Page 39 of The Texas Murders

“It could have been an even fifty if you hadn’t smacked my arm when I was trying to shoot.”

“It was too dangerous,” I say.

“I knew what I was doing,” Ryan says, clearly angry. “Just because you couldn’t make the shot doesn’t mean I couldn’t.”

“No one could have made that shot,” I say. “Not with any degree of certainty.”

He slumps in his chair. “I guess we’ll never know.”

I can’t tell if he’s mad because I stopped him from taking the shot or because he didn’t get a chance to prove himself in today’s gunfight.

“I’ve got five agents that are seriously injured,” Ryan says. “What the hell happened in there, Rory?”

I tell him my perspective. When Carlos and I ran by those office doors upon entering the building, in such a hurry to take out the riflemen so our SWAT team could flood the building, Llewellyn Carpenter must have been hiding in one of the rooms and snuck up on the man he shot in the garage.

“How is he?” I ask.

“Critical.”

I lower my head.

Ryan tells us that the fire alarm was pulled in one of those rooms. Carpenter must have triggered the alarm to create chaos, then hid as we ran past. There were other kidnappers there, so it’s possible someone else could have pulled the alarm, but my gut tells me Ryan is right.

“You fucked up, Rory,” Ryan says. “You should have cleared those rooms. You shouldn’t have stopped me from taking the shot. One agent is probably going to die because of you. One of the women is still in captivity. And our prime suspect is in the wind.”

I could argue with him, but I don’t have it in me. The last time I was in a big firefight like this, Kyle Hendricks was killed. Now a man I never met might die.

I feel as low as I’ve ever felt as a Texas Ranger.

Carlos is the one to speak up.

“Ryan,” he says, “with all due respect, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Ryan furrows his brow and glares at Carlos.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault that this raid went to shit,” Carlos says. “Sometimes these things happen no matter how well you plan. But the bottom line is this thing went to hell in a handbasket from the start. If not for Rory’s quick thinking and quick action, you might have more dead law enforcement personnel on your hands.”

Ryan opens his mouth to argue, but Carlos won’t let him interrupt.

“We passed those front offices, but if we’d taken the time to clear them, that would have cost us minutes. There’s no telling how many more of your SWAT agents might have been gunned down while that happened. You have five injured agents, but you ought to be counting your blessings that you don’t have twice that many dead.

“It seems to me,” he adds, “that you’re just pissed because the only reason your operation wasn’t a complete disaster is because the Texas Rangers saved your ass.” He hooks his thumb to gesture to the world outside the operations vans. “Your men out there are shaking our hands and thanking us. And then we come in here and you decide to throw us under the bus.”

Carlos shakes his head in disapproval. Ryan’s cheeks are flushed with anger.

“And as for pushing your gun down before you couldshoot,” Carlos concludes, “it seems to me you ought to be thanking Rory rather than scolding him. Marta Rivera is still alive, wherever she is. If you’d taken the shot, you were just as likely to put a round through her skull as you were through Llewellyn Carpenter’s.”

Ryan is clearly pissed, but I’m uplifted by Carlos’s words. He’s right—the raid was a shit show, but it would have been worse if we hadn’t been there. Not better.

“Listen here,” Ryan says, his teeth practically clenched while he speaks. “You two are dismissed for the day. Go find Ava Cruz and follow your little eagle feather leads wherever they take you. Don’t come to me until you’ve got something.” Gesturing toward the wall and—by suggestion—all the activity at the crime scene on the other side, he adds, “The FBI will handle this part of the investigation. I’ll call you if I need you. But don’t expect that call anytime soon.”

With that, he looks away from us and picks up a report from his desk, acting as if we’re already gone.

CHAPTER 32

THAT NIGHT, CARLOS and I sit on our respective beds in our hotel room, watching a rerun of an NBA Championship game between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs. We bought a twelve-pack of Cerveza Sol, a pint of tequila, and some limes, and brought them back to the room to drink with our dinner. Another pizza.

“Is pizza the only food you eat?” I ask.

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