Texas Outlaw (Rory Yates #2) - James Patterson Page 0,96
over his shoulder and his SIG Sauer holstered at his hip. He’s dressed in black clothes, no doubt so he can stay hidden atop the derrick, where I’m hiding now.
The platform is a square with a hole in the middle. To one side of me is the metal mesh railing, which will keep me from rolling off. But in the center, where the drilling equipment would be if the derrick was operational, there is nothing but a straight drop to the ground.
I lie flat on my back to stay out of sight. I keep the rifle at my side. I don’t pull my pistol out of its holster.
Not yet.
I don’t want my hands to sweat on the grip.
Gareth has half a mile to walk. I try to calm my nerves, slow my breathing. I stare at the sky—blue from horizon to horizon without a single cloud.
I think of Willow.
I think of Ariana.
I think of my father telling me, A Texas Ranger is justice.
When Gareth gets close, I can make out the sound of his pants moving through the overgrown weeds. When he’s below, I hear the crackle of a walkie-talkie.
“Gareth, come in,” Carson says over the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Gareth says.
I’m eighty feet above him, but the air is so clear and silent that I can hear every word of the exchange.
“Harris has the girl. Delgado. She’s alive.”
“Copy that.”
“Yates lied to us. He’s up to something.”
My heart pounds. Fear flows through my veins. Please, God, don’t let them hurt her.
“What do you want me to do?” Gareth asks. “Come back?”
Carson tells him not to return to the ranch house. He wants Gareth to go ahead and get into position in case I show up.
“If Yates isn’t here by the deadline, I’ll send someone to pick you up. In the meantime, Harris is bringing her to the ranch. We’ll get her to talk. I told McQueen to get the blowtorch.”
“Don’t kill her,” Gareth tells his father. “I want a lock of that bitch’s hair for my trophy case.”
They end the connection. A second later, I hear Gareth’s boots on the ladder, scaling the oil derrick.
I stand up as quietly as I can, staying out of sight of Gareth as he climbs. The platform is small. The world seems to sway around me. I feel like I could topple over and fall right down the middle. My stomach clenches.
I take my SIG Sauer out of its holster. I slide my finger inside the trigger guard.
One of Gareth’s hands comes over the top onto the platform. Then the other. He hoists himself to where his head can swing over the ledge.
“Hold it right there, Gareth,” I say, aiming the gun at the bridge of his nose. “Make any sudden moves and I’ll drop you off this tower with a hole in your skull.”
He looks at me and laughs. His eyes are covered by sunglasses, so it’s hard to be sure, but his facial expression indicates he isn’t the least bit surprised—or scared.
“You double-crossing son of a bitch,” he says, as if we’re old pals and I just played a practical joke on him.
“I only double-crossed you because I knew you’d do it to me.”
He shakes his head. “It was Dad’s idea.”
“I figured,” I say.
He doesn’t seem at all concerned that I’m about to arrest him, which has me worried. Doesn’t he know he’s beat?
His rifle is slung over his back and his pistol is on his hip. He can’t get to either one of them in the position he’s in, not before I get a shot off.
I tell him to climb up onto the platform, keeping his hands where I can see them and away from his gun belt. He does as he’s told. I back up to give him space, and he stands up, staring at me defiantly. Then I tell him to slowly remove the rifle from his shoulder, holding it only by the barrel, and set it on the metal platform, the barrel pointed toward him.
Again, he does as he’s told.
Keeping my gun on him, I pull my handcuffs off my belt with my free hand.
“Now,” I say, “use only the thumb and forefinger of your left hand to unholster your pistol. Drop it off the derrick.”
“No,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“I got an alternate proposal,” he says, grinning like he holds all the cards. “How about we have that old-fashioned shoot-out after all?”
Chapter 99
“THAT’S NOT HOW this works,” I say to Gareth. “You’re under arrest.”