The Last Honorable Man Read Free Page A

were dirty. The sun glared off streaked panesthen disappeared into the darkness beyond the jagged edges of glass.
    He’d had to fire. Done the only thing he could. If he hadn’t, Hayes would have been killed.
    That didn’t make being responsible for an innocent man’s death any easier to bear.
    Damn it, why hadn’t he seen Garcia?
    That wasn’t the only question that plagued Del. He had others. Like what was Garcia doing there in the first place? Had he been on duty? Who had called in the anonymous tip that had led the rangers to be there at the same time. And who was the woman? Why was she there?
    Del had been kept out of the loop in the investigation. The investigators wouldn’t tell him anything, except that the woman’s story seemed to check out. Elisa Reyes was from a small South American nation called San Ynez. She had only arrived in the U.S. a few hours before the shooting, had gone to Garcia’s apartment and then to his work address when she found he wasn’t home. She’d gotten to the warehouse just in time to see the gun battle. She didn’t seem to know anything about the deal that was supposed to have gone down there.
    Del had tried to get more out of the DPS inspectors, but they’d stonewalled him. Matheson hadn’t been much more forthcoming. Damn it, it had been nearly a week, and they hadn’t cleared him in the shooting yet. The press had declared him a vigilante racist, and no one official was saying anything different.
    He’d like to take those reporters to his farm up near Sherman and introduce them to his abuela, the grandmother who had raised him. She’d have a thing or two to say about Del’s supposed prejudice against Hispanics.Then again, what she would say about it wouldn’t likely be printable.
    He almost smiled, picturing her face in mother-hen mode, protecting her chick. Almost. Because as soon as she chased the reporters away, she’d have a thing or two to say to him.
    â€œYou’re a good boy, Del Cooper, with a good name, an honorable name,” she’d always told him. “You do what’s right, pay your debts and you’ll keep it that way.”
    He’d tried. For the most part he thought he’d succeeded, until five days ago. He’d done the right thing by shooting. He was sure of it. But now he had a responsibility to the woman at the warehouse. A debt he wasn’t sure he could ever pay. He only knew he had to try. He had to pass on his respects for her loss, if nothing else. But first he had to find her.
    Down below, the crowd around the gravesite began to break up. Muttering to himself, Del walked back to his Land Rover. Inside, he shoved the car into gear and drove, his mind still on the woman.
    What would he have said to her if he had found her? I’m sorry I killed…who? An innocent man? Someone you cared about? But I had no choice. It was a righteous shoot. Righteous…
    His throat closing around that final word, Del headed to the back road through the cemetery, winding down a gravel drive to avoid passing the media vultures. This part of the cemetery was older. Century oaks towered over moss-covered headstones and larger monuments. Gnarled branches seemed to shake their fingers at him. The rustle of leaves in the breeze accused him.
    Geez, he was really losing it.
    He pressed down on the accelerator, spotting a rearexit to the cemetery, then stomped even harder on the brake. Beneath an aperture in the canopy of boughs sat a weathered chapel, a flagstone path leading from the road to its entrance, where the half-open door had caught his attention. Shutting off the car’s engine, he craned his head for a closer look.
    Mortar crumbled between the rough-cut stones of the building’s facade. A peeling white steeple scraped against the lower branches of the trees, which shifted in the breeze, their rattle sounding less threatening and more inviting here, mixed with