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Before she could press further, Rachel’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out.
“Hello?” she asked tentatively.
“Ranger Blackwood?” came a voice from the other end, urgently. “This is Deputy O’Connor. We’ve just found another body. It’s fresh.”
“Where?” Rachel demanded, her senses immediately sharpening.
“Different oil field than the last ones. About fifty miles north. I’ll send co-ords,” Deputy O’Connor replied, his voice tense. “You and Ranger Morgan need to get here as soon as possible.”
“Understood. We’re on our way,” Rachel said, hanging up the phone.
“New crime scene?” Ethan asked, already fishing cuffs from his pocket to arrest their suspect.
“Fresh body,” Rachel confirmed, her mind racing with possibilities. They needed to move fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
In between gathering clouds, the moon gleamed in the sky, casting faultless shadows across the dusty field as Rachel pulled the truck to a stop. The crime scene lay before her: an unsettling tableau framed by the gathering crowd from the nearby oil town. She stepped out of the vehicle, her leather boots crunching on the parched earth beneath her.
“Alright, folks, stand back,” she called out, scanning the sea of faces, worn and weary from a life spent under the relentless Texas sun. There were about thirty people present, a mix of men and women, ranging in age from early twenties to late sixties. Most of them wore grease-stained clothes that bore testament to their laborious existence; a few sported hats adorned with the insignias of local oil companies.
Rachel could sense their collective anxiety; it emanated from them like heat off a car hood. They fidgeted and whispered amongst themselves, craning their necks for a better look at the grim spectacle. It wasn’t every day that death came calling in such an intimate way.
“Please, give us some space to work,” she implored, adjusting her hat to shield her deep brown eyes from the glare of the moon. She noticed the clouds were thickening.
Ethan stepped out behind her, indicated by thethudof the passenger side door. He followed quietly in her wake.
As she led him toward the crime scene, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for these townsfolk—they were strangers to the brutality she had witnessed all too often in her line of work. But this was no time for sentimentality; there was a victim lying cold in the dirt, waiting for answers that only she could provide.
“Lord have mercy,” muttered an elderly woman, making the sign of the cross as Rachel strode past.
“Alright, folks,” Rachel called out, trying to maintain an air of authority as she approached the restless crowd. “I need you all to clear the area so we can properly contain this crime scene.”
A burly man with a graying beard shot back defiantly, “This is public land, Ranger. We got every right to be here.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened at the challenge, but she kept her voice steady. “I understand that, sir, but this is an active investigation. Your presence could compromise the evidence.”
“Compromise?” scoffed a younger woman holding a toddler on her hip. “This ain’t no courtroom drama, lady. We’re just curious, is all.”
As murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd, Rachel knew it was pointless to argue with them any further. Work was over for the day, and a crime scene was as good as any TV show. And the crime scene was close enough to the town that it was attracting more passersby as the minutes ticked.
Rachel could feel frustration mounting, but refused to allow it purchase in her soul.
She’d have to work around their stubbornness or cause a scene. And the thought of causing a scene was distasteful to her.
“Fine,” she conceded, mentally marking each face in the crowd before turning her attention to the task at hand. “Just stay behind the tape and don’t touch anything.”
With a deep breath, Rachel knelt down to examine the ground near the edge of the field. She ran her fingers gently over the dry dirt, feeling for any disturbances or markings that might indicate the victim’s path. She catalogued details in her mind, constructing possible scenarios.
As she moved across the uneven terrain, she spotted a series of faint footprints leading away from the main cluster of onlookers. The prints were shallow and spaced closely together, suggesting someone had walked slowly, perhaps hesitantly, toward the center of the field.
Rachel mused, tracing the footsteps with her eyes. A sudden gust of wind stirred the tall grass, revealing a thin piece of fabric caught on a nearby thistle.
“Gotcha,” she whispered, carefully dislodging the fabric with her gloved hand. She held it up to the fading sunlight, taking note of its color and texture.
A woman’s dress. The victim?
Her eyes moved toward the body, which she hadn’t approached yet. Police lined the space around the corpse, all of them muttering in quiet voices.
