At Close Range (Ranger Ops Book 1)

by Em Petrova

  That one still haunted Nash, because he was supposed to be on that call, and he’d always wondered if he had been present would his friend have survived.

  He shook off the thought and started the engine. The SUV was as silent as a tomb, which led him to believe all of them were weighing their lives in their minds the way he was before heading off on their second mission as Ranger Ops.

  He had to say something.

  “Look. We’ve got a lot of work to do together, and we’re just getting started. We need to know each other inside and out to form a solid team. What we did back there on the Sabine was our skills coming together, but we need to know what the other is about to think before he thinks it.”

  “Hell, this ain’t the Knight Ops. They’re all brothers. They were raised knowing what the other was about to think,” Linc said from the back seat.

  “No.” He stared at his buddy in the rearview. “But we got a brotherhood. We’re all Rangers. We had the same training, dealt with the same asshole bosses, and Texas people are the same across the counties.”

  “That’s true,” Woody said from the passenger seat.

  Nash held out his hand for a piece of gum, and Woody gave him one. “We’re gonna start this drive over the border with a kindergarten introduction. State your name, shoe size, all the names of your immediate family and whether or not you can handle your burritos so we can avoid them in the drive-thru.”

  That brought out the laughter. In the third row seat, two of the guys he knew less than the others shared a grin.

  Nash slid the SUV into reverse and backed out. “Cavanagh, you kick off.”

  The muscled giant in the very back looked to be jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with his seat partner Jess, but it was only because they were both massive men.

  “Wraggs, Cavanagh, shoe size fourteen.”

  “Damn, I knew you were big but fourteen?” Woody twisted in the seat to look back at him.

  In the rearview, Nash caught the guy’s smile. “Yeah, I buy my pants bigger too, to accommodate what I’m packing. Because yeah, it’s true what they say about shoe size and dicks.”

  Jess elbowed him. “Man, you wish. I’ve seen you take a piss.”

  “You wanna compare, bro?” Cavanagh leaned back and reached for his fly.

  “All dicks will remain tucked away, boys. This ain’t no sausage party,” Nash drawled.

  The SUV boomed with laughter. When they settled a bit—it was just like a kindergarten class, or least high school—Cavanagh continued. “I served my country two tours in Iraq. Would have done more but I came back when my pops died and I had to support my mom so she didn’t go homeless. She’s my only remaining family. And yeah, I can out-eat all of ya when it comes to Mexican food. The hotter the better.”

  Jess shook his head. “You better not be lyin’, Cav.”

  White teeth flashed. “Try me.”

  They moved to Jess. The Texan looked as if his cowboy hat was a bit too loose around his ears after he’d taken the time after the Sabine mission to shave his head. When he opened his mouth to speak, Cavanagh nudged him. “First, tell us why you shaved off your hair.”

  “Well, I’m known for those flowing locks, it’s true, and the ladies love them.” He doffed his hat and rubbed his sheared scalp. “But I figure I don’t know what hole I’ll be sleeping in next, and I hate bugs or lice. Can’t tolerate ’em so I figured I’d get rid of anything legs could cling to.”

  “Your girlfriend cried, I bet.” Nash made a right turn onto the interchange headed south to the border.

  “Nah, she skipped out a week ago. Couldn’t handle all this man.” He rubbed his hands in circles over his broad chest, making everyone laugh. “Skipped out with a realtor. Only now I’m pretty sure it was the same guy who showed us our apartment. Huh.” He dazed off a moment on that thought and then snapped back and recited the names of his mother and three brothers. Jess then told a tale about being so gassy after eating burritos that his momma made him sleep in the yard, he had the guys in stitches. Finally, he ended with crossing his boots. “And these, men, are my size twelves, which I am more than willing to shove up anyone’s ass for crossin’ me. They call it a Jess Monet enema, after me.”

  Cavanagh cuffed him in the ear, tilting Jess’s hat. The smack talk that followed had them all bonding even more.

  When they got to Lennon, he and Linc exchanged a look. The brothers were from opposite ends of the state and didn’t work together, but Nash guessed the government had seen how well blood brothers worked on a team like this with the Knights and paired them for the long haul.

  “Reed, Lennon. Size eleven and a halfs. Got me a half size on my brother, but that figures because I’m much bigger when it comes to the man parts.” Lennon’s Texas drawl was deep and syrupy with a slow roll to his words.

  Linc cocked his head at his brother. “In your fucking dreams, man.”

  Lennon went on. “This ugly fuck on my left is my twin brother Lincoln Hargrove Reed, and back at home I got a daddy who never had much time for me and a dog staying with a buddy.”

  “That buddy’s sure got long, tan legs,” Linc added.

  “Wait, twin brother?” came the question from Jess.

  “Yeah, we ain’t identical, case you didn’t notice,” Lennon said. “I’m the good-lookin’ one. Easy to remember.”

  “Never would have guessed at the twins part,” Woody added.

  “Because he’s uglier,” Lennon stated.

  Linc rolled his eyes. “Get off my dick. And no, he can’t handle his fucking Mexican. His eyes water like a little girl’s the minute a jalapeno touches his tongue. I’ve seen him shit through a screen door at five paces after a good tamale too.”

  Woody laughed till his eyes watered, and Nash had to grip the wheel to hold it on the road for a minute. After they’d all gone through their introductions, which included three hell yeahs for the burritos, two size twelves and a ten and several brothers and a sister collectively.

  With the ice broken, Nash felt he could speak on a different level to his men. Now that they’d let loose, they could get down to business.

  “We’re headed to Coahuila, men. There’s a cartel there that keeps breaching the US border and distributing millions of dollars’ worth of meth. It was the biggest dump we’ve seen in the past two years.” The details he’d been given played in Nash’s mind.

  “How’d they get it into the country?” Linc asked.

  “PA system.”

  “Come again?”

  “They filled a truck with big speakers you use in concerts, and they were packed full of the shit. Took our guys two days before they discovered it, and by that time, the cartel was long gone. What I know is they’re operating smooth, made a legit business down in Coahuila, and the guys who have gone in the past to shut them down can’t find a damn thing. But that’s ending here, Rangers.”

  The talk continued another hour as they crossed over the border. By the time they reached the capital city of Saltillo, all jaws were locked with determination and they knew the plan inside and out.

  Nash rolled through an intersection, scanning the streets left and right, when he saw it.

  He jerked in his seat.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “What is it? Forgot to call your momma to tell her you won’t be home for supper?” Woody ribbed him.

  Nash gave a shake of his head, unable to joke at this time, not after he’d just spotted something that had his radar up and all his cylinders firing.

  “Did you guys just see that man? The one in a black ball cap?” He swung his head to look at Woody.

  “No, man. What about him?”

  He blinked several times, but nothing would erase the image floating behind his eyes, a photo of a man that was plastered over every Rangers office in the state of Texas. A photo of a man who’d been missing for a decade and believed dead.

  Nash took out his cell.

  “He did forget to call his momma!” Woody and all the
guys broke into laughter.

  Nash dialed Downs. Realizing he wasn’t laughing, the guys sobered and stared at him and each other like he’d lost his mind. When he got Downs on the phone, he spoke his thoughts aloud for the first time.

  He wasn’t fucking wrong about this.

  “Sir, I need all the information you can gather on the Antonio Vincent missing person case.”

  Five heads jerked his way. Downs started firing off questions.

  For the first time in his career, Nash felt he might have found his true calling and could actually do some good in this fucked-up world they all shared.

  In his ear, Downs was telling him to focus on the mission and not to get sidetracked, but Nash couldn’t let this one go.

  With all the force backing his beliefs, he said, “I require all the information you have, sir, because I just saw Antonio Vincent, and he’s alive.”

  Chapter Two

  “Nevaeh, don’t forget your lunch,” her mother called from her spot on the front porch as she watered her flowers.

  “I won’t, Momma.” She was running late as it was, and the last thing she had time for was making herself something to eat, but she couldn’t afford to go out to lunch daily with the office ladies either. Besides, they didn’t really enjoy her company, and she could do without theirs too. She much preferred to hide in her cubicle.

  As Nevaeh grabbed her lunch bag and began to toss bottled water and fruit into it, she thought ahead to the long to-do list she was facing on a Monday morning, especially with the corporate meeting midweek. Of course she had tons of files to pull, and it was her most hated task.

  “Nevaeh!”

  “I’m packing it right now, Momma!” she called back.

  “Nevaeh, come out here, please.”

  She stopped. Her mother’s voice sounded strange, and the strain of the tone wheedled into the deepest recesses of her mind. Her stomach knotted.

  Dropping what she was doing, she drifted to the front door where her mother stood on the other side of the screen with two men wearing suits.

  Nevaeh’s heart jumped into her throat and sat there, throbbing hard. The suits she recognized. Year after year of questioning, year after year of the authorities coming to gather more information that they’d already been told about her brother’s disappearance. When Antonio had vanished, her family’s life had been turned upside down and it would never be right again.

  But they’d had a spell of peace—six years, to be exact—where nobody had come to ask any more questions and she, her mother and her father had cried most of their tears and begun to realize Antonio was never coming home, not even in the form of remains.

  That old protective armor that Nevaeh had spent so long shrouding herself with steeled her spine as she opened the screen door.

  Her mother’s gaze swung her way, and she was already crying. “Oh, Momma.” She reached for her mother’s hands, worn thin from wringing them. They trembled in her grasp. “I’ll speak to them.” Send them away, more like. “Why don’t you go on inside?”

  “No. If they have found something this time…”

  “Momma, you’re already worked up. Let me speak to them alone, and I promise I’ll sit and explain all that was said to you and Dad afterward.” Her father had been wrecked by it all and could barely function enough to go to work part-time at the home building center. The entire family had been destroyed, but Nevaeh was strongest, and she’d handle it.

  The two men continued to stare at them as she pushed her mother gently toward the door. She went, and the screen closed behind her. Nevaeh glanced back to ensure her mother was moving into the house, out of earshot, before turning back to the uniformed men.

  Texas Rangers, this time. They seemed to be the most diligent over the years about Antonio’s case, looking for any leads long after the state police filed the case as unsolvable.

  She wrapped her lightweight blazer closer over her chest and greeted the men. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Texas Ranger McCathrey and this is Ranger Michaels. We’d like to speak to you about your brother Antonio Vincent.”

  Just hearing his name always gave her a pang, but she was accustomed to the sting. She brushed it off and straightened her shoulders. “How can I help?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, when a high, thin wail came from inside the house. The Ranger met Nevaeh’s gaze.

  “My mother,” she said faintly. “The sooner you ask your questions, the better. She can’t settle down until you leave.”

  “I’m sorry for your trouble, miss. I know how this must affect you all.”

  “Every damn day,” she bit out with no less than the bitterness she felt at years of unrelieved pain, sometimes diluted by life but not often enough for any of them.

  “Again, I apologize. We have some questions concerning your brother. If you can answer to the best of your knowledge.”

  She nodded.

  “We know he visited Mexico at the time of his disappearance. A hiking trip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he a regular hiker? Did he ever travel to hike in the United States or here in Texas?”

  “Of course. He was always going out to the trails nearby and sometimes with friends to other parts of the country. Once in Colorado. What is this about?”

  The Ranger continued without addressing her question. “And we have in our files that Antonio was skilled in technology. Mainly computers.”

  “Yes, he was always online. You confiscated his computer—is that in your files or did it go missing too?”

  “We have the information noted here, yes. I wondered if you can tell me more about the computer skills. Was Antonio ever involved in online gaming?”

  Inside the house, her mother’s wail continued. She knew her father would be doing his best to quiet her, but it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing was ever enough. Nevaeh wished these men had never come here. She could ask them to leave, refuse to answer questions, but what good would it do? In the end, her family needed closure, even if it was in the form of her brother’s remains.

  She brushed the chill bumps off her arms and said, “He was always online, obsessed with tech.” Her mind lit on something. A spark flitted through her consciousness, long buried and only now resurrected by this specific question.

  “Miss Vincent?” The Texas Ranger leaned in to peer at her.

  She lifted her gaze to his. “I… remembered something.”

  The men exchanged a glance, and the one performing the questioning said, “Go on.”

  “One time I walked into Antonio’s room without knocking. On his computer screen were long numbers after long numbers, rows of them. He didn’t know I was standing there, and I didn’t make a noise because I was his pesky kid sister and I knew he’d kick me out as soon as he heard my footsteps.” She dashed her fingers through her long hair that her coworkers called mahogany and were forever saying they were going to get their hair stylists to match their color to.

  “I’m listening,” the Texas Ranger urged.

  “Well, the memory isn’t entirely clear, only that I was standing there not understanding what Antonio was up to. But he was typing fast, really focused on the task. And suddenly a warning popped onto the screen, flashing a word.”

  Her heart was pounding, and somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she registered what this could mean—that her brother might have been involved in something illegal. How could this have escaped her until now?

  It was the pointed question about his involvement in technology, whereas in the past, everyone had solely focused on where he’d gone hiking.

  “What was the word? Do you remember?”

  Meeting the Texas Ranger’s eyes, she nodded. “Restricted.”

  A fleeting interest washed through his eyes, and then he scribbled on his notepad. “And you have no idea what site he was on? What he was doing?”

  She shook her head. “I only just recalled it. Because after the word flashed up, he moved and I ran down t
he hall before he could catch me in his room. I was just fifteen and still afraid of my big brother, especially since he was in college.”

  A moment of silence stretched, and her mother’s wail had thankfully silenced.

  Nevaeh narrowed her eyes. “What is this about? Why are you coming here again, after all these years? Have you reopened the case or something?”

  “The case was never closed, miss. We were sent to gather more information.”

  “But why? Something must have spurred you to come back here?” Deep down, she had an inkling, a sixth sense. But she wasn’t about to voice it, because she couldn’t risk being wrong and dashing all hopes yet again.

  “There has been a breakthrough to your brother’s case, and we wished to speak to your family again. Are you certain your parents won’t talk to us? Maybe they have other—”

  “No,” she said with force. The man stepped back a bit. She threaded her fingers in her hair again. “No. They cannot discuss this anymore. It’s been a decade of being broken, and your coming here has already shattered what peace they might have found in the past few years.”

  “Again, I apologize.”

  “A breakthrough,” she spoke up. “What sort of breakthrough?” Dammit, this was what she’d spent years building up a wall around herself for, so she wouldn’t be disappointed again. She wasn’t back to square one, yet she felt a chink taken out of that wall too.

  “I’m not at liberty to give out that information, miss. But I’m certain someone will be visiting you if that changes. Is there anything more you can think to tell me?”

  She shook her head, her mind already taking her leave of these men. It was running wild over the possibilities. If maybe they could follow a path to where he’d disappeared after checking into that Mexican hostel where he’d last been seen…

  She turned for the house, and the Texas Rangers said goodbye before climbing back into their vehicle. Nevaeh didn’t immediately enter the house, only stood at the screen door. Something—she didn’t know what—made her press her nose to the screen like when she was little. Another memory surfaced, of her brother on the other side, pressing his nose to hers, both squashed on the metal fibers.