Page 8 of Rangers Last Promise

For several seconds, I forget how to breathe.

A woman stands on a sidewalk beneath the faded green awning of a small-town bank. She’s wearing a tan deputy’s uniform, her dark hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head. One hand rests on her duty belt while she listens to an elderly woman waving a finger in her face.

I haven’t seen Mara Ellis in fifteen years.

She was sixteen the last time I stood close enough to speak to her. All long legs, angry tears, and a stubborn chin lifted toward every Ranger who came to Grant’s funeral without bringing her brother home.

She’s not a child anymore.

But I would know her anywhere.

Grant’s eyes.

Grant’s expression when someone is testing the last thread of her patience.

Even the way she stands reminds me of him—weight balanced evenly on both feet, ready to move in any direction.

I enlarge the photograph.

A black circle surrounds the image.

Thin lines intersect directly over Mara’s chest.

Crosshairs.

Ice replaces the blood in my veins.

A second message appears.

YOUR PROMISE ENDS WITH HER.

I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve moved.

The chair crashes backward into the wall. Two instructors glance through the glass partition separating my office from the training floor, but I ignore them.

I call the number.

It rings once before a recorded voice tells me the number is no longer in service.

Of course it isn’t.

I take screenshots, save the original message, and check the photograph for anything that might tell me where it came from.

Nothing.

Whoever sent it knew what they were doing.

My hands remain steady.

They always do when someone is bleeding.

It’s afterward that they shake.

I stare at Mara’s face and hear Grant’s voice as clearly as I did in that valley fifteen years ago.

Don’t let anything happen to her, Doc.

Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. My hands were pressed against the wound in his abdomen, trying to hold together what the bullets had torn apart.