Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

“I hope like hell no one’s shown that video to Willow,” I tell Creasy.

As if the universe could hear our conversation, an incoming call buzzes in my ear.

It’s Willow.

“I gotta go,” I tell Creasy.

When I pick up, Willow is crying on the other end.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Willow says, barely able to talk through her sobs.

I admit that I’m shaken up and a bit numb, but I assure her I’m unharmed.

Willow says that when she finished her set in Sacramento, one of the crew said, “Hey, is this your Texas Ranger boyfriend?” and shoved an iPad in her face. Without knowing what she was getting into, she watched the video of me in the standoff.

“That guy shot the hat right off your head,” she says.

I apologize for not calling to tell her. I didn’t want her to be an emotional wreck before she had to perform.

“I have to join Dierks in fifteen minutes for a duet of ‘Long Trip Alone,’” she says. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it. I’m shaking like a leaf.”

“You can do it,” I say. “You’re a professional.”

The first time I ever saw Willow was when she was onstage. It was in a roadhouse bar, not a big concert venue, but she had a magnetism that was undeniable. She’s a looker, no doubt about it, with blond hair and curves in all the right places. But what I loved about her the most was her voice. She sounds like Carrie Underwood—and can hit the same notes—but there’s also a raspy undertone to her voice that’s sexy as hell.

I think I fell in love with her the first time I saw her perform. Whether it was love at first sight or love at first sound, I can’t be sure.

Willow’s not a fragile person—she’s one of the toughest people I’ve ever met—but she just watched me not only come close to dying but also kill two people.

I can tell she’s starting to pull herself together. I think she just needed to hear my voice.

“How was the show?” I ask, trying to divert the conversation away from death.

She fills me in on the latest in her life. After tonight’s concert, there’s a break in the tour, and she’ll be flying back to Nashville to record the final songs for the album.

“Any chance you can come visit?” she says.

In theory, I could. I’ll be on leave for at least a few days, maybe a few weeks. Any time a Ranger is involved in a shooting, there’s a period of investigation. But I know what will happen if I fly to Nashville. Willow will be so busy we won’t get to spend any quality time together. She’ll have late-night recording sessions or be asked to visit one promotional event after another. With her debut album on the horizon, she pretty much needs to do everything she’s asked these days.

I want to support her, but what I need right now is the comfort of home. I need to heal by helping Dad on the ranch, eating Mom’s home-cooked meals. I’d give just about anything to have Willow fly back to Texas and spend some time here, but getting on a plane and flying to Tennessee is the last thing I want to do right now.

I try to explain this the best I can to Willow, but it turns our conversation melancholy. We talk a little more about trivial matters, but I get the impression we’re both thinking about what’s not being said.

Her career is taking off, and the long-distance thing we’re doing can last only so long. If I’m not willing to take the plunge and move to Tennessee, what are we going to do?

And after today—when I almost died in the line of duty—I imagine Willow is wondering what she’s gotten herself into. Can her heart really handle being in love with a Texas Ranger?

Are our careers compatible?

As great as we are together, are we really compatible?

“I gotta go,” Willow says. “I’m due onstage.”

I tell her I love her and hang up. I stand alone in the darkness, listening to the chirp of the insects and looking up at the stars. They don’t shine quite as bright as they used to with all the light pollution seeping up from the horizon, that’s for sure. I pick up my empty beer bottle and head into the house.

Thinking of Willow performing seventeen hundred miles away, I open my laptop and go to YouTube to find a video of her. I watch the video that made her an internet sensation—just her, sitting onstage on a barstool, with her leg in a cast and a guitar in her hands.

That’s my girlfriend, I think proudly.

I catch myself smiling.

Before closing the computer, I feel a temptation. I search for my name, and sure enough a video pops up showing a grayish image of me in the bank. I press Play. There’s no sound, but I can see myself talking to the robber with a gun to my head. When the one with the machine gun climbs onto the counter, we’re all three in the frame. My heart is pounding as I watch. On the screen, I drop to my knee and a flash of light takes the hat off my head—

I slam the laptop closed.

I think of Willow, what it must be like for her, seeing this and facing the reality that she could lose me at any time.

A FEW DAYS later, Dad and I are riding horses along the perimeter of the property, looking for places in the fence that need repair. I’ve got my gun on my hip in case we run into any rattlesnakes. And I’ve got a new hat on my head. Willow had it shipped to me, a Silverbelly Stetson with a high crown, wide brim, and sterling silver buckle on the band.

The hat probably cost three hundred dollars.

It doesn’t feel quite right on my head. I’m trying to break it in, but I’m sure missing my old hat.

Dad’s riding Dusty, a roan he’s had for a decade, and I’m riding Mom’s horse, Browny, a beautiful young bay. We’re supposed to be checking the fence, but my brothers and I helped Dad with a big repair just a few months ago. Really this is just an excuse for Dad and me to get out and enjoy ourselves for a few hours.

We don’t talk much. Dad knows that’s not what I need right now. Instead, I focus on the sound of the horses clopping along and enjoy the faint breeze blowing on our faces. It’s midmorning, and the day hasn’t grown oppressively hot yet.

I feel my phone buzz and dig it out of my jeans. By the time it’s in my hand, I’ve missed the call. It was from Kyle Hendricks.

“I better call back,” I say to Dad.

There’s a stream up ahead with a big oak tree providing shade, so we stop there and let the horses drink. I dismount and call my lieutenant back.

“You ready to get back to work, Ranger?” Kyle says as soon as he picks up.

“So soon?” I say.

“You want a longer paid vacation?” he says.

“Just surprised is all.”

“There ain’t much to investigate when the whole damn thing is on video,” Kyle says.

“All right,” I say. “I’ll be in tomorrow.”

The truth is, I am disappointed. It’s been good for me to spend the last few days with my family. I want to go back to work, but not in a rush.

“Don’t come to company headquarters,” Kyle says. “We need you for something else. You ever heard of Rio Lobo?”

“The ghost town?”

“No, that’s Lobo,” Kyle says. “Rio Lobo is a little town over in West Texas. Few hours from Fort Hancock.”

Kyle says a town councilwoman has died under suspicious circumstances.

“All evidence suggests natural causes, but the local detective thinks otherwise. They’ve asked us to send a Ranger.”

All of this sounds very strange to me. Not that they would ask the Rangers for help. That’s what we’re here for. Texas has six Ranger companies, each assigned to a geographic region. Company F, housed in the Waco office, is nowhere near this town way over on the other side of the state, close to New Mexico.

As if he can sense my confusion, Kyle says that the Ranger covering that area recently retired, and Company E, out of El Paso, can’t spare the manpower from an ongoing, enormous drug-trafficking investigation.