Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2)(81)

“If you’re so damn confident you’ll beat me,” I say to Gareth, “then what does it matter? You’re going to kill me sixty seconds after you give me your confession.”

He shrugs, consenting to my questions.

“That was you up on the hill yesterday?” I say. “You killed Dale and Kyle?”

Gareth nods, grinning. Proud of himself.

“And you killed Skip Barnes and Susan Snyder?”

“Not Susan,” he says, still smiling. “Poison ain’t my style.”

“Why’d you set up Ariana?” I ask. “You could have just made Skip disappear. Why the whole elaborate frame job?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. It almost worked. Once I kill you, it will work.” He chuckles, so pleased with himself. “Besides, it felt kind of poetic after what I done to her daddy.”

“What?” I say, surprised for the first time by any of these admissions.

“I set him up for selling drugs back when we were in high school,” Gareth admits. “Stashed the bag in the janitor’s closet. Got my buddies to tell the cops that he sold to them. That’s what that little bitch gets for not putting out after Homecoming.”

I’m on fire inside. I’ve never felt such rage. Even in high school, the depravity of Gareth McCormack knew no bounds.

“Who killed Susan Snyder?” I say, trying to subdue the anger in my voice.

“Sorry, Ranger. You’re out of questions.”

He’s right. I should have made it ten questions, but I gave him my word that we would do this.

“Fine,” I say.

I toss the handcuffs toward his feet. They slide across the metal and stop at his boot. Then I holster my gun.

I hold my hand at my side, six inches from my gun. Gareth does the same.

“Here are your choices, Gareth,” I say. “Reach slowly for the handcuffs and you live. Reach quickly for your gun and you die.”

He doesn’t look the least bit nervous.

What a sight we must be, standing atop an oil derrick, facing off like a couple of Texas gunslingers from a hundred fifty years ago.

“Before you make your choice,” I say, “know this. You’re stronger than me. You’re a better shot with a rifle than I am. You were probably a better football player than I ever was, and you were no doubt a better soldier than I ever could be. But there’s one thing I do better than anyone. You want to test me on that, I’ll see to it you wake up tomorrow morning in hell.”

He smirks. “Nice speech. You finished?”

“Yeah,” I say. “My conscience is clear. You’ve been warned.”

“Good,” he says.

And his hand flies as fast as lightning to his gun.





Chapter 100



IN A SPLIT second, he snatches his gun grip, yanks the pistol free, slides his finger into the trigger guard, and raises the barrel—all in one fluid motion. All at an unbelievable speed.

He’s the fastest gunman I’ve ever seen.

But he’s not fast enough.

My bullet punches a hole through his heart before he can get his pistol into a firing position. He takes a step back, his face filled with surprise. He tries to lift the gun to get off a shot, but his muscles aren’t working anymore—not with his heart gushing blood from the hole in his chest instead of pumping it through his body.

I holster my gun.

His arm drops to his side and the pistol slips from his fingers, clanging against the metal. His knees buckle, and he topples forward into the big opening where the drilling equipment would normally be. He falls headfirst, his body spinning in a half somersault, globs of blood arcing out behind him. He lands on his back eighty feet below with a sickening thud.

I stare down at Gareth McCormack. His sunglasses have fallen off, and his vacant eyes stare upward. There’s no life behind his stare—I can tell that even from this far away.

“I told you once, you son of a bitch,” I mutter aloud, not that he can hear me.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

I turn away from Gareth over toward the ranch house. A half mile is a long way to see with the naked eye, but I can make out a cluster of men standing in the grass by the ranch house. I assume Carson McCormack is one of them.

I see something else—Harris’s police cruiser coming up the driveway.

I kneel down and grab Gareth’s M24. I check to make sure it’s loaded, then I pull the gun up to my shoulder and try to orient myself with the telescopic sight.

I get the scope into position in time to see McCormack yanking Ariana from the police car. He makes her face toward the derrick and he stands behind her, using her as a shield. He’s quite a bit taller than her, but only his head and shoulders are exposed. In one hand, he holds a walkie-talkie. In his other hand, he holds a pistol.

He points it at Ariana’s temple.

She looks scared, but more than that she looks apologetic—she thinks she’s disappointed me.

A static crackle comes from eighty feet below, and I hear Carson say from the walkie-talkie still on Gareth’s belt, “Yates. Can you hear me?”

I can’t answer. Instead, I scan the other men. I count three others besides Carson.

Harris.

McQueen—aka Mr. Broken Nose.