Texas Hold 'Em Read Free

discussing nada .” He shook his head, his momentary hesitation quickly replaced by a cocky attitude.
    Courage from a crystal , she thought. “You’re making a mistake.”
    He shook his head with a twitchy movement. “Just hand me the keys, bitch.”
    She sighed loudly, making her acquiescence as obvious as possible. “Okay…okay. Hold your horses.” Tilting to her left as if to open the door, she eased her right hand toward the gap between the seats. Her fingers should have found the butt of the Glock she kept there, the one she always made sure was loaded, but they brushed the floor instead.
    “Don’t bother,” he gloated. “I already took it.” He curled his hand impatiently, his gaze darting toward the car keys. “Gimme the keys.”
    Rose sent a quick glance toward the corner of the lot. She’d noticed the street light was out. Bob Wilson, the county’s one-man maintenance department, had taken his daughter to visit the university in Austin. Which was also why Rose’s broken vehicle window hadn’t been repaired when she’d noticed it the day before.
    The shattered streetlight, the broken window, the kid with a gun standing beside her window… Meth-heads didn’t plan things—all they did was act. Someone had searched the SUV, taken her gun, and scouted the parking lot, even figured out what time she’d been leaving the station tonight. What she’d assumed was an ordinary carjacking slowly began to seem like more than that.
    “We have a call-in system,” she warned. “If I don’t radio dispatch every fifteen minutes, someone will realize I’m in trouble, and they’ll close the county roads.” Her threat was only partially true. Check-in was expected in thirty-minute intervals and only happened when the officer was on duty. Unfortunately, she had just clocked out.
    “I’ll be long gone by then, Miz Sheriff. And I don’t need no stinkin’ roads.” He laughed behind his mask as he drew a line down the side of her jaw with the barrel. She couldn’t stop the concern that skittered down her spine. “Get out of the car, and when you’re out, turn around.”
    Whatever you do, don’t let anyone control the situation, she’d lectured her deputies when she’d first been elected sheriff. Always stay calm. Think smart. Take care.
    Her instructions had been sound, but they weren’t doing her any good at the moment. To make matters worse, she’d changed before leaving the station. Just seeing a uniform intimidated some people, but she’d finally agreed to dinner with Dan Strickland, a local hunting guide and former boyfriend, and she was wearing one of the few dresses she owned. Another stupid mistake—in more ways than one.
    Maybe she could make the boy think he’d found her only weapon. Her service revolver was hidden in her purse on the floorboard in front of the passenger seat.
    “You’ve already got my gun,” she said. “There’s money in my wallet—it’s right here in my bag—let me get it. You can have it all. Credit cards, too. Take them, I don’t care.”
    “I’m not that dumb, so shut the hell up and get out.”
    In the second of silence that followed, a gust of wind powered an empty can across the parking lot. Even Pearl Mobley’s obnoxious Jack Russell was quiet for a change, leaving all her neighbors watching their television in peace. In the quiet, comprehension dawned. “This is about Ramos, isn’t it?”
    Uncertainty suddenly flickered in his dark eyes.
    Kingson Landry, her chief deputy, had arrested a drug mule Sunday night as he’d darted through one of the arroyos dotting the Landry ranch. The smuggler obviously hadn’t planned on King riding his fence line at midnight. She wasn’t too sure what had brought King out that time of night to do what he was supposedly doing, but had been glad he’d caught the man.
    King had finally learned that the mule supposedly worked for a low-rung drug seller named Juan Enrique, and that’s whose drugs he’d had on him