Page 161 of Lone Star

“Oh, rich,” Fox said.

“–and murder.”

“Hey, I didn’t murder anyone – ow!” Jackal said, the last after the distinct sound of him being smacked across the back of the head.

The woman from the precinct earlier, with the blonde ponytail, leaned in to whisper something in Cantrell’s ear. He nodded, and she moved toward the open garage bay doors with two other agents in tow.

Behind Candy, rough hands took his wrists and hauled them down to the small of his back. The first cuff went on, cold, its tiny little whizzing clicks loud as a vault door closing. He could have gotten loose – could have shaken off the cop, and turned, and punched his lights out.

And been shot for his trouble.

Even as his panic mounted – high up in his throat now, enough to choke him – he knew that he couldn’t do Michelle any good if he was dead. “We put down some cartel dogs,” he said, “and I don’t consider that murder.”

“The only Dogs here,” Cantrell said quietly, “are the ones wearing your patches.”

“Do you know what this is?” Fox craned his neck to glance over his shoulder at Candy, and was clapped over the ear by the cop cuffing his wrists. He didn’t flinch, but faced forward; raised his voice loud enough to be heard. “This is our mate Cantrell covering his own ass.”

Cantrell’s face did something strange – Candy read it as a brief flare of panic, hastily tamped down and covered with a scowl.

“He was content to let us do all the dirty work while we could – too many hoops to jump through, too much red tape on his end. At least, that was what I thought.”

He was hit in the head again, hard enough that Candy knew it had to leave his ears ringing.

“Let him talk,” Candy snarled. Two sets of hands gripped him – a man on either side of him, at each elbow – and hauled him up to his feet. He flexed his arms, and felt the cuffs bite into his wrists; felt the hands holding him tighten in sudden spasms of panic as they felt his biceps swell. “You owe us a fucking explanation for this.”

Cantrell ignored him.

“Sir!” one of the agents who’d gone into the garage called. “We’ve got victims. One needs EMTs.”

Fox chuckled.

“Victims?” Candy asked. “Victims?” He was ignored.

A van pulled up at the curb, plain blue, printed with the Department of Corrections’ seal.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Load them,” Cantrell said.

Candy got another ungentle shove from the shotgun barrel, and was pressed forward toward the van, behind his brothers.

Fox was ahead of him. He risked speaking again, and the words hit Candy like a punch. “Found some paperwork inside. Luis is Cantrell’s son.”

Fox got smacked again; a tip of his head was the only sign the blow had registered.

But Candy didn’t need to ask for clarification. If Fox had said it, then it was so; if he’d found paperwork, he’d known whether it was real or fake.

My father, Luis had said on the phone. Had said to poor dead Benny.My father runs the cartel.

An FBI agent at the head of a blossoming, dangerous criminal organization. It made so much terrible sense it left Candy reeling and sick. A part of him felt duped, but a larger part grappled with the impossibility of it. How could he have known? How could anyone have known?

They were marched around the nose of the van. Colin was the first one in, and Candy could hear him go, “Holy fucking–” before he was shoved along down the center aisle.

A few moments later, he realized what the exclamation had been about. He went up the steps and did a double-take when he got a good look at the uniformed officer driving the van. Though he’d never spent much one-on-one time with the guy, the low-lidded, impassive blue gaze of Michael McCall was unmistakable.

Fuck, Candy thought, a laugh bubbling up in his chest.

He swallowed it, and turned his head, gaze landing on the other officer, the one riding in the front row of the van, baton laid across his knees. His uniform fit terribly, the fabric bunching and stretching across the shoulders, gapping at the buttons. And why wouldn’t it, when the man filling it out was Mercy Lécuyer, comically stone-faced beneath the brim of his cap; Candy could see a few loose, long black hairs that had fallen out from under it, dangling down past his shoulders.

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