Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(54)

When I finally climb the stairs to my apartment, it’s not far from dawn. I’m dog tired, having hardly slept in days, and I crash down on the bed still wearing my clothes and boots. I tell myself that I’ll just rest for a moment before getting undressed, but before I can get up, I’m adrift in a sea of blackness.

Out of the darkness comes a dream.

I’m back in the bank. This time, the robbers are Gareth McCormack and his father. And this time they take a hostage. It’s Ariana. Carson holds his gun to her head while Gareth, up on the bank counter, aims the AR-15 at me.

When he opens fire, I jerk awake in a cold sweat.

Bright daylight floods in from the window. My mouth is dry, as if I’m hungover. I feel like I can still hear the bang, bang, bang of the rifle, but then I realize it’s someone pounding on my door.

“Rory,” Jessica Aaron calls, her voice tense. “Open up. I want to talk to you. You had no right to rope Tom into your troubles.”





Chapter 69



AS I OPEN the door, Tom is running up the stairs to intercept Jessica.

“Now, Jess,” he says, “leave Rory alone. It was my choice. If you want to be mad at someone, it should be me.”

She ignores him and scowls at me. But there’s something in what she sees that takes some of the anger out of her expression.

“You look like hell,” she says to me. “Did you sleep in those clothes?”

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” I tell her. “I’m sorry about asking Tom to get involved. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

She exhales loudly. It seems she came here ready to fight, but my apology preempted her. More than that, my haggard appearance—which I’m certain includes puffy eyes, unshaven cheeks, unwashed hair—seems to give her a level of understanding of the pressure I’m under that no words could convey.

“Come in,” I say. “We can talk if you’d like.”

“No,” she says. “You get yourself cleaned up and ready for the day. Then come down and I’ll make you breakfast. We’ll talk there.”

As she walks back down the stairs, Tom says softly, “Sorry. I had to tell her. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“I would never ask you to lie to your wife,” I say, thinking about what I’m keeping from Willow.

I take a quick shower, run a razor over my stubble, and put on clean clothes. I pin my star to my shirt, wrap my gun belt around my waist, and position my Stetson on my head. I was groggy when I woke up, but now I’m awake and ready.

I’ve got to get to work and get this case solved. No one else is going to do it. The responsibility falls on my shoulders.

When I walk into Tom and Jessica’s house, Jessica sets a plate of huevos rancheros on the table and tells me to sit. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw the food. I brought Ariana a sandwich last night, but I forgot to eat dinner myself.

Tom has already begun eating. He seems more demure than normal, but I know he’s in the hot seat and doesn’t want to upset his wife more than he already has. As for Jessica, her anger seems to have dissipated.

“So,” she says, “is our girl okay?”

“You really want to know?” I ask. “The more you know, the more trouble you could get into.”

“I was mad before,” she says, “but Tom’s right. Helping her was the right thing to do. There’s no way she killed that roustabout Skip Barnes, may he rest in peace. It doesn’t make a bit of sense why she would.”

As she talks, she goes to the oven and pulls out a tray of warmed sopapillas. She places them on the table with a jar of honey.

“To tell you the truth,” she says, “I think I was more upset that y’all went behind my back. Y’all didn’t include me. I wish there was something I could do to help Ariana, too.”

I swallow my bite and tell her there is something she can do. “I was going to ask Tom, but if you’re willing, you two can do it together.”

I explain that I need to go to the station and pretend like I’m working with Chief Harris. Business as usual. But I need someone to go up and down the street that Ariana lives on—the same one Tom and Jessica live on—and ask the neighbors if they saw anything suspicious the day Skip Barnes was shot.

“Someone stole Ariana’s rifle, killed Skip with it, and then returned the gun. I need to find a witness who spotted something unusual going on. A strange car in front of her house. A person walking to the door or going around back. Something. Anything to go on.”

I suggest they do it together, but Tom says that he has something he wants to look into at the office.

“What?” I ask.

“I don’t want to say yet,” he says. “It’s probably nothing. Just a wild idea. But if Jessica can handle canvassing the neighborhood, I’d like to do some digging.”

I tell Jessica that if anyone from the police department asks what she’s doing, she should tell them that she’s acting of her own volition, trying to understand what Ariana was arrested for.

“Don’t say I sent you,” I say. “It’s for your own protection. If I end up getting arrested for all this, the last thing I want is for you two to get into any trouble.”

When we’re finished talking, I thank Jessica for the meal—delicious as always—and, more importantly, for her help.