“Uh, yeah, it does have to be us,” he stated. “You know the rule. The Fed that finds it, works it. Thus, the whole mess in Puerto Rico.”
Gene was to the point.
“Gabe doesn’t need to know you were still here when Callen’s deputy found the bodies. As far as he’s concerned, you’re on your way back by car. We can drive most of the way, say we stopped to see some sights, and fly out of Tennessee, or Cali.”
Ethan was listening.
Gene wasn’t just saying it for funsies. He was giving him a way out.
“We can bail. All Callen has to do is call in to the local Fed office inSalt Lake City. It’s less than two hours away. One of those agents will get tagged in. If Gabe asks, we already left. We never checked into a hotel, so there is no paper trail. I’d love to see Graceland.”
Callen listened.
It was clear that Gene was worried about his brother.
Oh, and he respected that. In fact, he wanted his brother to be protected. Ethan needed that.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Ethan admitted.
Gene lifted his casted arm as if he was trying to prove a point.
“I’m not allowed in the field. I don’t even have a gun. Yeah, I brought your backup piece in our luggage, and Gabe gave me yours to give to you, but I’m without a sidearm.”
Ethan let him explain his point of view. It was rare that Gene put up a fight.
“What I’m saying is you’d be on it by yourself, or with the local law. Callen can’t work it. He’s got no experience. So, that means theDamascuspolice. If there are three missing women, this is their jurisdiction—if they aren’t Native.”
He understood what he was saying, and even with Gene only working research, and backing him up, he could pull it off. Ethan had worked plenty of cases before they had been teamed up.
He wasn’t just a pretty profiler face.
“So, we’ll see what we have and go from there.”
Gene knew that was Ethan pretty much telling him that he was working this.
Yeah, here they went again.
One of these days, they were going to leavePhillyandNOTcatch a case at the worst possible moment.
Or so he could hope.
As they pulled up, Callen parked on the side of the road by his deputy’s cruiser. As they got out, he whistled and heard a shout from inside the tree line.
“Back here, Boss!”
Callen started that way, a flashlight out, as he scanned the ground. The snow had been lightly falling, and everything, including the deputy’s footprints, were now covered.
Not far behind him, Ethan and Gene followed.
As Callen reached his deputy, they saw a pile of something covered in more snow.
“Here, Chief,” the deputy offered.
Immediately, Callen crouched down to get a better look, but he didn’t touch anything.
Mostly because he didn’t want to.
“I can’t see if they are Native or not,” he admitted. “I think that’s the first step,” he added. “Well, now that we know they’re people, and not hunting remains.”
