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“That’s the thing about law enforcement,” he says. “Sometimes your hands are tied. All you have is bad options. I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I blamed the system, said I was quitting in protest. But the truth is I just couldn’t hack it anymore. I couldn’t face those impossible choices.”
I feel sorry for asking him these questions and putting him through this, but as we’re wrapping things up, he actually seems relieved to have gotten all of this off his chest. Maybe me coming here will end up being a good thing for him after all.
There is a gentle knock on the door and Josie pokes her head in.
“Y’all about ready to knock off for the night?” she says. “Our guests are going to arrive soon.”
“We’re all done,” I say. “Thanks, Parker, for taking the time.”
“For you, Rory,” he says with a heartfelt smile, “anything.”
All the tension created from my impromptu visit seems to have abated.
Parker and I rise to our feet, and I’m just about to thank him again for his help, but then Josie pokes her head back into the room.
“Rory,” she says, “you didn’t happen to bring your guitar, did you?”
I can’t help but grin.
“I did, actually.”
“After supper, we’re going to light a bonfire,” she says. “You mind playing us a few songs? The kids will dance to just about anything.”
“That would be nice,” I say and, for a moment, mean it.
But then I realize why I’m here and I feel ashamed for the way they’ve welcomed me—a spy—into their home.
CHAPTER 10
I HEAD OUT to my truck, where I take off my badge and lock up my gun. I remove my tie, loosen the top buttons of my shirt, and roll up my sleeves. I toss my hat in on the passenger seat and tell myself to just enjoy the evening.
Forget the espionage.
These are good people, and in my head, I’m already preparing my speech to Carlos saying I couldn’t find anything suspicious.
I carry my guitar case back and set it near the fire pit halfway between the garden and the orchard. The heat of the day is starting to break. The whole lawn is lush, but there’s a swath that’s particularly green and bushy, no doubt from the leach line running underground. The orchard’s peach and fig trees are starting to bear fruit.
I help Parker and Josie get ready, unfolding a couple of portable tables, covering them with checkered tablecloths, and setting out paper plates, plastic cups, and utensils. Parker carries an armload of lawn chairs from the barn, and I offer to help but he waves me off as he goes back for more.
Another family arrives, with three kids roughly the same age range as Parker and Josie’s children. The little ones run around in the grass and play on the fallen oak at the back of the property. They use the extra green strip of grass from the leach line as a running track and take turns racing each other.
Josie introduces me to the couple, Harvey and Angie Curry. Harvey, short but fit, with a thick goatee and a toothpick between his teeth, looks at me askance when Josie tells him what I do for a living. People often react differently when they learn you’re a Texas Ranger. Some people treat you with a certain reverence and awe—and they’re filled with questions about what the job is like. Others put their guard up right away, not sure quite how to act. It’s not necessarily that they’re hiding something.
But it could be.
That’s the way Harvey reacts, squinting at me and taking a step back before trying to act normal and shake my hand.
“You come to take me away?” he says, a joke that lands flatly because he can’t quite deliver it.
I shake his hand and try my own joke.
“Not yet,” I say. “We’re still compiling evidence.”
Angie, a short woman with a round cute face and curly black hair, laughs loudly, which works to deflate the tension. We talk for a few minutes and Harvey seems to loosen up.
Another couple arrives, Ellis and Candace Kilpatrick. They’re younger than the rest of us, maybe not yet thirty, and have only one child in tow, a toddler who looks like he hasn’t been walking long. The child is wearing a shirt that saysFUTURE DIVER, with an illustration of an old copper dive helmet.
When Josie introduces us, Ellis looks me up and down and says, with much better delivery than Harvey, “You come to take me away?”
