Page 27 of Protected By Duval
They were good ones.
Very good.
“You’re staring pretty hard there.”
It took her a moment to lift her gaze up to his face.
“It’s fascinating,” she explained and saw him smile.
A brash smile where he didn’t show any teeth.
He smile said he was sure of his appeal.
And he had every right to be.
A moment later when she spoke, she saw his expression change a little.
“I wonder what those muscles look like under your skin.”
That smirk that he’d had on his lips seemed to melt away.
His skin which was warm and tanned by the sun turned a little pale.
“That…” she sucked in a breath through her teeth. “That probably sounded a little creepy.”
He shook his head and stared at her with widened eyes. “Alittlecreepy?”
She shrugged. “Sorry. It’s a thing. There’s a reason why I do what I do. The stuff under the skin is what fascinates me.”
He nodded and his eyes lowered to the side. “Ahhh… Okay.”
She lowered her face into her hand. “I’m a mess.”
“No,” he chuckled, “you’re just… different.”
Different,she mused,is another way to say creepy.
“I uh… I came by to bring you your pass.”
She frowned at his words. “Pass?”
He reached into his pants pocket and took out a lanyard with a plastic rectangle at the end of it.
When he held it up the wind caught it and turned it around. She saw that one side had a Texas Ranger badge on it. The other side had a picture of her face and her name under it in bold font.
“This will let you into the room we set up for you in the Ranger office. When you come in to work, you can present this to the staff in the evidence room. They’ll bring the skull out for you.”
She nodded slowly. “This all seems really… official.”
“That’s because it is.” McCrae laughed, a silent laugh that shook his shoulders. “Official. You’re now an official consultant to the Texas Rangers.”
He held the pass out to her and she took it in her hand.
The lanyard was soft and smooth against her palm. She reached out her other hand and took the plastic part of the pass in her hand and looked from one side to the other.
NOELLE GARCIA
When she looked at her picture, she cringed a little, her upper lip curling on the right side. “Where did you get that picture?”
