Page 238 of Rangers Last Promise

Not aimed at me.

I look toward the conference table.

Grant’s lockbox sits exactly where it did before the shot.

A deep groove cuts through the tabletop less than an inch from it.

Mara sees it too.

“He wasn’t trying to kill us.”

“He was shooting at the box.”

Sheriff Tate sweeps his flashlight over the gouged wood.

“Or warning us that he could.”

I look at the lockbox.

“No.”

“What?” Mara asks.

“Kane said Vance wants the list.”

“He also said it isn’t inside the box.”

“Vance may not know that.”

Sheriff Tate’s radio crackles.

“Sheriff, suspect vehicle abandoned behind the old feed store.”

“Driver?”

“Gone.”

“Start a perimeter. Don’t approach the vehicle until the bomb unit clears it.”

“Copy.”

Mara glances toward the broken window.

“He planned an escape route before he ever made the call.”

“Vance has been planning this for fifteen years,” I say.

“That ends now.”

She walks toward the conference table.

I know that expression.

Grant probably knew it too.

“What are you doing?”

Mara picks up the lockbox.