Showdown in West Texas

“No, you don’t. Let’s just call it even. After all, if I hadn’t thrown that illegal block sixteen years ago, you might be playing for the Cowboys instead of hustling drill bits for that pendejo you call a brother-in-law.”

“Water under the bridge. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Cage hung up and looked around. He hadn’t seen Sergio come out of the bathroom, but he tried the door anyway. It was unlocked and he went in to wash up.

As he stared as his own reflection—the gaunt face, the receding hairline, the tiny grooves that had begun to fan out at the corners of his eyes—he thought again of his father. Maybe he was starting to understand a little of the old man’s desperation.

Not much liking what he saw in the mirror, Cage turned on the faucet, and after washing his hands, splashed cold water on his face.

As he was drying off, he noticed that the window was open, and it occurred to him that the reason he hadn’t seen Sergio come out of the bathroom was because he’d gone through the window. Evidently, he was giving someone the slip—

A woman’s scream brought Cage’s head around with a jerk. In two strides he was across the room and flung back the door a split second before another sound registered…the steady spit-spit-spit of silenced weapons.

In the space of a heartbeat, Cage took in the bloody massacre as he stood there in the doorway. Two of the men at the table were slumped over in their chairs and a third had fallen to the floor. The fourth had tried to crawl toward the door and now lay twitching in a deepening pool of red.

Cage saw a bloody hand protruding from the end of the bar, and he recognized Sadie’s pink nail polish. She was clutching his cell phone. Two crimson splatters on the wall behind the bar marked the spot where she and Frank had been caught by the bullets.

The gunmen were still inside the bar. They were young white guys, unmasked, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. As one of them pumped another round into the man on the floor, the shooter nearest the bar looked up and caught Cage’s eye in the mirror. His reflexes seemed almost supernatural as he spun and fired in one fluid movement.

Cage jumped back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

During the hospital stay after his shooting, he’d often wondered what would happen if he found himself again on the wrong end of a loaded weapon. Would he freeze up? Beg for mercy? Roll over and play dead?

Now he had his answer. Instinct and training wouldn’t allow for any of those things.

Cage did the only thing he could do. He dove through the window and ran like hell.

Chapter Three

Keeping to the alleys and using the buildings for cover, Cage made his way back around to Main Street.

He had in mind to locate the sheriff’s office, constable, or whatever manner of law enforcement was to be found in a place that size. Even a town as tiny as San Miguel would have some kind of peace officer, who in turn would be able to summon the state police or highway patrol to provide backup. Without a weapon, Cage was pretty much useless.

Still, he hadn’t given up on the notion of finding a way back inside the bar. He couldn’t desert Sadie and Frank without knowing for certain they were dead, and he also didn’t like the idea of leaving his cell phone. It would be too easy for the bad guys to trace it back to him. Right now, anonymity was on his side. The gunmen couldn’t possibly know who he was.

Cage eased around the corner of a building. One of the shooters stood just outside the bar while the other was still presumably looking for him. Cage ducked back and flattened himself against the wall.

After a moment, he glanced around the corner again. A squad car raced up the street and slid to a halt at the curb. A man in a khaki uniform and aviator glasses got out and propped his arm on the open door. After he and the gunman conversed, the cop strolled leisurely over to the bar and glanced inside.

So much for getting help from the state police, Cage thought grimly.

As he continued to watch, the second gunman came jogging out of a nearby alley. While the three conferred, another vehicle pulled up behind the squad car.

Cage recognized the expensive SUV. It was the same one he’d seen earlier, passing through town.

Two men in dark suits and sunglasses got out. Cage was pretty sure they were cops, too, but a little higher up on the food chain.

One of the gunmen stepped forward and pointed to the bar, then gestured toward the alley from which he’d emerged a few moments earlier, undoubtedly trying to explain how he’d let a witness to the shooting get away from him.

The men in dark suits listened without comment, then the taller of the two reached up and removed his sunglasses. Turning, his eyes traveled slowly over the buildings across the street, as if some instinct drew his gaze straight to Cage.

Cage jerked back, but not before he’d gotten a good look at the man’s face. He’d never seen a crueler expression or a colder pair of eyes, and that was saying something considering the lowlifes he’d encountered.

It was only a matter of time before they found out who he was. Only a matter of minutes if they already had his cell phone. Or found his car.

As the five men fanned out, Cage decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Slipping behind the buildings along Main Street to the garage, he grabbed a couple of water bottles from Lester’s cooler and headed out of town the same way he’d come in.

“GRACE! SHERIFF STEELE, I mean. Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Grace was sitting on the bottom stair massaging her right ankle when the front door burst open, and Ethan Brennan rushed in. Ethan worked in the county clerk’s office and was a friend of Lily’s. Platonic friend, she insisted, but it had taken Grace about two seconds in Ethan’s company to figure out he had it bad for her sister.

He was just shy of thirty and cute in that intense, techno-geek kind of way. Shoving his dark glasses up his nose, he hurried over to Grace. “What happened?”

“Good question,” Grace muttered as she turned and glanced up the stairs. Had someone really pushed her from behind, or had it all happened so fast that she’d only imagined the hand on her back, the face at the top of the stairs?

Luckily, the suitcases that had tumbled down with her had somewhat cushioned her fall. Grace gingerly rotated her ankle. It wasn’t broken, thank goodness, but she was already starting to feel the bumps and bruises where she’d been banged around on the stairs.

She looked up into Ethan’s anxious face and mustered up a shaky smile. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

He held up a large envelope. “Lily asked me to come by and drop off some papers. When I didn’t see her car, I thought she might be down at the barn, so I checked there first. Then I came back up here and I found the front door ajar. I got a little nervous—” His cheeks reddened. “I probably shouldn’t have just barged in like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t know what to think when no one answered my knock—”

“Ethan, it’s fine. I’m sure you were worried about Lily.”

His blush deepened as his gaze slid away from Grace. He glanced around at all the suitcases strewn about the foyer. “What did happen here?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“You—” His gaze lifted to the staircase behind her and widened. “All the way down? You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck!”

“No kidding.”

“How did you manage to do that?”

“Not break my neck?”

“Fall,” he said seriously.

Grace paused. Did she really want to get into her suspicions with Ethan? With anyone, for that matter. Best just to keep her mouth shut until she had a chance to look around. “I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe I hooked my heel on the rug or something. I had my arms full and couldn’t see where I was going.”

His gaze went back to the suitcases. “So…you’re leaving?”

“I’m just moving into town. Maybe you could give me a hand with all this stuff.”