Chapter 2
Rainey's van smells like sunscreen and coffee, and the inside looks like a hoarder's paradise of camera equipment and chaos.
I knock on the back doors at seven fifty-eight in the morning. They swing open to reveal Rainey sitting cross-legged on a mattress, laptop balanced on her knees, surrounded by memory cards, lenses, and what looks like three days' worth of empty coffee cups.
"You're early," she says.
"You said eight. It's eight."
"It's seven fifty-eight."
"Close enough." I climb into the van, having to duck my head to fit under the ceiling.
The space is barely long enough to stretch out in, converted into a living area that's equal parts photography studio and mobile home.
Clothes hanging on a wire line, portable stove, mini fridge humming in the corner. "This is where you live?"
"This is where I work. I sleep here when it's convenient." She gestures to the mattress. "Sit. And don't touch anything. Some of that equipment costs more than your truck."
I sit, careful not to knock over the tripod propped against the wall.
Up close, in the morning light filtering through the tinted windows, Rainey looks younger than I thought yesterday.
Late twenties, maybe, with the kind of exhaustion around her eyes that comes from never staying in one place long enough to rest.
"How long have you been living like this?" I ask.
"Been on the road since I was seventeen. Lost my father, lost the house, couldn't afford to stay still." She pulls up a folder on her laptop. "The camera gave me a reason to keep moving."
"That's a hell of a way to live."
"It's a hell of a way to survive." She turns the laptop toward me. "These are from the Fort Worth event. Two nights before Tyler died."
The screen shows a grid of thumbnail images. Rainey clicks on the first one, and it expands to fill the screen. Tyler Brennan standing by the stock pens, talking to someone I recognize. Vic Sutton, the same stock contractor who manages Hellfire's Revenge.
"Keep going," I say.
She clicks through the sequence. Tyler and Vic talking. Tyler looking angry, gesturing. Vic looking nervous, defensive. And then in the fourth photo, something that locks my jaw shut.
Vic's holding a syringe. Small, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. And he's standing next to a pen containing Hellfire's Revenge.
"When was this taken?" I ask, voice tight.
Rainey checks the metadata. "Nine forty-three PM. The night before Tyler's ride."
The night before Tyler died. And Vic Sutton is standing there with a syringe next to the bull that killed him.
"You didn't notice this when you took it?"
"Not at the time. I was shooting the bulls for a stock genetics piece.
Tyler and Vic were background noise." She pulls up another folder.
"But after Tyler died, I went back through everything.
Took me three weeks to cross-reference it all, which is why I didn't approach you sooner.
Vic shows up in the background of shot after shot across multiple events, always near bulls, always looking nervous.
He's in at least five photos where you can see syringes or medical equipment that shouldn't be anywhere near stock pens. "
Three weeks. She's been building this case on her own for three weeks while I've been punching walls and riding bulls I shouldn't be riding.
"Why would Vic drug bulls?"
"Same reason anyone does anything on this circuit.
Money." She clicks to a spreadsheet. "I cross-referenced every event where Vic handled bulls with rider injury reports, prize purse records, and stock contractor payout filings.
All public records. High-profile rides on bulls Vic manages almost always end in injury or spectacular throws.
And those events show prize purse discrepancies.
Money going in that doesn't match what riders actually receive. "
Juice the bulls to make them more dangerous. Create spectacular failures. Skim prize money through inflated purses with the difference disappearing into someone's pocket. Make money off riders getting hurt or killed.
Tyler figured it out. Confronted Vic. And two days later, he's dead in the arena.
"I need this photo," I tell Rainey.
"Already loaded on a flash drive for you." She hands me a small USB drive. "Everything I've got. The Vic photos from Fort Worth, the background shots from other events, the spreadsheet. Full resolution, metadata intact."
She came prepared. Had the drive ready before I knocked on her door. This wasn't a journalist stumbling onto a story. This was someone who'd built a case and needed a partner.
I look at the drive in my palm, then at her. "You've been investigating this for three weeks. Why come to me now? Why not take it to the police? A news outlet?"
"I tried the circuit first. Filed a formal inquiry about Tyler's death three days after it happened.
Got a form letter back saying the matter was closed and the ruling stood.
" She meets my eyes. "A photographer with photos isn't enough, Grant.
I needed someone with insider access to the riders and stock contractors.
Someone willing to act on what I found."
"And you picked the guy with the death wish."
"I picked the only person on this circuit who's been asking the same questions I have."
There's more she's not saying. I can hear it in the pauses between her words, see it in the way her hands stay a little too still on the laptop keyboard. But she's given me more in ten minutes than I've found in three weeks of digging on my own.
"Thank you," I say.
She nods. "What are you going to do with it?"
"Find Vic Sutton. Make him tell me who paid him to juice Hellfire's Revenge." I pocket the flash drive. "And then I'm going to make sure Tyler's death doesn't get written off as an accident."
"Be careful. If there's big money involved, there are people who'll want this buried."
"I know."
I climb out of the van, turn to leave, then stop. "How many photos of Vic are on this drive?"
"Every one I've got. Three years of circuit coverage. If he's in the background, he's on that drive."
I walk across the parking lot to my truck, mind already working through the next steps. Find Vic. Get answers. Figure out who's pulling the strings. The plan is simple. The execution is going to be the hard part.
I plug the drive into my laptop and start scrolling. There's Vic, shot after shot, standing by bull pens with medical supplies visible in his hands. Different events, different venues, same nervous sweat.
She's right. There's a pattern. And now I have proof.
The afternoon grinds by. I compete in the evening event, ride a bull whose name I forget before I've walked out of the arena, and spend every minute between rides tracking Vic across the grounds.
He handles his stock with the same jittery efficiency he always has, but now that I know what to look for, the nervous sweat and the way his eyes dart toward every sudden noise tell me everything I need to know.
This man is running scared, and scared men talk.
I find him that night at the Dusty Rose, a honky-tonk bar three blocks from the arena where riders go to drink and pretend they're not counting down to their next potential injury.
The place is crowded, loud, country music blasting from speakers while cowboys and buckle bunnies dance and drink and forget tomorrow exists.
Vic's at the bar, three drinks deep and getting louder.
Wade Ashcroft's a few stools down, working through his own bottle with the grim determination of a man who rides saddle broncs for a living and drinks like he's trying to forget it.
Wade catches my eye, raises his glass in a salute that's more muscle memory than warmth, then goes back to his bourbon.
I watch Vic long enough to nurse a beer I barely taste, waiting for the right moment.
When he stumbles toward the bathroom, I follow.
The parking lot behind the bar is empty except for a few trucks and the dumpsters. Vic's leaning against the building, trying to light a cigarette with hands that shake too much to manage it.
"Need a light?" I ask.
He jerks his head up. When he sees me, the blood drains from his face. "Grant. Hey, man. I, uh. I was just. Heading out."
"Stay a minute. We need to talk."
"Nothing to talk about." He tries to walk past me. I step into his path.
"Tyler Brennan," I say. "The night before he died. You had a conversation with him by the stock pens. Want to tell me what that was about?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"See, I think you do. I think Tyler figured out you've been drugging bulls. Making them more dangerous than they naturally are. Creating spectacular accidents for someone's profit."
Vic's eyes go wide. "You're crazy."
"Am I?" I pull out my phone, show him the photo I saved from Rainey's drive. Him standing next to Hellfire's Revenge with a syringe in his hand. "This was taken the night before Tyler died. Want to explain what you were doing?"
The cigarette falls from his fingers. "I. That's not. You can't."
"Can't what? Prove you drugged the bull that killed my friend?
" I take a step closer. Vic backs up against the building.
"Here's how this is going to work. You're going to tell me who paid you to juice Hellfire.
You're going to tell me how many other bulls you've tampered with.
And you're going to tell me who else knows about this. "
"I can't." His voice cracks. "If I talk, I'm dead. You don't understand who you're dealing with."
"Then help me understand."
"No. No, I can't. I won't." He tries to push past me. "Get out of my way, Grant."
I grab his shoulder, slam him back against the wall. Not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to make it clear I'm not asking anymore.
"Tyler Brennan died because of what you did. He tried to tell me something before he bled out in the arena dirt, and he couldn't get the words out. So you're going to finish what he started." I lean in close, let him see the rage I've been carrying for three weeks. "Who paid you?"
"I don't know!" The words come out in a rush, panicked. "I never met them. Just got envelopes. Cash and instructions. They'd tell me which bull, what to give it, when. I'd do it, and the money would show up after the event."
"How long has this been going on?"
"Months. I don't know exactly."
"How many bulls?"
He shakes his head. "I stopped counting."
I should let him go. Should take this information to the authorities and let them handle it. Should be the bigger man and walk away before I do something I regret.
Instead, I hit him.
Not hard. Just enough to split his lip and make the point that I'm done being patient. He drops to his knees, hand pressed to his mouth, blood seeping between his fingers.
"You killed Tyler," I say quietly. "Maybe you didn't mean to. Maybe you thought it was just going to make the ride more exciting. But you put that drug in Hellfire's Revenge, and Tyler died because of it."
"I'm sorry." He's crying now, pathetic and broken. "I'm sorry, Grant. I needed the money. I didn't think. I didn't know."
"Where do the envelopes come from?"
"Different places. Different events. Sometimes my truck. Sometimes my locker. I never see who delivers them."
Dead end. Whoever's running this operation is smart enough to stay anonymous.
"You're going to do exactly what you've been doing," I tell him. "Take the money. Drug the bulls. Act like nothing's changed. But from now on, you report to me. Every envelope. Every instruction. Every dollar. You understand?"
He nods, still holding his bleeding mouth.
"And Vic? If you warn whoever's paying you that I'm looking into this, I'll make sure that photo of you with the syringe ends up with every news outlet in Texas. Your career will be over before the story even breaks." I crouch down to his level. "Are we clear?"
"Clear," he whispers.
I stand, step back, let him get to his feet. He stumbles away without looking back, one hand pressed to his split lip, the other fumbling for his truck keys. I watch him go, feeling the adrenaline start to wear off and the weight of what I just did settle in.
I just assaulted a man behind a bar. Beat a confession out of him.
Threatened him into cooperation. And worse than any of that, I told him to keep drugging bulls.
Every rider who draws one of Vic's animals between now and whenever this ends is climbing onto a ticking bomb because I decided finding Tyler's killer matters more than their safety.
That sits in my gut like swallowed glass, and it should.
Because it means I'm making the same calculation the people who killed Tyler make every day.
Deciding some riders' safety is an acceptable cost for the bigger picture.
The difference between me and them is that I'm doing it to stop them.
I hope to hell that's enough of a difference.
Colt's voice echoes in my head. 'Don't go looking for conspiracies where there's just bad luck.'
But this isn't a conspiracy theory anymore. It's real. Tyler was murdered. Vic knows it. I know it. And someone with enough money and power to stay anonymous is behind it.
My phone buzzes. Text from Rainey.
Did you find him?
I type back:
Yeah. Got confirmation. Bull was drugged.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
What now?
Good question. I've got proof. I've got a confession. And I've got a target painted on my back the second whoever's running this operation figures out I'm digging.
Now we find out who's paying Vic. And we make sure they pay for what happened to Tyler.
Her response comes immediately:
Count me in.
I pocket my phone, head back to my truck. The smart thing would be to go to the authorities. Turn over the evidence. Let the professionals handle it.
But the authorities already ruled Tyler's death an accident. And Rainey already tried the circuit's formal channels and got a form letter for her trouble. They're not going to reopen the case based on a photograph and the word of a stock contractor I assaulted to get a confession.
No. If I want justice for Tyler, I'm going to have to get it myself.
And apparently, I've got a photographer who's been working on this for as long as I have, willing to help me finish it.
Tomorrow, I'll figure out the next step. Tonight, I sit in my truck in the parking lot of a bar where Tyler used to beat me at pool and drink too much tequila and laugh at his own terrible jokes, and I think about what it costs to keep a promise to someone who never heard you make it.