Page 34 of Lone Star Wanted
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Chapter Nine
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The office smelled like old paper, stale coffee, and disinfectant. Kincade sat stiffly in one of the two chairs across from the county sheriff’s desk, his hands resting on his knees, his mind working overtime. Cassidy paced behind him, her boots soft against the worn tile floor.
They’d just finished giving their statements. Every detail of the shooting, every move leading up to it. Of course, they’d left some things out such as finding the phone near the quarry.
Now they waited.
Sheriff Becker had left them in his office while he went to coordinate the crime scene response. That was what he said, anyway. Kincade wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure of anything when it came to the county sheriff.
The office was quiet except for the tick of the wall clock and the occasional creak of Cassidy’s footsteps.
“Becker shot him in the back,” she said suddenly, voice tight.
Kincade nodded. “Yeah.”
“He must have done that to shut him up,” she muttered.
Kincade leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, eyes fixed on the blotter across the desk. “Wouldn’t be the first time a guilty man put a bullet in a cleaner’s chest to tie off a loose end.”
Cassidy didn’t answer. But he could feel her tension from across the room.
There was still no ID on the shooter. No name. No prints. No indication of who he was or where he came from.
But Kincade didn’t need the full report to make his guess.
“Whoever he was,” he said, “he wasn’t here for himself. That was a job. A paid hit.”
“Hired thug,” Cassidy added. “Professional enough to hit a truck engine at a distance, but not smart enough to make it out alive.”
Kincade nodded slowly. And maybe that was the point. Someone hadn’t sent him to escape. They’d sent him to finish the job or to die trying. Which meant whoever was behind this wasn’t just desperate.
They were ruthless.
Unfortunately, the shooter’s death left them with a whole bunch of unanswered questions. It didn’t help that there was still no word from Travis. That chewed at Kincade more than he wanted to admit. Travis was good, careful, and always had a contingency plan. But no follow-up after telling them the meeting was compromised? That wasn’t like him.
Cassidy leaned against the wall near the file cabinet, arms crossed, jaw tight. She hadn’t looked away from the floor in the last few minutes.
She was clearly worried. And not just about Travis. Someone had blown their meeting wide open. Someone with eyes on their movements.
Jericho was already working that angle. He’d given his statement and ducked out fast, heading back to Maverick Ops’ headquarters to start pulling every piece of drone footage and surrounding surveillance feeds he could get his hands on. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get some of those answers they needed.
Cassidy let out a low groan, tilting her head back and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes.
Kincade pushed up from the chair and walked to her, slow and steady. She dropped her hands when he reached her, and he didn’t hesitate. He pulled her in, arms wrapping tight around her shoulders.
She didn’t resist.
In fact, she leaned in, the tension bleeding out of her inch by inch.
“How bad is the adrenaline crash?” he asked.
She gave a soft, humorless huff against his chest. “On a scale of one to jumping out of my own skin?”
“Yeah.”
