Page 7 of Rangers Last Promise

I catch a glimpse of a dark truck tearing across the McKinley pasture before it disappears behind the trees.

“He’s running,” I tell Tate.

“Do not follow him.”

“I’m not planning to.”

It’s a lie, and we both know it.

“Mara.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

That’s probably a lie too.

I keep the shotgun raised as I return to the living room. Wind blows through the shattered window, stirring the photographs I left on the coffee table.

One slides onto the floor.

Grant and his Rangers stare up at me from fifteen years ago.

Blaze.

Wolf.

Trigger.

Grant.

Doc.

Men I remember standing at my brother’s funeral.

Men who have carried the truth about those final days for fifteen years.

My brother knew someone had betrayed them.

Now someone knows I found his journal.

And suddenly I need to know why the Rangers who fought beside Grant have spent all these years refusing to talk about the brother I lost.

2

DOC

The photograph arrives at 4:17 in the afternoon.

I’m finishing paperwork in the office of a private trauma-training facility outside Fort Worth when my phone vibrates across the desk.

Unknown number.

Most people ignore messages from numbers they don’t recognize.

I don’t.

There are too many ghosts in my past, and every one of them knows how to find me.

I open the message.