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He had me meet him on a bridge out past Bee Cave at sunrise. No cameras there, and no reason for anyone to remember a couple of cars parked for twenty minutes on a Wednesday morning.
We’d met there once before. That first time, I hadn’t known what it would cost me. I do now.
He was already leaning against the rail when I pulled up. No suit this time. Jeans and a t-shirt. Sunglasses. A man out for a morning walk.
He knew Eliot had accessed the Kensington file. I never figured out how he knew, but he knew.
He asked why Eliot would care so much about one fire from seven years ago. So, I told him. I told him Eliot had been in that fire. That he’d been burned over almost forty percent of his body. That one of his fellow firefighters had died that day.
The senator was quiet for a time. If his man hadn’t been standing three feet away, I would have run. I should have tried.
I was supposed to remove those seven properties from the list. But parts of the spreadsheet were locked with a password. I couldn’t crack it.
I didn’t tell the senator I hadn’t tried very hard.
He went on and on about the trouble the two Rangers were causing him. He was going to have to shut down Apex. Start over in another city. But when he ran for the U.S. Senate that would be easy.
Then his phone rang.
In almost ten years, I’d never heard him raise his voice. But when he ended the call, he threw his phone into the water and shouted, “That fucking bitch!”
A few seconds later, his man punched me in the face.