Джеймс Паттерсон - Texas Outlaw

“You called Harris and told him I was looking for Tom,” Ariana says.

“Yes,” Jessica says, “and I wish he would have shot you on the spot instead of pistol-whipping my husband. If Carson was still alive, John Grady would answer for that.”

Ariana looks over at Rory and sees his eyelids struggling to stay open. Whatever Ariana is going to do, she needs to do it fast.

“You can’t get away with this,” Ariana says.

“Rory said the same thing, but you’re both wrong,” Jessica says, shifting the gun away from Willow so it’s pointed directly at Ariana. “It’s simple. Willow found out you and Rory were screwing around and then she killed you both before turning the gun on herself.”

Ariana can’t believe what’s happening. She’s known Jessica since she was a teenager going to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions for her parents.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.

“Because you two couldn’t just let things go. You came in and screwed up everything in Rio Lobo. You know the town isn’t going to survive without Carson’s money. The newspaper will fold. The pharmacy will fold. A year from now, Rio Lobo is going to be a ghost town.”

“The people of Rio Lobo make this town what it is,” Ariana says. “Not Carson McCormack’s money.”

Jessica begins arguing with her, but as she is talking, Ariana remembers watching the video of Rory in the bank. He dropped to his knees, drew his gun, and fired on the men before they could shoot him. She needs to do the same thing now.

Only she doesn’t have a clear shot at Jessica. Jessica’s head is sticking up over Willow. If Ariana misses, she might put a bullet through the top of the singer’s skull. Then she thinks of the shot Rory made to kill Carson McCormack—how he took the shot even though Ariana was in the line of fire.

In everything that happened in the last few days—in the open space and out at McCormack’s ranch—Ariana didn’t shoot anyone.

She’s never shot anyone.

But Rory told her she had what it takes to be a Texas Ranger.

Now it’s her time to prove it.

Chapter 113

I WATCH FROM the floor as Jessica is about to shoot. I can see it in her body language, the way she steadies my pistol, tightens her finger over the trigger. I want to shout to Ariana to warn her, but I can’t. My mouth is as paralyzed as the rest of my body.

All I can do is watch.

What happens next takes only a couple of seconds.

Three at the most.

Ariana drops down right as flames shoot from the pistol in Jessica’s hand. Wood splinters explode from the doorjamb behind Ariana. Ariana folds into a crouch and yanks her gun from its holster just as Jessica lowers the pistol, trying to get a second shot.

Jessica is using Willow as a shield, and I want to scream for Ariana not to shoot.

But she does.

Jessica’s head jerks back as blood mists the wall behind her. She leans back, her gun arm still extended, and crashes onto the carpet. She keeps her arm stiff for a moment, pointing the gun at the ceiling, then loses her muscle function, and her arm falls to her side, limp.

Willow’s body slumps out of the chair onto the floor. She’s still unconscious, but the bullet never touched her. It passed inches over her head.

Ariana runs to my side. She pulls out her phone, calls 911, and shouts, “Texas Ranger down! I’ve got a Texas Ranger down!”

She yells into the phone what our location is, then turns her attention to me. Her eyes are filling with tears.

“You’re going to be okay,” she says, cupping my face.

I stare at her, wanting to tell her how much she means to me, how proud I am of her. I want to tell her that she’ll make the best goddamn Texas Ranger this state has ever seen.

But I can only croak out two words.

“Save…Willow.”

She stares into my eyes for a moment—just a moment—then leans down to kiss my forehead. She runs over to Willow and lifts her flaccid body in a fireman’s carry. I watch as she squeezes through the door, and I listen as her footsteps bound down the staircase.

My eyes close, and I feel a mixture of relief and sadness.

Relief because both of the women I love are safe.

Sadness because I’ll never see either one of them again.

Chapter 114

ARIANA STANDS AT the edge of the Rio Lobo cemetery, watching Tom Aaron out among the gravestones. He is kneeling.

Weeping.

She’s been dreading this moment, but she feels she needs to face it. She walks along the pathway, passing several new grave markers. One for Dale. One for Skip. One each for the other bodies they found on McCormack’s ranch. They were all given big funerals. Practically everyone in town came out to see them laid to rest.

But no one came to the funeral today.

No one came to see Jessica Aaron interred.

Except for Tom, of course.

Even their kids, in finding out what Mom did, wouldn’t attend. They drove back from their colleges to take care of their father and mourn. But they refused to honor her passing.

Ariana finds Tom hunched over the fresh dirt, his back heaving. He is shaking all over, shaking more than when she was staring down the barrel of the gun that Jessica aimed at her.

“Tom,” she says softly, and his body stops convulsing. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

She wants to say that if there had been any other way, she wouldn’t have squeezed the trigger. But now she’s crying, too, and she’s afraid she won’t be able to speak. Tom rises and turns around to face her, his eyes red. The splint on his nose is gone, but some of his skin is still black and blue, which makes his bloodshot eyes even more menacing. He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t blame you,” he says to Ariana.

She sobs in relief.

They hug and cry, and then, afterward, they walk back through the cemetery, talking. It’s a beautiful morning. The heat will be unbearable later, but now, walking among the freshly cut grass, the temperature is pleasant.

“You know,” he says, “when I was looking through the old yearbooks, I told Rory about the picture I saw of you and Gareth. But I found an even older one, from when Jessica and Carson were in high school, that made me suspicious. She’d never talked about him, but there they were, standing in front of a line of lockers, smiling like they were the best of friends. Carson was a senior and Jessica was only a freshman, but they looked as thick as thieves.”

He says the picture gave him a bad feeling, but he pushed it away. Then, after his nose was broken, Jessica rushed to the medical center, and when she saw him, she said, “I can’t believe they did this to you.”

“It was the way she said it,” Tom explains. “Like she felt betrayed by someone she’d had a deal with. I pushed it out of my mind then, too.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Ariana says. “She fooled us all. And if it’s any consolation, she did everything for you. I think she really did love you.”

“It’s not a consolation. It actually makes it worse. I feel like I’m to blame somehow.”

Tom explains that all his life he’d fancied himself a good journalist, but he’d been blind to what his own wife was hiding. When he and Jessica had the opportunity to purchase the pharmacy, she suddenly inherited a big chunk of money. Now he realizes that money came from Carson—as did a lot of the advertising revenue that kept the newspaper in the black all these years.

Ariana says, “You’re not to blame at all. In fact, if it wasn’t for your help, this case never would have been solved.”

She doesn’t mention that if Tom hadn’t helped, he likely could have gone on forever under the illusion that his wife was who he thought she was.

“I never kept a secret from her,” Tom says. “It turns out that all she did was keep secrets from me.”