Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2) - James Patterson Page 0,48

my beer.

I’m alone, perched at the edge of Jessica’s garden, listening to the chirp of insects. The sky is full of stars, bright and beautiful. Sitting here is peaceful, but it’s hard for me to enjoy it. My fingers itch, for one, like there are fire ants crawling over my skin. More than that, though, there’s simply a lot on my mind.

After the medical examiner arrived, Ariana and I went on to the ranch house and interviewed Carson and Gareth McCormack. Gareth had a smug expression on his face the whole time. We didn’t tell him we had a strand of hair, the bullet casing, or the bullet slug itself recovered from a tree. I’m not sure he would’ve been so self-assured if he’d known.

He consented to be swabbed for DNA and gunshot residue. And he showed us his gun collection, which took up an entire room of the house, every wall covered in corkboard and displaying rifles, shotguns, handguns, military rifles, muzzleloaders, crossbows, compound bows, and everything else you could think of. There were a few items—two machine guns, a short-barreled shotgun, some suppressors—that require a permit to own, but he had the proper paperwork.

In the stockpile were a Remington Model 783 and a Winchester Model 70, both of which will fire a 30-06 round. McCormack agreed to let us take those so we could compare the rounds fired. Every rifle barrel has lands and grooves that leave unique markings on a bullet, kind of like a fingerprint, and as long as the slug from the tree isn’t too mangled, we’ll know if either of Gareth’s guns fired the bullet. He agreed to let us take the guns so readily that I’m sure neither of them will result in a positive match. Which means that if it was him, he used another gun he’s not sharing.

“Don’t leave town, Gareth,” I said as we were leaving.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll stick around so you can give my guns back with a big fat apology.”

We also swabbed Carson and all of his men for gunshot residue, including Dale Peters and Mr. Broken Nose. But we ran out of time before we were able to properly collect statements from everyone. When I had a moment alone with Dale, I gave him a good hard stare and said, with just a touch of anger in my voice, “You still think we’re barking up the wrong tree?”

He lowered his eyes, his skin pale. He’d just lost a friend to murder—but if he was hiding something, I wanted him to feel guilty for it.

We’ll have the fingerprint results soon, and through the Rangers I can get the DNA testing fast-tracked. But there’s still loads of work to do. We need to have the ballistics tested on Gareth’s guns. We need to properly interview every one of McCormack’s men, setting up a timeline of where people were, what they heard, what they saw. We need to search Skip’s residence and see if there’s any clue why someone would want to kill him. And we need to find and notify Skip Barnes’s next of kin.

And even if this isn’t related to the death of Susan Snyder—which I think it is—we can’t stop looking into that case. We need to interview Alex Hartley when he gets back to town. We need to continue combing through Susan Snyder’s background.

The one thing the murders have in common is that both victims were planning to talk to the police soon. Susan Snyder wanted to talk to the police. Skip Barnes was being compelled to talk to us. But both of them ended up dead before they could.

Sitting by Jessica’s garden in the dark, I feel overwhelmed. This thing is getting too big for Ariana and me to handle ourselves. We need help. And there’s only one place to get it. I pull out my phone to call the last person I want to talk to right now.

The lieutenant who banished me to this little town in the first place.

Chapter 53

“WELL, IF IT ain’t everybody’s favorite Texas Ranger,” Kyle says upon answering. “Rory ‘Guns Blazing’ Yates, as I live and breathe.”

With that one sentence, I can tell he’s been drinking. By the sound of the background, I bet he’s in a bar right now.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” I say. “I can call back tomorrow.”

I’m dreading this conversation as it is. I definitely don’t want to have it while he’s drunk.

“No, no,” he says. “I’m glad you called. I’m celebrating. We