Page 8 of Lone Star Wanted
Less than a minute later, her phone chimed with a response. Cassidy tapped the screen to check it. “She’s diverting Jericho to the quarry.”
Kincade nodded, just a little of the tension uncoiling in his shoulders. Jericho would no doubt be needed if this situation went sideways.
“You think the county deputies beat us there?” Kincade asked, wishing they could teleport and get to Travis now.
“Probably not yet,” she said, eyes still on the road. “The sheriff’s office is just as far out as we are, maybe farther depending on who’s responding.”
He glanced at the dash, then back at the horizon. “Give me a backup piece.”
Cassidy didn’t hesitate. She reached over, popped the glove compartment, and pulled out a compact Glock wrapped in a cloth. “Mag’s full.”
Kincade took it, checked the chamber, then slipped it into the waistband of his jeans. “Thanks.”
She didn’t answer. Just pressed the accelerator even harder.
The landscape was changing now, the brush getting thicker, the road narrowing as it climbed toward higher ground. The quarry wasn’t far.
Neither was whatever was waiting for them.
The trees thickened as the road dipped, the terrain turning rougher. Kincade kept one hand near the grip of the Glock tucked at his waist, his pulse steady but climbing. They were getting close. He could feel it.
Cassidy’s phone rang, the screen lighting up with an incoming call. She muttered under her breath. “Damn it.”
Kincade glanced over. “Problem?”
“It’s the sheriff.” Her lips tightened. “Of course it is.” Groaning, she tapped the speaker icon. “Sheriff Moran,” she greeted, the worry and impatience coating her voice.
“Cassidy,” Sheriff Hank Moran said. “Tell me you’re not headed toward the quarry.”
She paused just long enough to be defiant. “I’m on vacation, remember? Just out for a drive.”
There was a beat of silence. Then, Moran cursed. “If you’re heading out there, turn around. Right now. That’s county jurisdiction and I don’t want Blanco Pass tangled in this.”
Cassidy’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel. “Sheriff, please don’t make me choose between my badge and my brother.”
Another pause. This one longer and heavier.
Then another curse from Moran. “Hell, Cass. Fine. But be careful. And stay out of the county’s way. You’re not officially on this, you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” she muttered.
Kincade didn’t believe it for a second. There was no way Cassidy was going to stand back and let county take the lead. Not when it was her brother on the line. And truth be told, neither was he. Travis wasn’t just his partner. He was the closest thing Kincade had to family. And whoever set him up had tried to erase Kincade, too.
He shifted in his seat, trying to get a clearer look at the terrain ahead, but something hit him all at once.
A jolt. Not physical. Internal.
His breath caught as a rush of images slammed into his skull—disjointed, too fast to hold onto.
Travis in uniform, green and wide-eyed, fresh out of the police academy. Then older, harder, in military fatigues, crouched beside Kincade in desert sand. Then at Maverick Ops, shaking hands with Ruby, smirking across a shooting range. And finally, Travis again, arriving at the safe house. Dust on his boots. Tension in his shoulders.
But he hadn’t been alone.
There’d been someone in the passenger seat of his SUV.
Kincade groaned and pressed his temple, the sudden spike of pain blinding for a second.
Cassidy glanced over. “What? What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
