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Except…
“Well, the bones are clean,” Rory remarks. “Not much left on them.”
“Yeah, but the grave is too shallow. Someone must have moved it here.”
“You think there’s some sort of framing going on?” Rory asks.
I creep toward the hole. There’s a photographer still snapping photos, the flash absolutely abhorrent to my eyes. I want to growl,Do you mind?but I know my place here is conditional. I need to prove my worth.
I crouch down and take in the skeleton. It’s perfect. Every bone in place. Nothing out of joint. Rare that a skeleton would be found quite like this.
Yes. Too perfect.
There’s something markedly out of place though. Those ribs. They’re not nearly as rounded as human ribs should be.
Bingo.
“My bones!” I cry out. “Those are my bones!”
Everyone surrounding the hole looks at me as I point.
I search for Rory’s eyes; they’re not as dark as they looked upon entering the museum. In the natural light, however limited it might be by the cloud cover, there is a ring of amber around his pupils. Staggering, almost preternatural.
Nearly takes my breath away. “These… are the bones from the museum.”
“What is she talking about?” Ed asks Rory as if I’m not there.
Rory ignores him and crouches down across from me. “How do you know?
I reach into my purse and grab my examination gloves, sliding them on to gesture. “These ribs.” I trace the curve of the rib in the air, resisting the urge to grab them and run out of there to get them back to their rightful home. “Human ribs have a more significant curvature to them. Which means that these bones are shallower and consequently a little too long. You can see…” I shift forward, point to the shoulder girdle. “They’re disproportionate and not in an outlying way.”
Rory tilts his head. He’s listening, or at least pretending to. His dark hair shifts ever so slightly with gravity, giving it a tousled look I didn’t notice before.
Didn’t allow myself to notice. Why would I? What use do I have for noticing his attractiveness? Objectively, he’s attractive. That doesn’t mean anything to me.
I direct my attention to the skeleton’s arms and grin. “And these are mine too. The humerus doesn’t fit properly into the scapula. And again, the length is all wrong.”
“What about the rest of it?” Rory asks.
“I mean, obviously the skull is human. And it’s not hard to assume the rest is. Unless we’re looking at the skeleton of a primate, there aren’t many animals whose skeletons can emulate a human’s in such a way that could dupe a…” I glance up at Ed and hold my tongue. “I guess the question is who the rest of the skeleton belongs to.”
Rory scans the skeleton. “And why?”
“Yeah, that’s a good question too.”
Ed scoffs, taking my attention. “So you’re saying someone stole bones from the museum and placed them in this grave, along with bones from somewhere else? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, I’m afraid Occam’s Razor stands supreme. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.” I reach down and grab the ulna. “And since some of these are mine…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rory cries out and grabs my wrist. “What are you doing?”
If he pulls any harder, I’m going to fall face-first into a skeleton. And I might be an expert in bones and the like, but even I don’t want that. “I’m taking what’s mine.”
“This is a crime scene. You can’t do that.”
Boiling annoyance returns. I thought Rory and I had gotten past the initial frustration of our meeting at the museum, but apparently not. “But they’re mine.”
“And you’ll get them back,” he says. “But you can’t just take them.”
