Page 11 of Lone Star Target

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Everything inside Kit went still. A temporary reaction. Quickly followed by an avalanche of emotions. At the top of that emotional barrage was a sickening dread that she had been right about her brother.

Even after seeing that text on the burner, Kit had hoped she was wrong. But this sounded like a confirmation that she’d dreaded.

She resisted the urge to have her nephew read out the texts and instead focused on something that was even more important. “Brandon, I want you to lock your door and stay inside your apartment. If you have a security system, turn it on.”

“You think I could be in danger?” he asked, suddenly sounding much younger than his nineteen years.

“I just don’t want you to take any chances,” she settled for saying. “I’m on the way there now.”

Kit glanced at Jace to see if he was going to give her any argument about that. He groaned, but it wasn’t an objection. It was resignation that they had no choice but to go there. Then, he motioned toward his dash monitor. “Put in the address to Brandon’s apartment in my GPS.”

“I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes,” she added to Brandon.

Kit ended the call and entered the address that she took from her phone while Jace used his hands free to send a text to Angel to let him know about the change of plans.

“Thank you,” she told him after Jace made the turn that would take them in the right direction. To Brandon’s apartment on the north side of the city.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Jace was quick to reply. “You know your brother could have left those phones for Brandon to find, figuring he’d call you and that you’d come running right over to see them and to check on your nephew. This could be a trap.”

“Yes, that has occurred to me.”

Kit sighed. And worried. Mercy, she worried.

Not for herself but for Brandon.

“I hate to think Trevor could use his own son like this, but at this point, I have to admit my brother could be capable of anything.” She paused. “Or else someone is making Trevor look guilty.”

Jace glanced at her—and their surroundings. Obviously, he was dealing with his own worries, and that included them being attacked along the way to Brandon’s apartment.

“You mean your father or Marvin,” Jace provided. “Roy,” he added, and a whirling multicolored circle popped up on his dash monitor along with the map on the GPS. “Do a probability run on current assignment, Katherine Barclay. Calculate stats for persons of interest in her file. Who’s most likely to be the perpetrator of the two attempts to harm her?”

“Roy?” she questioned.

“It’s an AI security app that Ruby’s techs created. It’s installed on my phone and vehicles.”

“Handy,” she muttered. “Why is it called Roy?” But then she waved it off. “From the original Blade Runner movie. It used to be your favorite.”

“Still is,” he answered. Jace did another of those sweeping glances around them. “FYI, these phones that your nephew found probably can’t be used as evidence against Trevor.”

She made a weary sound of agreement because that had already occurred to her. It was the chain of custody glitch again. Brandon had removed the phones instead of calling in the cops. Probably because he hadn’t been thinking of criminal charges and such. He’d likely just been surprised when he’d seen the phone and then had wanted to know what was on them.

Apparently, what was on them had been very bad for him to call her.

Still, she wished the wannabe cop part of Brandon had kicked in, and he’d realized that touching and removing the phones wasn’t a good idea. Of course, he’d had no actual police training, and he’d likely just reacted at the shock of seeing them. Specifically, seeing what was on them.

“Stats for the case file of Katherine Barclay,” Roy said. His voice wasn’t robotic sounding but rather a replication of the character from the movie. “Probability that Ramsey Barclay is the perpetrator is seventy-four percent.”

“Ramsey,” Jace muttered. Not actually a question, but the AI app treated it as if it’d been one.

“Correct,” Roy responded, “with the second highest probability being Marvin Shoemaker. Third is Trevor Barclay. Fourth is Brandon Barclay.”

“Brandon?” Jace and she said in unison. And those were questions.

“Correct,” the app repeated. “Both Brandon and his mother, Deanna Barclay, have the same probability statistic.”

That didn’t cause the tightness in her chest to ease up. “I can’t see either Brandon or his mother involved in his,” she said to Jace. “Deanna is the silver spoon, garden club type. She frets when she chips a fingernail.”

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