produced a bond, at least in me, one I wasn’t ready to acknowledge. He was kind, he was warm, he was drop-dead handsome, and I literally owed him my life. “So how did you just happen to be in the right place at the right time?” I asked.
    “I’d been following you.”
    I set the cup down, startled. “You were?”
    He shrugged his shoulders unself-consciously. “Sure. It’s my job.”
    “But I didn’t see you.”
    He smiled wryly.
    This time, I allowed myself to look him up and down, from his glossy black hair to his well-proportioned feet and back again. “You’re pretty good,” I said, then felt my face flush with embarrassment. I immediately wished I’d chosen different words.
    He blushed again too, this time deeply, and with all the glory that men with ruddy complexions can muster. And he didn’t look away. But neither did he smile.
    I said, “So you were following me. And you saw him pull up.”
    “I saw you shake him by Little America; then lost you in that alley trick. I … guessed you’d be heading back here, and I picked you up again on South Temple.”
    “And Mr. Tan Chevy made a dash here. So what do you make of him following me while the house was getting tossed? Had his walkie-talkie gone out? Like maybe they’re working together?”

    “I’m supposed to ask you that.”
    I stared into my coffee again. We were back to cop and suspect once more. “These guys are smart, or at least one of them is, but they’re amateurs. Here’s my