Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
BEFORE LEAVING, CARLOS and I talk briefly with Ava, who wants to know if she should try to interview Isabella Luna tomorrow without us.
“Might be better if it’s just me,” she says. “Woman to woman. Tigua to Tigua.”
“Just wait,” I tell her. “We only have to put it off one day. Carlos and I will be ready then.”
“The raid’s at 5:00 a.m.,” she says. “Can’t we do the interview in the afternoon?”
Carlos and I discuss this possibility, but both of us worry that we’ll be tied up most of the day.
Ava doesn’t seem thrilled about this but defers to us. I know she doesn’t like being told what to do, especially by outsiders, but I think she can see the benefit in all three of us addressing this interview with a coordinated plan. I stood up to Ryan today on behalf of our investigation, and tonight the two of them came to my rescue. In a short time, we’ve become a team.
I tell Marcos it was nice to meet him, and he shakes my hand with his steel vise. After Ava and her fiancé walk to their car, Carlos says he’s going to hit the restroom before we leave, which gives me a few minutes alone with Megan in the parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll have to take a rain check tonight.”
“I’m not in a hurry,” she says. “I just want to spend more time with you. That’s all.”
“I want that, too,” I say. “I’m not leaving El Paso anytime soon.”
I stare into her beautiful eyes, sparkling in the streetlights.
“Maybe we’re going too fast,” she says.
She’s right. If we fall for each other while I’m here in El Paso and it turns out she doesn’t get the job at Baylor, where will that leave us? Either what we have here in West Texas will amount to nothing more than a summer fling, or I’ll be right back where I was with Willow—trying to maintain a long-distance relationship.
“Well, isn’t this tender?” a familiar voice says snidely.
Megan rolls her eyes as her professor steps out into the parking lot and eyes us up and down. He doesn’t look particularly bent out of shape, and I realize maybe I was wrong about his intentions toward Megan.
When Carlos steps outside, he says to Neil, “Yo, Doc, make sure and find those authors I was telling you about and read up on them. There will be a quiz next time I see you.”
After we leave, Carlos and I swing by the hotel to change back into work clothes, then head toward the FBI rendezvous point. The streets are empty. The overcast sky seems to catch the light of the city, causing a soapy grayness to hang over the streets.
Both Carlos and I are quiet, focusing on what lies ahead. The nerves you feel before a raid are like the jitters you feel suiting up for a football game—only a hundred times more powerful.
I ask Carlos again why he joined the Rangers, hoping for a serious answer this time.
“I just wanted to fight for what’s right,” he says. “I figured I could do more about injustices in the world by wearing the badge rather than fighting against it.”
Wise words , I think, and then I wonder why he was passed over for promotion.
Everything I’ve seen from Carlos has been competent and professional—aside from his sense of humor, and even that only makes him more personable, in my opinion. He’d make a good lieutenant, as far as I can tell. I wonder why Captain Kane is so keen on grooming me for the next lieutenant position when there’s already a qualified candidate interested. I can hear Ava’s criticism of the Rangers in my mind, but I’d like to think things have changed.
“What about you, Rory?” he asks. “Why did you want to become a Ranger?”
I shrug. “I didn’t have the talent to make it as a country singer.”
He gives me a look that says, You’re not as good at the jokes as I am .
“My dad taught me to help people, if I could,” I say. “This seemed like a good way to do it. Plus,” I add, honestly, “I was good at shooting. I was fast. I was accurate. It came naturally to me. And I liked the discipline of practice, trying to get better and better. It seemed a shame to let the skill go to waste. Of course, I was too na?ve to realize…”
When I hesitate, he completes my thought for me: “It’s a lot different shooting at a target than a human being.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just because you can do one doesn’t mean you can do the other.” We’re quiet for a moment, then I add, “I guess it turned out I could do both.”
As we leave the highway and approach the abandoned warehouse where the team is meeting up, I ask Carlos, “Have you ever…?”
“Once,” he says, serious, no sign of his comedian side. “Before I was in the Rangers. I was a sheriff’s deputy in Maverick County. Went to serve a warrant on a meth dealer accused of statutory rape. He opened the door with a .38. He missed and I didn’t.” After the truck chews up another half mile of road, he adds, “He was a bad person, just about as bad as they come, but that didn’t make it easy.”
We pull through a chain-link fence to a lot thrumming with activity. There are several cars and Ryan Logan’s recognizable office on wheels. Dozens of law enforcement officials are there, suited up in bulletproof vests and carrying rifles. I spot Ryan talking on his radio and barking orders to the men and women around him.
I don’t like the eager, cocky expressions on their faces. Everyone looks overconfident to me. They all remind me of Randy—excited for the fight to come.
And we all know how that turned out for Randy.
Before stepping out of the truck, I point to the star on my chest and say to Carlos, “Someone has to wear these badges. Better that it’s people like us, who take seriously what it means to pull the trigger. It’s the people who want to shoot that I worry about.”
Carlos nods in agreement. “Let’s get our vests on. I’ve got a feeling we might have to use our guns today.”