Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(61)

Chapter 77



“WHAT ARE WE waiting on?” Ariana says. “Let’s go see what Dale has for us.”

She’s right. We should hurry. We have only about an hour or so of daylight left. But there’s something I want to get off my chest before we drive out there.

“What is it?” she says, sensing something is on my mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me you dated Gareth McCormack?” I ask.

A wave of emotions rolls across her face.

First confusion.

Then embarrassment.

Then anger.

“You’re still not sure about me, are you?” she says, her voice trembling with betrayal. “You’re still wondering if I’m somehow involved in this?”

She steps away from me and walks in a circle, shaking her head incredulously.

“I can’t believe this,” she says, clenching her hands into fists. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through today? And you think that I have something to do with all this?”

My patience cracks.

“I helped you escape,” I say, raising my voice. “I put my badge on the line for you. I’m putting my life on the line. For you.”

“You’re the one who convinced me to run,” she snaps. “I’d be better off in jail than I am out here.”

Her words hit me hard. I think about what kind of danger I’ve put her in. If she gets killed, it’s on me.

“Besides,” she says, “it’s no one’s business who I’ve dated.”

“You’ve been keeping a secret from me,” I say, trying to calm my nerves. “Gareth McCormack is at the top of a very short suspects list. You can’t tell me it’s not relevant that the two of you were Homecoming king and queen.”

Ariana turns away, walks to the water’s edge. Her clothes and hair are still soaked. I hate that I’ve confronted her with this when she’s been hiding all day from people who would kill her. But this is the only time I have to ask. I can’t wait.

“I was afraid you’d take me off the case,” Ariana says, her voice subdued now. “If you found out I’d dated Gareth, you might say there was a conflict of interest. I didn’t want to risk that. This is my case. I’m the one who believes Susan Snyder was murdered. To be barred from the investigation because of some stupid high school romance wouldn’t have been fair.”

“Sometimes life isn’t fair.”

“Tell me about it,” she says, throwing her arms up in a gesture to her current situation.

“Did you think I would never find out?”

She whirls around and faces me. “Gareth never talks about it. He acts like it never happened. Like I was nothing to him. Maybe I was. I thought it would be okay to act like it was unimportant to me because that’s the way he acts.”

I lean against my pickup, trying to be as relaxed as possible with my body language. I want this to be a discussion, not a fight.

“Was it serious?” I ask.

“It was to me.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

She leans against the truck as well, her anger over my betrayal mostly replaced with exhaustion.

“It’s what you might expect,” she says. “Rich popular kid asks out the poor girl from the wrong side of town. Rumors fly.”

She explains that she was head over heels for Gareth. Carson didn’t approve. Gareth defied his father. But when Ariana wouldn’t sleep with him on Homecoming night, Gareth broke up with her.

“He was going against his father just long enough to get laid,” she says. “When I wouldn’t put out, he tossed me aside.”

She says she was heartbroken. She had really fallen for him. A few months later, her father was arrested, making her final year of high school even more stressful.

“That’s the other reason I didn’t say anything,” she adds. “I was embarrassed. Not because he threw me aside like I was trash. I was embarrassed because I fell for him to begin with.”

Looking at her now, I can see how the events of that year of her life stole the carefree happiness from the pretty girl in the photo.

“I’ve had trouble opening myself up to people ever since,” Ariana says, looking at me, her eyes glossy with tears. “Which is why it hurts so much to know you still don’t trust me.”

As an answer, I pull out my truck keys and open the storage box in the bed of my F-150. I reach in and grab the two rifles I keep inside: a standard-issue .223 M4 and a heavier caliber LaRue .308.

“I trust you,” I say, holding a gun in each hand. “Which is why I’m going to give you one of these rifles to cover me when I go see Dale Peters.”

“I thought you said you trusted him.”

“Let me put it this way,” I say. “I have a hell of a lot more doubt about him than I ever had about you.”





Chapter 78



ARIANA OPTS FOR the .223 M4, which is an accurate gun even at long ranges. Nothing like Gareth McCormack’s M24, but still a damn fine weapon.

We drive toward the rendezvous in silence. The tension between us has dissipated, but it’s left a lingering effect. We’re both tired, our nerves ragged from too much happening in the last few days.