B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection Read Free Page B

mysteries—and forensics. Rupert loved nothing better than a good case and while Hud was still hoping the bones weren’t human, he knew that Rupert was pitching for the other team.
    Rupert shone the flashlight down into the well, leaning one way then the other. He froze, holding the flashlight still as he leaned down even farther. Hud figured he’d seen the skull partially exposed at one edge of the well.
    “You got yourself a human body down there, but then I reckon you already knew that,” he said, sounding too cheerful as he straightened.
    Hud nodded.
    “Let’s get itout of there.” Rupert had already started toward his rig.
    Hud would have offered to go down in Rupert’s place but he knew the elderly coroner wouldn’t have stood for it. All he needed Hud for was to document it if the case ever went to trial—and help winch him and the bones out of the well.
    He followed Rupert over to his pickup where the coroner had taken off his suit jacket and was pulling on a pair of overalls.
    “Wanna put some money on what we got down there?” Rupert asked with a grin. Among his other eclectic traits, Rupert was a gambler. To his credit, he seldom lost.
    “Those bones could have been down there for fifty years or more,” Hud said, knowing that if that was the case, there was a really good chance they would never know the identity of the person or how he’d ended up down there.
    Rupert shook his head as he walked around to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate. “Those aren’t fifty-year-old bones down there. Not even close.”
    The coroner had come prepared. There was a pulley system in the back and a large plastic box with a body bag, latex gloves, a variety of different size containers, a video camera and a small shovel.
    He handed Hud the pulley then stuffed the needed items into a backpack, which he slung over his shoulder before slipping a headlamp over his white hair and snapping it on.
    “True, it’s dry downthere, probably been covered most of the time since the bones haven’t been bleached by the sun,” Rupert said as he walked back to the well and Hud followed. “Sides of the well are too steep for most carnivores. Insects would have been working on the bones though. Maggots.” He took another look into the well. “Spot me five years and I’ll bet you fifty bucks that those bones have been down there two decades or less,” he said with his usual confidence, a confidence based on years of experience.
    Twenty years ago Hud would have been sixteen. Rupert would have been maybe forty-five. With a jolt Hud realized that Rupert wasn’t that much older than his father. It felt odd to think of Brick Savage as old. In Hud’s mind’s eye he saw his father at his prime, a large, broad-shouldered man who could have been an actor. Or even a model. He was that good-looking.
    “I got a hundred that says whoever’s down there didn’t fall down there by accident,” Rupert said.
    “Good thing I’m not a betting man,” Hud said, distracted. His mind on the fact that twenty years ago, his father was marshal.
    “T ELL ME you didn’t,” Dana said as she walked into Needles and Pins and heard giggling in the back beyond the racks of fabric.
    Her best friend and partner in the small sewing shop gave her a grin and a hug. “It’s your birthday, kiddo,” Hilde whispered. “Gotta celebrate.”
    “Birthdays afterthirty should not be celebrated,” Dana whispered back.
    “Are you kidding? And miss seeing what thirty-one candles on a cake looks like?”
    “You didn’t.”
    Hilde had her arm and was tugging her toward the back. “Smile. I promise this won’t kill you, though you do look like you think it will.” She slowed. “You’re shaking. Seriously, are you all right?”
    As much as she hated it, Dana was still a wreck after seeing Hud again. She’d hoped to get to work at the shop and forget about everything that had happened this morning, including not only what might be in the old