Page 6 of Rangers Last Promise

“When was it taken?”

“Yesterday morning. You’re standing outside the bank talking to Mrs. Grady.”

I remember the conversation. Mrs. Grady wanted to report her neighbor for allowing his maple tree to drop leaves in her yard. It took me twenty minutes to convince her that falling leaves weren’t a criminal offense.

“There’s something else,” Tate says.

“What?”

“The photograph was taken through a rifle scope.”

The room seems to tilt beneath me.

I look out the front window again, searching the pasture, the trees, every place a man could hide.

“Where are you now?” Tate asks.

“At Mom’s house.”

“I’m sending someone.”

“No. I’m leaving.”

“Mara, wait inside until⁠—”

A flash of sunlight catches my eye near the cottonwoods.

Metal.

A scope.

I drop behind the sofa as the front window explodes.

Glass rains across the room.

The bullet buries itself in the wall exactly where my head was seconds ago.

“Mara!” Tate shouts through the phone.

I crawl toward the kitchen, keeping the sofa between me and the window.

“Shots fired,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. “North side of my mother’s property. Shooter near the cottonwoods.”

“I’m on my way. Stay down.”

I reach the kitchen and grab the old shotgun Mom kept above the pantry door. I check the chamber with trembling fingers.

Loaded.

Of course it is.

My mother may have worried about my job, but she was still an Ellis.

I move to the back door and peer through the narrow window. My SUV is parked twenty feet away. Reaching it would give me a radio, my sidearm, and better cover.

It would also put me in the open.

A vehicle engine roars beyond the creek.