Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2) - James Patterson Page 0,73
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.
I let Ariana out of my truck one ridge over from the GPS coordinates Dale gave me. She scrambles up the hill to find a good vantage point.
The truth is, if this is an ambush, she won’t be able to do much good. If Dale is in cahoots with Gareth McCormack, the sharpshooter could be anywhere. He could be farther away and, with his shooting skills, far more accurate than Ariana. There is no way Ariana could protect me.
But covering me isn’t my only reason for asking her to hunker down in the hills while I drive out to see Dale. I also want to keep her hidden. That way, if a bullet sails a thousand yards through my skull, Ariana may still be able to get away.