Page 30 of Lone Star Wanted
Neither Cassidy nor Kincade said a word.
Moran sighed. Then, like the lap dog he appeared to be, he followed the mayor out the door and closed it behind him.
The silence that filled the house in their wake was thick and heavy. But for the first time in what felt like hours, they were alone again. And it was time to move.
As soon as the front door shut behind Moran and Vance, Kincade went to the guest room and grabbed his backpack.
“Let’s move,” he said when he rejoined Cassidy.
She took out her keys, and they stepped out into the crisp morning air. The sky was still pale with early light, a slow dawn stretching across Blanco Pass.
“I’ll make sure no one put a tracking device on the truck,” he explained.
Kincade dropped the pack in the bed, unlocked a side pocket, and pulled out a compact scanning device—small, matte black, and quiet. One of Ruby’s latest toys.
Cassidy leaned on the hood while he crouched low and swept the device under the chassis, along the wheel wells, behind the bumper.
Nothing.
Still, Kincade gave it one more pass just to be sure.
When he stood, he gave a nod. “We’re clean.”
They climbed in, and Cassidy started the engine. He kept an eye on the side mirror as she backed down the gravel drive, scanning every shadow along the tree line.
“I don’t see anyone,” she said, her eyes flicking between the mirror and the rearview.
“Neither do I,” Kincade replied. “But swing through town before we head out. Double back once or twice. Let’s make sure.”
She nodded and took a turn that would loop them around Blanco Pass before heading out toward the outskirts. Kincade kept watch, every parked car and slow-moving sedan a potential tail.
Still nothing.
But paranoia had kept him alive this long.
They passed the faded city limits sign and turned onto a cracked old farm road. A few minutes later, a rusted marquee came into view, barely readable under the morning haze.
Lone Star Drive-In – Established 1963.
The place looked like time had forgotten it. Kincade hoped that included their enemies.
They turned off the main road and followed a narrow gravel path flanked by rusting fences and weeds nearly waist high. At the end of the road sat the Lone Star Drive-In, its cracked parking lot spreading out in wide, jagged sections like a relic from another time.
The screen loomed in the distance, still standing but weather-worn and stained. Most of the metal speaker posts were gone, pulled out or knocked down years ago. The projectionbooth stood crooked on its foundation, one window shattered and boarded over with old plywood. Grass and scrub had taken over the edges, turning the place into something half-wild.
Cassidy eased the truck to a stop near the back row, tires crunching over loose gravel. The engine idled in the stillness.
“Do you see Jericho?” she asked, scanning the empty lot.
Kincade squinted toward the edges of the property, eyes moving from the trees near the screen to the projection booth.
“No,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s not here. Jericho likes to keep out of sight until he’s needed.”
Cassidy nodded, but her grip tightened on the steering wheel.
There was no sign of Travis either. No vehicle. No shadow moving in the distance. Just the heavy hush of morning and the soft hiss of wind across broken pavement.
Kincade glanced around again. “Travis is just as solid at being a ghost as Jericho is.”
