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CHAPTER 52

“HEY, PARTNER,” CARLOS says when I open the door. “Ride with me over to the airport, and I’ll rent a car there. You can have your truck back and be on your way.”

Carlos looks like a Texas Ranger should, Stetson atop his head, shirt pressed, pants unwrinkled, star on his chest polished to glint in the porch light. Seeing him makes me feel like I’ve let the whole state of Texas down.

“So you heard from Ava?” I say, feeling ashamed that I didn’t call him today.

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “Seems like Ryan Logan had it in for you from the start.”

His demeanor suggests that nothing is wrong, that he isn’t bothered by the turn of events, but I know that’s just an act. And it’s working. The suggestion that me turning tail and heading home isn’t a big deal hurts even more than if he’d tried to reprimand me in some way.

I invite him in while I put on my boots and get my stuff. He tips his hat to Megan, who offers to get him a glass of water or sweet tea, which he declines. Carlos’s wandering eyes stop on the shirt hanging from the curtain rod. He appraises the bullet hole but doesn’t say anything.

I wish I could read his mind.

I turn toward the bedroom, where my duffel bag is, to get my gun and a change of clothes. I know I won’t be doing any sort of official Ranger business, but still I feel like I should dress the part. Carlos looks like a Texas Ranger action figure fresh out of the box—I should at least try to look professional.

Before I get to the bedroom door, I turn and ask Carlos if he just got back from Houston.

“I stopped and got the feather from Ava,” he says. “Dropped them both off at the lab. Then I came here.”

“Have you had dinner?” Megan asks. “You want a bite to eat before you hit the road?”

He declines. A few minutes later, I’m ready.

Megan walks onto the porch with us. The dark sky is filled with gray, frothy clouds, and gusts of wind push the trees of the neighborhood around.

I kiss Megan goodbye, telling her that I’ll be back. Her hair dances in the wind. “I’ll wait up,” she says, and winks.

Carlos and I head toward the truck, both veering to the driver’s side.

“Oops,” he says, laughing. “Mind if I drive your truck one last time before turning her over to you?”

I concede, and once I’m in the passenger seat, I say, “Look, Carlos, about what happened…”

He waves me off. “You don’t have to explain a thing.”

Again, this nonchalance bothers me more than any other kind of reaction I might have anticipated. I expected him to argue and try to convince me to fight Ryan for a place on the team. Or perhaps we would commiserate together. We could both bitch about how unfair it is. But this reaction—not caring at all, or at least pretending not to—bothers me more than I would have expected.

“Before we go to the airport,” Carlos says, “mind if we make a quick stop?”

“No problem,” I say, not knowing what else to say. He is driving, after all.

“Where are we going?” I ask, then make an attempt at a joke. “Is there a sale on pizza somewhere?”

He ignores my attempt at humor and says, “Just going to see somebody.”

I start to feel nervous. What does he have up his sleeve?

A few minutes later, we pull into the University Medical Center of El Paso, which I recognize because Carlos and I stopped here after the raid to try to see the man who’d been shot by Llewellyn Carpenter. The agent, whose name is Marvin Mercer, had been in surgery at the time.

“Let’s go check on him,” Carlos says. “What do you say?”

“Have you heard from Ryan about his status?” I ask.

Carlos shakes his head. “Nope. I figure we owe it to him to at least check.”

My stomach is in knots as we walk through the halls of the hospital. Carlos stops at a nurses’ station and tells a man in scrubs that we’re looking for Marvin Mercer, an FBI agent brought in after the recent raid.

He looks back and forth between us, registering that it’s a couple of Texas Rangers making the request.

“I suppose I can let you see him,” the man says, “but he won’t know you’re there. He’s in a coma.”