Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2) - James Patterson Page 0,28

“That’s why I’m here.”

Tom exhales loudly. “Susan said not to trust anyone, but you’re a Texas Ranger from out of town. If I couldn’t tell you, who could I tell? Sorry,” he says to Ariana, “I just didn’t know who I could trust.”

“I know the feeling,” she says.

Jessica invites us inside their beautifully decorated home. Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper could have designed the interior (Willow likes to watch that show because Chip and Joanna Gaines are from Waco). The wood-textured walls are accented with vintage mirrors and oversized clocks. Open shelves display candleholders, old books, and framed photographs of Tom and Jessica with two good-looking kids, a boy and a girl.

A decorative list of life lessons—ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, SAY YOUR PRAYERS, HAVE COURAGE, HELP OTHERS—hangs above the kitchen table, where Jessica serves prize-worthy pecan pie and sweet tea.

As we talk, I get to know Tom and Jessica a little. They’re good people. Jessica grew up in Rio Lobo and met Tom when she was studying for a pharmacy doctorate at the University of Houston. He was a rising crime reporter for the Chronicle, but after they got married, they decided to raise their kids in her small hometown.

“I’m sure Houston is no different from other big cities, but I saw the evil that people are capable of. I didn’t want my kids growing up there.”

“When we moved to Rio Lobo, he was a weekend stringer,” Jessica says. “Now he’s running the paper.”

“I am the paper,” Tom says. “I’ve been running the Rio Lobo Record—from selling ads to writing stories and headlines—for twenty years. I know this community better than anyone.”

“What about you, Jessica?” I ask. “Do you work at the pharmacy on Main Street?”

“We own it,” she says. “I started as a pharmacist, but Tom and I bought it when the previous owner decided to retire to South Padre Island.”

I ask her if Susan Snyder filled her EpiPen prescription at the pharmacy. She says yes, looking sad, as if she somehow failed Susan because the medicine she provided didn’t work.

“In about twenty or thirty percent of cases,” she says, “a second dose from an auto-injector is required. The second dose is almost always administered at a hospital. You’re supposed to call 911 as soon as you’ve injected the epinephrine. Susan knew that.”

Ariana and I trade a look about a detail we won’t share, that Susan Snyder’s phone was on the other side of the house. If nearly a third of people who use EpiPens need a second injection, and Susan Snyder simply couldn’t make it to her phone, then it’s quite plausible her death was accidental. Either that or someone with knowledge of the severity of her allergy tainted her food with peanut oil.

To Susan Snyder, an ordinary recipe could be as dangerous as any deadly poison.

Chapter 31

TOM AND JESSICA walk us out to my truck.

“Oh, wow,” Tom says when he sees the graffiti on my pickup. “We’ve been having problems with kids vandalizing town property. Looks like you’re the latest victim.”

I play it off like it was probably just kids.

“Are you staying at the motel?” Jessica asks. “You should stay with us. We’ve got a studio apartment over the garage. It used to be the kids’ playroom, but they’re both off at college now.”

I thank them for the offer and tell them I’ll think about it.

“We’ve got an alarm,” Tom says. “And there’s a video camera on the front porch. No one could vandalize your truck without being caught red-handed.”

“You’ve got that kind of security?” I say, surprised. You always hear about small-town folk not bothering to lock their doors, let alone having an alarm system.

“Most Texans’ idea of home security is to sleep with a .45 under their pillow,” Jessica says. “But I loathe guns.”

“And I used to work the crime beat,” Tom says. “I know the world’s not as safe a place as most people think it is.”

As a member of law enforcement, I can’t argue with that.

When we arrive outside the police station, I say to Ariana, “Did you say the medical examiner kept some blood samples?”

“You want him to do more tests?” she says.

“Not him,” I say, pulling out my phone and scrolling through my contacts list.

“What’s up, amigo?” says Freddy Hernandez, a high school friend who is now the medical examiner for the county that includes my hometown. “Rumor has it you’ve been banished to the middle of nowhere.”

I glance at Ariana and tell him that Rio Lobo is a lovely place