Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(75)

“I’ve been thinking about that while we walked,” I say. “You know that greenbelt that runs through McCormack’s property? That little tributary with all the vegetation growing around it?”

Ariana knows what I’m talking about—the ribbon of oasis outside the fence line that passes the shooting range and the oil derrick.

“I’m assuming that waterway comes from the open space somewhere, right? Do you think you could find it?”

Ariana knows right where it is. When she was in high school, Gareth would drive a four-wheeler parallel to it and meet her in the open space.

“They’ve blocked every dirt road out of here,” I say, “but I bet they won’t expect me to walk right onto their property.”

“It’s a hell of a hike,” she says. “Maybe ten miles.”

Once the land begins to flatten out, she says, that means I’ll be on McCormack’s land.

“And at that point, I’ll be able to get a cell phone signal, right?”

“Rory,” she says, “what have you got in mind?”

I tell her my plan.

When I’m finished, she says, “That sounds like suicide.”

“What other options do we have?” I ask.

She can’t think of any.





Chapter 93



GARETH McCORMACK CAN’T sleep. He rises from his bed and paces through the ranch house, anxious for dawn to come so he can mobilize the men to hunt down Yates and Ariana. He can’t wait to get his hands on them.

When he was in high school, he started a trophy box, keeping souvenirs of all the girls he slept with.

When he was in the army, he started a different trophy box—one that held souvenirs from all the people he killed.

Ariana avoided making it into his first trophy box. He’s glad he’ll have the chance to put her in the second. And as for Yates, Gareth doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to kill someone so bad.

He hates that fucking Texas Ranger.

His father thinks Yates is a worthy adversary, and Gareth can admit the guy is good—for a civilian. But Gareth has no doubt that in any contest—fists, knives, rifles, pistols—he could take the Texas Ranger. There is no scenario in which Rory Yates could best him.

Gareth steps out onto the front porch. The moon and stars provide some light, but most of the property is hidden in darkness. He can make out the gate and some of the fence line, white in the blackness, but the oil derrick a thousand yards away is completely invisible.

The land is silent, the air chilly.

A light comes on in his peripheral vision, and he turns his head to see a dull glow coming from his father’s study. Gareth takes a plug of snuff and stuffs it in his lip. He spits into the grass, then heads back into the house.

“Can’t sleep?” Gareth says, seeing his father behind his desk. “Me neither.”

“I was just thinking about your mother,” Carson says, leaning back in his plush chair.

The only light in the room is a desk lamp. They call the room a study, but it’s bigger than some houses, with a vaulted ceiling and a picture window that a school bus could drive through. The wood-paneled walls are lined with animal mounts—a bear, an elk, a lion taken on an African safari—that Carson killed when he was younger and still interested in hunting.

“What about Mom?” Gareth asks.

“Just how glad I am that she’s gone,” he says and smiles widely.

Carson has a bottle of scotch and a tumbler with two fingers in it. He pulls another glass out of a desk drawer and offers Gareth a drink. By way of answer, Gareth takes the empty glass and spits tobacco juice into it.

He doesn’t drink, doesn’t use drugs. Shooting is his drug. Especially when a person is in the crosshairs.

There is no high that compares to killing a human being.

“What’s that noise?” Carson says, annoyed.

Gareth doesn’t know what he’s talking about but then realizes it’s a phone buzzing. He checks his own pocket and finds that his phone is the one ringing.

“Who the hell is calling at this hour?” Carson says.

Gareth looks at the screen and sees that it’s a Waco number.

Yates.

Gareth answers and says, “Did you decide to turn yourself in?”

The other end of the phone is quiet, and for a moment Gareth thinks there’s no one there. Then Yates speaks.

“I let you win,” he says.

“What?”

“Not with the rifles,” Rory says. “You won that fair and square. Of course, you and I both know that contest was rigged because I hadn’t had time to sight the gun for my eyes.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Yates?”

“But with the pistols,” Rory says, acting as if he wasn’t interrupted, “I threw the game. I let you win.”

“Bullshit,” Gareth says, his stomach turning to acid.

He’s remotely aware of his father staring at him.

“You’re pretty good,” Rory says. “I’ll give you that. But you’re nowhere in my league. Not with a pistol anyway. Especially not in a real gunfight.”

Gareth’s heart is racing. He wants to reach through the phone and tear that arrogant asshole’s throat out.