Chapter 3

Huck parked his truck to the far right of the lot fronting the Fish and Wildlife building to allow Aeneas to jump out and run along the trees. The snow had finally started to melt, leaving the ground damp with a few crocuses poking up here and there. He turned to stare at the building. Not too long ago, he would've fought coming to the office with every fiber of his being, but Laurel Snow had brought him out of his self-imposed exile. Mostly.

The two-story brick building held Staggers Ice Creamery in the center of the ground floor with its huge sign, newly replaced in bright yellow, fluorescent letters. Laurel and her FBI team occupied the second floor above the creamery.

The Washington State Fish and Wildlife offices staffed the two levels to the right. To the far left, the first floor was now being rented by Laurel's mom as a new storefront for her herbal teas. He figured Laurel wanted to get her mom out into the world a bit more, and with her tea subscription business becoming so lucrative, the next logical step was to create a storefront.

He didn't want to look above the tea shop, where Rachel Raprenzi now held her podcast, The Killing Hour . She was an ex-girlfriend, current reporter, and a constant pain in his ass.

Aeneas bounded out of the forest.

"All right, boy, let's deal with this." Huck strode forward and opened the glass door to the small vestibule shared by the Fish and Wildlife and FBI offices. He walked by the door to his office to reach a new, locked metal door. Squaring his shoulders, he pressed the red button to the side.

"Hey, Huck," Kate said through the intercom, and a buzzing sound echoed. He pulled open the door and let the dog run up the stairs before him. The new security system was very much needed.

He walked up the stairs slowly, ignoring the girlish cancan wallpaper on each side of him. Laurel's unit had been made permanent at least for a year, but cases kept getting in the way of decorating the place. He kind of liked the wallpaper and hoped they didn't get rid of it, but it wasn't exactly government issue. He reached the top of the stairs, where Kate Vuittron, the unit's administrator, sat behind a glass cabinet that had once served as a pastry display case.

"Hey, Kate," he said.

"Hi." She smiled, her eyes sparkling, a picture of her three teenaged daughters behind her on a small counter. Her blond hair flipped out around her shoulders, and she kept typing with one hand as she focused on him. "They're in the conference room. You can go on back."

"Thanks." He moved beyond her to a door that bisected the wall and maneuvered down the hallway to turn right into the conference room. A long table consisting of an ornate, gold-bronze, circular sculpture beneath a very worn, rough-looking, haphazardly placed door centered the room. The tabletop had been glass, but he'd broken it in March by tackling a murder suspect onto it.

Sitting in a white leather chair at the head of table, Laurel looked up.

"No glass top yet, huh?" he asked, moving inside.

She shook her head. "No, it's on back order. We might have to wait another month."

"Sorry about that."

She smiled. "You did save my life at the time, so no complaints."

He studied her, enchanted as always by her unusual looks. Her hair was a thick, dark, rare reddish brown—a true auburn, which would make her intriguing on its own. However, her eyes were truly unique. One green, one blue with a starburst of green in the iris, heterochromatic within a heterochromatic eye. He'd read somewhere that heterochromia was a sign of intelligence, and, considering she had been a child prodigy who'd attended college in her early teens and now held multiple advanced degrees, he figured it must be true.

"How do you want to handle this?" he asked.

She chewed on her bottom lip, a sure sign she was thinking. "We certainly have problems."

He barked out a laugh.

She caught herself. "Before we concentrate on the case, how are you?"

The question rocked him back on his heels. As a logical person, Laurel normally took a reasonable and rational approach and rarely asked about feelings.

"I have absolutely no idea," he admitted.

"How certain are you that the victim is your mother?"

He opened his mouth to answer and then shut it, thinking things through. "Not sure at all." The confession loosened the hot lump of coal that had settled in his stomach. "I've never met her," he said. "I've seen pictures of her from years ago, and when I saw that woman's face, I figured that's what she'd look like now. But again, it's been thirty-plus years since my father took pictures of her."

"So it's entirely possible that woman was not your mother."

Huck nodded. "Yeah, I guess I should send a DNA sample to Dr. Ortega, huh?"

"Affirmative."

Huck rubbed the back of his neck. "I have the report from Polar Paul. We didn't find anything of interest in Iceberg River."

Walter Smudgeon walked inside, several file folders in his hands. He tossed them onto the makeshift table. "What's the plan?" he asked. "If that's Huck's mom, we have a conflict of interest for, well, both of you." Walter stood to about five foot nine and had slimmed down recently, today sporting a new dark blue belt. He seemed to love buying belts these days. In addition, with his face thinner, he looked years younger than he had before being shot three times in the abdomen.

Huck had to protect his team. "Yeah, we're talking conflicts of interest without question. Monty will handle things at Fish and Wildlife if the victim is my mother, and I can step off the case."

The last thing Huck wanted to do was call in Deputy Chief Mert Wright from Seattle. The guy was a moron, and Huck had thankfully avoided him the last couple of months. He looked at Laurel. "Considering we're dating, you might have to turn the case over to somebody else on your team."

Laurel pushed her hair over her shoulder. "I've already notified Special Agent in Charge Wayne Norrs from the Seattle office, in case he needs to assume command of the investigation. For now, let's proceed as if the victim is not your mother."

Huck shook his head. "I'd rather we didn't have to deal with Norrs. He worked the Broken Heart case with us well enough, but considering he's dating your half sister, I'd like to avoid being in his orbit."

"I agree," Laurel said. "But proper protocol dictates that I at least notify him. His office is occupied right now with several RICO cases as well as multiple drug cases, so he didn't sound eager to add to his caseload. For now, Walter, you need to get to Sea-Tac. You've earned this vacation."

"I have an hour." Walter pulled out a white leather chair and sat. "Nester," he called out.

"Yo," Nester called back, soon appearing in the doorway. "I heard we caught one at the base of Snowblood Peak."

Huck moved around to take a chair at the table. "We did. There's a chance it might be my mother."

Nester jolted. "Dude, I'm sorry about that."

Huck sat. "We don't have an ID yet, and frankly, it's probably farfetched. I never met her, so how would I know what she looks like now?"

"Good point." Nester worked as the computer guru for the FBI team. In his early twenties, the guy was intelligent and insightful. Tall and slim, he liked to snowboard on his days off, and based on the mangled boards he'd mounted to his office walls, he enjoyed taking risks. Rumor had it that he also dated quite a bit, and with his dark eyes, dark skin, and contagious sense of humor, that rumor was probably true. His expertise in tracking the untraceable by computer made him invaluable on any case. "What do you need from me?" he asked.

"I need you to do a deep dive on Huck's mother," Walter said.

"Delta Rivers," Huck murmured. "I have no idea if she kept Rivers as her surname."

He had long since dealt with the fact that his mother had given birth to him and dumped him on his dad more than thirty years ago; he didn't need to go into it now. His father had passed away from cancer a while back. He'd figured it would be just him and his dog until Laurel had come into his life. Would their child inherit Laurel's heterochromatic eyes and unusual intelligence, or be more down to earth and streetwise like him? He glanced over to make sure the color had returned to her pretty face.

"Also," Laurel said, "I know that the state police interviewed the two snowmobilers who found the body at the scene, but Nester, I'd like you to bring them in and get your own feel for them. Okay?"

His eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"Yes. You said you wanted field experience, and Walter will be out on vacation, so let's start with this," Laurel said.

"Cool, thanks." Nester disappeared.

Huck frowned. "I thought you were getting two more agents."

Laurel lifted both hands. "We will at some point, but I'm not in any hurry. So right now, this is what we have."

Considering her group had put away three serial killers so far, Huck thought they were doing just fine. In combination with Fish and Wildlife, they could cover every aspect of a case.

"Did you ask Dr. Ortega to put a rush on the autopsy?" Walter asked.

Laurel nodded. "I couldn't reach him but left a message. Apparently there was a nightclub fire in his jurisdiction last night resulting in several deaths. Walter, why don't you start filling out a murder board since you now have forty-five minutes? Just leave that board closest to you alone."

The farthest board was turned over so nobody could see it, but Huck knew it showcased Laurel's half sister, Abigail Caine, and notations on her suspected crimes. Like Laurel, he was aware that Abigail, as brilliant as her sister, had motivated serial killer Jason Abbott to commit atrocious acts, and she'd helped another killer hide his deeds before that. Laurel wanted to put her away, and Huck was on board.

Walter dug photographs from the scene out from his file folder and began taping them to a board.

Huck's ears heated. That couldn't be his mother. She just looked like Delta. He had definitely jumped the gun and hadn't been thinking when he'd spoken. He'd been caught off guard. "You know, the likelihood of our victim being the woman who gave birth to me is unrealistic." His body finally relaxed. "I think I just reacted to the fact that she looks familiar."

Walter appraised him. "That's fine. But why don't we do some preliminary work and I'll interview you real quick?"

"Sure," Huck agreed.

Laurel looked away from the board. "You now have forty minutes."

Huck nodded. "The woman gave birth to me and left town. Haven't talked to her. Haven't met her. Don't know anything about her."

Walter grimaced at his empty notepad. "That was quick. Did your father tell you anything about her?"

Huck tried to remember. "Just that she was a free spirit and liked to drink beer. That's it."

Walter sighed. "How about we do that DNA test?"

"No problem." Huck's phone buzzed, and he read a text. "Rachel Raprenzi has the story about Jason Abbott escaping custody. I hate to say it, but I think I should go on her show and alert the public to this one. People have to know to be on the lookout."

His gut actually ached at the thought.