Virna DePaul - Texas Stakeout

“Rachel,” he said softly, “Jax isn’t a victim. He admitted he knew what he was doing. He confessed. His first appeal was rejected for that very reason.”

She raised her gaze to meet his, her eyes nearly as dull as Josiah’s earlier in the day. “He was harassed into giving that confession. Scared.”

They stared at each other until Dylan sighed. The day had settled into evening. His teammate Eric Haynes had the night shift and would probably already be in position to spy on the ranch. No sense in staying any later. He didn’t want to ride Ginger back to Aaron’s ranch in the dark.

Besides, if Rachel was naive enough to believe her brother wasn’t the drug-dealing scumbag he knew the kid to be, he knew nothing he could say right now would change her mind. Hell, his own mother had been handed irrefutable proof that his brother was bad to the core, time and time again, and she’d never accepted it, even up to the day she died.

“I can see you’ve got your mind made up about Jax. But sooner or later, Rachel, you’re going to have to face the truth.” Dylan stood and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice catching in her throat.

Hand on the door handle, he stopped. “The Sleep-E-Z Motorcoach Lodge.”

“So the U.S. Marshals will be leaving me alone now?”

“Nope. The sheriff’s deputies swept your property—it’s clear. They’re gone, but my teammate Eric is already in place. He’ll keep watch until I show back up in the morning.”

“Jax is a good kid,” she stated. “He’s innocent. And if he did escape, and I’m not saying he did, he must have had a good reason, if only that he was scared.”

At that, he turned and caught her gaze with his. “A good reason? He—” He bit off his words. He was pretty certain that Rachel would collapse under the weight of any more bad news. He’d be back to tell her the rest of the story. Until then, maybe some rest would enable her to see reason come morning. So Dylan contented himself with saying, “Good night, Ms. Kincaid.” He stepped outside into the humid Texas evening air, frustration crawling around inside his skin. As he slammed the door behind him, he heard a crash and the breaking of glass.

Then he heard her crying.

Again.

He stood there a long time before he found the will to walk away.

Chapter 5

After Dylan Rooney left, Rachel threw herself a very brief pity party and then went looking for her son. Just in case he’d snuck back inside without her knowing it, she combed the inside of the house first. When that proved fruitless, she headed outside and to his favorite tree. Down at the creek, even with dusk not yet set and cool light still diffusing the air, Rachel could tell the cottonwood’s branches hung empty. No Peter.

She called Peter’s name, but only the trickle of the creek and the rise and swell of the cricket and frog chorus rose around her. A nearby bullfrog stopped its low bellow, but no boy’s voice responded. She doubted Peter was in the barn—the grass hay gave him allergies—but she’d try there.

She’d crumbled when she saw Josiah’s dead body. Peter had to be freaking out. He liked to be alone when he got upset, but still, this was going on too long.

Fifteen minutes later, with all the light from the fading dusk gone, she headed back to the house. Peter hadn’t been in the barn, either. Nor in the toolshed, or in the woodshed or in any of the corrals.

Upstairs, she paused in front of his closed bedroom door. She’d deliberately left it open before she headed outside to look for him. Relief swamped through her even as she braced herself and knocked on the door. “Peter?” No answer. She knocked again. “Peter, honey, I know you’re upset, but we need to talk. Peter?” When there was still no answer, she opened the door.

She let out a cry of dismay upon seeing it was still empty. Immediately she saw the piece of paper propped on Peter’s pillow. There, in Peter’s dismal scrawl, was a note addressed to her.

Mom. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was shooting the BB gun. I think I killed Josiah. I don’t deserve to live here and decided to be a railroad bum. I have a hat and extra socks and I took five dollars from the cookie jar. I’ll pay you back some day. Your son, Peter Kincaid.

An empty ache filled her heart as she realized what Peter must have felt, thinking he’d shot Josiah. She’d seen the wound on Josiah’s head. No BB could have done that kind of damage. It had never dawned on her that Peter could have assumed he’d killed a man.

“Oh, God, Peter,” she murmured, staring at the note she now held in her hand. She’d thought she was doing the right thing by leaving her son alone to work through his pain, when she really should have been seeking him out, making sure he was okay. Instead, she’d spent time wallowing in her own grief and arguing with a U.S. Marshal over her brother.

What kind of mother was she?

And where the hell was the rulebook on how to be a parent? Why didn’t kids come with a user’s guide?

Within minutes she called the sheriff’s department and reported Peter missing. The call didn’t go well. Sheriff Ryan expressed frustration over how many times Peter had run off in the past few years and how many times he’d been caught trespassing. Disturbed by the edge of warning in the lawman’s voice, Rachel listened with growing trepidation and worry for her son, then called her best friend, Julia. Her brother—and now maybe even her son—needed a lawyer.

Rachel needed more than that.

She needed a friend. A break. A hint of hope that her life was finally going to take an upward swing.

But given everything that had happened today, given everything that U.S. Marshal Dylan Rooney had told her, she couldn’t imagine her life going anywhere but completely downhill.

Hours later, morning brought bright Texas sunlight streaming through Rachel’s kitchen window, but there was still no sign of Peter. She’d searched the surrounding area of the ranch until it got dark, and then she’d paced and worried and paced some more, praying for her son to come home. He’d run off before, but never for this long. The sheriff had called just over an hour ago, indicating his men had searched her property and the adjacent land—no signs of Peter.

Peter knew how to take care of himself, but Rachel’s mom Spidey senses had the creepy crawlies making their way up her spine. Even if Josiah hadn’t been murdered, Texas hosted a number of bad things that went bump in the night. Rattlesnakes, cougars, scorpions and brown recluse spiders. And the occasional bad guy. Scary stuff she didn’t want to think about. Not with her son out there, alone and thinking he’d killed a man.

Rachel busied herself making two foaming lattes. One for her, and one for Julia. Thank God for Julia, who’d shown up fifteen minutes after Rachel called her, then taken over with lawyerly efficiency, querying Rachel about U.S. Marshal Dylan Rooney’s presence and why Peter had run off. Then she’d shoved Rachel in the direction of her bedroom and promised to bed the alpacas down. Of course, Rachel hadn’t slept a wink, but she didn’t tell Julia that.

“Thanks again for spending the night,” Rachel said, handing over Julia’s latte. There wasn’t anything she could do to find Peter, and until she heard otherwise, she had to assume he was okay. She needed, however, to distract her mind from her worry, and working on Jax’s case would help. “Did you find anything out?” She nodded to the open laptop on the kitchen table.

“Some,” her friend said, blowing on the foam of her drink. “According to the internet, this guy Dylan Rooney is who he says he is. U.S. Marshal. Part of a special ops team.”