Page 2 of Lone Star Wanted
But his pocket was empty.
He checked the other. Waistband. Boot. Nothing. No phone. No weapon. No backup.
Panic surged through him, but he shoved it down. Now wasn’t the time to let anything other than logic and training play into this. Not when he had so many things to figure out.
He scanned the horizon, looking for anything that might help him out of this mess. There had to be a road. A trail. Something. But all he saw was empty Texas countryside and the growing certainty that whoever had done this wasn’t finished with him.
The wind shifted, and he caught the sound of a low crunch of tires over gravel. Kincade froze. A vehicle. Too far to make out, but it was coming fast.
After only a couple of seconds, he spotted a worn dirt track winding through the tall grass and didn’t hesitate. He sprinted across the clearing and dropped behind a gnarled oak, the trunk just wide enough to shield him. Bark scraped his shoulder as he pressed close, breathing shallow, ignoring the pain in his ribs and head.
The vehicle slowed. Stopped. When a door slammed, Kincade peeked around the tree, and he saw a white sheriff’s department pickup. It was dust-streaked and idling in the heat.
And stepping out was Cassidy Prescott. Travis’s sister. A deputy with the Blanco Pass Sheriff’s Office.
She moved like someone who’d seen her share of trouble. Steady, precise, alert. Her badge flashed in the sunlight as she drew her weapon in a two-handed grip with eyes sweeping the ruins of the safe house.
Kincade hadn’t seen Cassidy in over a year, but he hadn’t forgotten a damn thing. Not her fire. Not her sharp tongue. Not the night they’d both pretended they didn’t feel what they did.
One night. Fast. Reckless.
And then he walked away.
Not because he hadn’t wanted more. He had. But because Travis hadn’t approved. And Kincade hadn’t wanted to blow the partnership they’d built.
Now she was here, eyes blazing, gun aimed and ready.
“Where is he, Kincade?” she shouted, her voice cutting through the heat like a blade. “Where’s Travis?”
Kincade tensed. So she already knew her brother was missing. Or worse, she thought he had something to do with it.
He stepped out slowly, hands raised, palms open. “Easy, Cassidy,” he rasped. “I don’t have a weapon.”
Her aim didn’t budge. “Then where the hell is my brother?”
He met her stare—blue eyes to blue eyes—and said the only thing he was sure of. “I don’t know.”
Cassidy didn’t lower her weapon. Her boots crunched over the scorched gravel as she stalked closer, her eyes locked on his.
“You were supposed to have his back,” she said, her expression and voice tight and furious. “And now he’s gone.”
Kincade kept his hands up, the heat pressing against his skin like a second burn. “I know he’s gone. I woke up maybe fifteen minutes ago in what’s left of that house. I had no phone, no gear, no idea how I got here. My lungs are cooked, and my head’s splitting wide open.”
Her jaw tensed. “What the hell happened?”
“If I knew,” he snapped, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He dropped his hands slowly, gesturing to the ruins behind him. “Last thing I remember, Travis and I were supposed to meet here. He said it had to be in person. Something big. Tied to that cold case your family never got closure on.”
That earned the smallest flicker in her expression. Pain, grief, maybe guilt. But she didn’t look away.
“I got here… yesterday?” Kincade added. “Maybe the day before. It’s blank after that.”
“You blacked out,” she said flatly, and it didn’t sound as if she wanted to believe that.
Kincade clenched his jaw. “Maybe. Or maybe drugged.” He paused and gathered his breath. “Someone set that fire and knocked me out, and I don’t think it was random. Whoever did it wanted to erase something. Or someone.”
She stared at him for a beat longer. Then, slowly, she lowered the gun. But her eyes didn’t soften.
“You don’t remember,” she said under her breath. “You really don’t.”
