Page 13 of Lone Star Wanted
Shaking her head to try to clear it, Cassidy kept her eyes straight ahead, but her pulse was still ticking high as the empty road opened in front of them.
They reached the outskirts of Mesita Springs just before six, the sun beginning to dip low behind the hills, casting shadowsover the cracked sidewalks and fading storefronts. The little town looked worn down but resilient, holding onto its last breath of daylight and dignity.
Most of the businesses were already closed. A few neon signs flickered behind dusty windows. An auto parts store, a nearly empty diner, and a corner bar with a hand-painted OPEN sign swinging in the wind.
Cassidy turned off the main road and followed the address that Jericho had given them. It led them down a side street lined with peeling paint and sagging porches, until they reached a narrow lot beside a rundown brick building with faded lettering across the front.
Mesita Springs Children’s Outreach Clinic.
The sign was weathered and sun-bleached. Cassidy doubted they had funding to keep the lights on past five, much less a working exam room inside.
Out front, parked near the curb, was a white panel van. Unmarked. Clean but nondescript.
There was a man leaning against the van, and she recognized him from photos in the news. Jericho McKenna. His arms crossed over his chest, dark hair wind-tossed, aviators perched on his head as if he belonged in a recruiting poster and knew it. His grin was cocky, sharp-edged, and somehow still friendly.
He straightened as they pulled in.
Cassidy barely had the truck in park before Jericho opened his mouth. “Damn, Maddox,” he said, shaking his head with mock pity. “You look like somebody dropped a cinderblock on your forehead and set your hair on fire.”
Kincade opened the passenger door and climbed out without reacting. “Good to see you too.”
Cassidy slid out behind him, her gaze sweeping the lot, then the clinic. Quiet. Too quiet.
Jericho moved to greet them, his smile slipping just a touch as he gave her a nod. “Deputy Prescott.”
“Cassidy,” she offered. “We appreciate the meet.”
Jericho’s gaze flicked toward the building behind them, then back. “You come empty-handed, or is there something I should be very interested in?”
She watched as Kincade pulled the burner phone from his pocket and handed it over to Jericho.
Jericho took it carefully, turning it over in his hand. “Let me guess—this needs a one-way trip to the lab?”
“Yeah,” Kincade said. “It was Travis’s. He left a message on it.”
Jericho glanced at him, more alert now. “What kind of message?”
“A warning,” Kincade said. “He told us not to trust the cops. Said the person who killed County Prosecutor Harlan is wearing a badge.”
Jericho’s brow lifted slightly, but he didn’t look surprised. He opened the passenger door of the van and reached into a locked compartment inside. The burner disappeared into a padded case.
“Travis didn’t kill Daniel Harlan,” Cassidy volunteered, and she left no room for argument about that in her tone.
Jericho shut the door and turned back toward her. “Obviously.”
That one word, dry and laced with mild exasperation, hit like a pressure valve releasing. The tight band in her chest eased just a little.
“Good,” she muttered. “Because we’re the only ones acting like that’s true. Everyone else seems to believe he did it.”
Jericho crossed his arms again, his stance loose but ready. “Not me, not Ruby. Not anybody else at Maverick Ops. And thatmeans we work to find Travis and then work even harder to clear his name. Because this murder charge against him is bullshit.”
Cassidy gave a faint nod, her shoulders relaxing just a fraction more. They weren’t alone in this. Not completely.
Jericho motioned for them to follow and led them through a side entrance tucked behind the clinic. The interior smelled like disinfectant and stale air. The hallway lights flickered overhead, and a poster about childhood immunizations peeled from the wall near a cracked water fountain.
They passed a row of exam rooms before Jericho pushed open a door at the back. Inside was a small space that had definitely seen better days. Faded wallpaper with cartoon animals peeled at the corners, and the exam table in the middle looked nowhere near large enough to accommodate an adult.
The woman waiting inside was dressed in green scrubs and worn sneakers. She was maybe in her sixties, tall and wiry, with a steel-gray braid down her back and the kind of sharp, unimpressed eyes that had probably made generations of children behave without a word.
