Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(41)

And even if this isn’t related to the death of Susan Snyder—which I think it is—we can’t stop looking into that case. We need to interview Alex Hartley when he gets back to town. We need to continue combing through Susan Snyder’s background.

The one thing the murders have in common is that both victims were planning to talk to the police soon. Susan Snyder wanted to talk to the police. Skip Barnes was being compelled to talk to us. But both of them ended up dead before they could.

Sitting by Jessica’s garden in the dark, I feel overwhelmed. This thing is getting too big for Ariana and me to handle ourselves. We need help. And there’s only one place to get it. I pull out my phone to call the last person I want to talk to right now.

The lieutenant who banished me to this little town in the first place.





Chapter 53



“WELL, IF IT ain’t everybody’s favorite Texas Ranger,” Kyle says upon answering. “Rory ‘Guns Blazing’ Yates, as I live and breathe.”

With that one sentence, I can tell he’s been drinking. By the sound of the background, I bet he’s in a bar right now.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” I say. “I can call back tomorrow.”

I’m dreading this conversation as it is. I definitely don’t want to have it while he’s drunk.

“No, no,” he says. “I’m glad you called. I’m celebrating. We made an arrest today in a big case—no thanks to you,” he adds.

He tells me that the Rangers continued to investigate what happened at the bank robbery I stopped. Just because the two robbers were dead didn’t mean the case was closed. It turns out one of the bank tellers was in cahoots with the men. That’s how they knew to rob the bank at the precise moment when the time lock on the safe would open. They arrested the teller today.

“That’s great news,” I say, impressed. “Good job, Kyle.”

“I do know how to do my job, you know.”

“I know,” I say.

It’s true. Kyle and I were never friends, but he’s always been a good Ranger. I feel a swell of respect, and I think maybe this conversation won’t go so badly after all.

“So you got the case solved in that little town yet or what?” he asks.

“Not even close,” I say. “In fact, there’s been another murder.”

I explain what evidence we obtained and who the chief suspect is, but I also tell him how much work is ahead of us. All the interviews we need to do. If the fingerprints or DNA link to Gareth but the guns don’t match, we’ll need to get a search warrant and take a look at every inch of McCormack’s property. And it’s a big property.

“We need help, Kyle,” I say. “Can you spare us a couple of Rangers? Maybe the El Paso office has a few guys they can free up.”

“You want help?” Kyle says, exaggerating his disgust. “Hell, Rory, there ain’t but a hundred sixty-six Rangers in the whole damn state. You are the help.”

He starts on a rant about how we don’t even know if Susan Snyder was murdered, and in the case of Skip Barnes, it seems like there is plenty of evidence to make an arrest.

“For someone who shoots first and asks questions later,” he says, “you sure are taking your sweet time.”

I’m burning up inside. Kyle is way out of line. He could deny my request—I figured it was about a fifty-fifty chance he would—but there’s no need for him to be an asshole about it.

“I’ve spoken to the chief down there,” Kyle says. “He says you’re working with a pretty little chica. Is something going on with her? I wonder if you’re taking your time on this thing so you can cozy up to her. What would Willow think, Rory?”

I’m up and out of my chair, as if Kyle is in front of me and not on the phone talking from a bar five hundred miles away.

“Listen here, you son of a bitch. You have no right to talk like that to me. You’re a lieutenant in the Texas Ranger Division. Act like it.”

I could get in big trouble for talking to my lieutenant that way, but he’s behaving unprofessionally, too. I prepare myself for a fight. He just laughs at me from the other end of the phone.

“Looks like I pressed the right button,” he says. “Sounds like you’ve got a guilty conscience, Rory.”

He hangs up on me before I can say anything else. I take a deep breath and flop back in the chair, trying to calm down in the silence. After a while, I head to the side of the garage to climb the stairs to my room. Jessica pruned back the berry bushes like she promised, so the path is easy to navigate in the dark.

Once I’ve showered and climbed into bed, I pull out my phone and consider calling Willow. But I don’t want to worry her—Another murder! she would say—and she’s probably busy anyway, hanging out at the Grand Ole Opry or going to a dinner party at Kacey Musgraves’s house.

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really feel like talking to her right now anyway.

The person I want to call is Ariana.

But I don’t. I turn out the light and try to sleep. It’s been a long day. Any day you see a dead body is a long day, but this one seemed especially long. The open space, the oil derrick, the shit show at the crime scene, the tension with the chief and later with Kyle. My mind should be reeling. But really I’m only thinking about one thing.