Page 53 of Maximus

“Find anything else at her house?”

“Nope. Not a damn thing. Whoever rigged it was good.”

“Not good enough to wait for her and the kids to be in the car before he blew his load and blew it up empty,” I reminded him.

“I don’t think that was a mistake. Though whoever blew up the car miscalculated your distance from it.”

“You think I was the target?”

“Yep. With you out of the way, he’s got a clean shot at Eva.”

“Fucking Christ, Tex, you’re saying someone wants her alive?”

“Before her car turned into a bomb, I thought someone wanted her dead. Now I’m thinking they just plain want her. Not that I think she’ll be left breathing at the end of whatever’s in store for her.”

“No one’s getting their fucking hands on her or the boys.”

“Why do you think I sent you?”

“Yeah, about that, Tex. Why did you send me and not Dec or one of the other guys?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?”

What the fuck?

“No, I haven’t. But I have to tell you, it’s something I’ve thought a lot about.”

“Because I knew, once you got to know her, you’d understand.”

Could he be anymore cryptic?

“Understand what, Tex?”

“Why she did what she did. Why she doesn’t trust anyone. Why she is the way she is.”

“She seems to trust me just fine. I’m sure—”

“If she trusts you already, then I absolutely made the right choice sending you in.”

“That makes no sense. She would’ve trusted—”

“If you think that, Maximus, you’re a fuckin’ idiot. She doesn’t trust anyone. Other than you, I’ve never met someone so distrusting in all my life.”

Maximus? Christ, no one calls me by my full name—ever.

“I think you’re wrong,” I noted.

“I know I’m right; as a matter of fact, when all this shit blows over, you and I will sit down, have a beer, and you can tell me all of the ways I’m right.”

Tex had lost his mind.

“You inviting me up to Pennsylvania to have that beer?” I asked.

I’d only ever seen Tex in person a handful of times in all the years I’d known him and he rarely invited anyone to do anything with him.

“Sure am, but that invitation is only valid if you bring Eva and the boys.”

“What the hell?”