Vaughn raised his hand, not so much in a farewell as a dismissal, a signal they’d pick this up some other time. “We’ll talk, Mathews,” he said, sliding into the driver’s side of his Ford Taurus. “We’ll talk.” A few seconds later, Darren heard the engine turn over. He stood still, as if the ground had shot up vines to strap his ankles in place. He couldn’t move, even after there was nothing left of Frank Vaughn but a swirl of red dirt in the driveway. Shit. The jig was up. He was going to have to do something about Bell.

2.

2.

HE WAS expecting only five Rangers that Friday night—Roland from Company A, stationed in Houston with Darren; Buddy Watson, Company B, working out of the sheriff’s station in Henderson County, south of Dallas; Ricky Nuñez, Company G, who’d driven all the way up from Corpus; Hector Martinez, Company E, Pecos County; and Patricia Nolan from Company F in Austin. Still, Darren knew things could get rowdy. In truth, he was counting on it; he needed cover for what he was planning. He’d brought eight pounds of barbecue and hot links up from the city, and, God bless him, he’d actually believed he wouldn’t drink, forgoing liquor just to prove he could. But hell if he wasn’t as grateful as a dog thrown a bone when Hector showed up with a bottle of Tennessee whiskey and Patricia with mescal and margarita mix. Both Buddy and Roland stocked his uncles’ old Frigidaire Flair with beer, Shiner Bock and Miller High Life. They had each of them cleared forty-eight hours, had the night and the next day in front of them to cut loose, as it had been a hell of a month for everybody. When Darren left Houston that morning, Lisa had told him not to worry about rushing back—a first. She’d stood on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye, stretching mind and body to offer her support. There had been more than fifty incidents of hate-tinged violence across the state in the four weeks since the election, and Lisa’s feelings about the badge had softened. “Just come back safe,” she said.