Cow shit. A smell that Tara Chambler never wanted to smell again, especially not on the scorching June day it was. She shoved her right hand against her nose and glared at her partner in the driver's seat. "Can't we roll up the windows and just die of heat exposure?"

Vic Moretti, Tara's current tormentor, chauffeur, and colleague, barked out a laugh. "Just don't breathe through your nose and that's a no on the windows."

"You're a cruel woman, Vic." Tara shot an eyeroll at the other woman. "I like this town, just not the local livestock."

Vic snorted, this time her blond ponytail followed the tossing motion her head made as she laughed. "Wait til you get Walt on one of his bad days, then the cows seem friggin' pleasant."

"Nah, he's always grumpy around me. I think being a lesbian doesn't exactly get me any brownie points in the small town landscape." She said around her currently occupied hand.

Now Vic's entire upper half began shaking with mirth. "Oh no, honey. That's actually your high point. It means you won't be fall for Branch's lack of charm."

"Oh eeeeewww….." Tara's face twisted in disgust, momentarily forgetting to cover her nose. Getting a whiff of the aforementioned cow leftovers, brought even more twist to her grimace. "Please tell me that smarmy charm does not work on straight women."

"Not on me, that's for fucking sure. But, I know for a—" Suddenly, Vic slammed on the brakes, throwing Tara's body forward into her seatbelt.

"What the hell, Vic!?" Tara turned her full attention to the woman in the driver's seat. Subsequently, she noticed that Vic wasn't even acknowledging her question, instead she was staring out the window to their left.

Following her line of sight, she saw what had captured the woman's attention.

It was a tan station wagon, likely an early 90's model, sitting at a forty-five degree angle from the yellow line in the road. All four doors were open, the rear tire on the driver's side was in shreds, and smears of what could only be blood were all over the driver's side window.

Almost in unison, Vic and Tara clicked open their seatbelts and got out of their own vehicle, weapons drawn. Vic bobbed her head to the left, a signal for Tara to advance on the passenger side of the car and cover her. Tara moved into place and watched out the corner of her eye as her partner crept up to the driver's seat.

"This is the Absaroka PD, come out with your hands where I can see 'em." Vic's voice cut through the pungent, dry air.

No answer. Vic side-stepped the open door and peered inside, her weapon still drawn. She quickly checked the backseat too. "Nothing. I'm gonna radio this in and have Ferg run the plates. Don't touch anything that might be evidence." She holstered her glock and jogged back to their vehicle.

Tara lowered her own weapon an inch or two and called back. "I'm new, not stupid!" That's when she spotted a small movement from the underneath the car. Her arms sprang back up into place. An arm bandaged in white gauze flopped onto the asphalt in front of the rear passenger side tire.

"Vic! There's someone under the car!" Tara shouted as she approached the vehicle again.

"Shit! Of course, it's the one place I didn't fucking check." She could hear Ferg's distinct tone that he used only for exclamations of worry over the crackly radio static and then her partner's very terse "No! I wasn't talking to you."

Tara knelt down onto the asphalt to assess the situation. She found a petite, blonde young woman, maybe 18-20 years old, dressed in tattered jeans and a gray sweater lying flat on her back, limbs akimbo. It looked like she was unconscious, and from the movement Tara had spotted earlier, that was probably true. From what she could see, the young woman only had two major injuries, her bandaged right arm and a small gash on her forehead. But, there was nothing substantial enough to account for the blood on the car.

She figured the unconscious woman wasn't a threat and put away her glock. With a tentative hand, she tapped the woman's shoulder "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"

There was no response, not even a small movement like before. She placed two fingers against the side of the woman's neck. A feathery beat met her there.

"I've got a pulse!" She called back to Vic. Suddenly, the girl stirred, her bandaged arm coming up off the ground, bumping into the car's underside along the way.

"Whoa! Don't move." Tara softly pushed the arm back down and she was met with a pained groan "Help is on the way, okay?"

The wailing sirens in the distance and tinny static from the radio proved her words true

"Hey, Chambler!" Vic, didn't even wait for an answer, before saying. "They've been looking for this car since 2007. It belongs to a murdered man from Durant."