Page 92 of It Runs in the Family

I narrowed my eyes. “You expect me to believe that?”

“If I knew more, I would have found my brother already.”

“When did he disappear?”

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Cody always had a wild streak, and he got mixed up with some bad people. He’d stopped talking to me about a year ago, partly because I kept tellin’ him he was in over his head, and partially because I was a cop. But he kept in contact with my sister, Tracy, and she’d tell me things.”

Maybe Boone really was a cop. He wouldn’t just throw that into the conversation if it wasn’t true, right?

He paused a beat. “About two months ago, he called me late one night. He was whispering, and he told me he was in trouble and needed help. He said he wanted out, but they wouldn’t let him leave. He gave me a couple of names of people he worked for, and I promised I’d help him. He was supposed to meet me the next day. I was gonna get him out of Dallas, but he didn’t show.”

My heart lurched. “That had to be terrifying.”

“Yeah,” he said with a shaky breath. “It was. Obviously, I was worried they’d killed him. So, I started askin’ around, and about a month ago, I heard that he’d been moved south in Texas, but I had no idea where. He hasn’t contacted me again, and he hasn’t contacted Tracy either.”

“How’d you trace him to Chaffney?”

“You know those two names he gave me? I have a friend in the DEA who told me he’d heard one of them mentioned in this area. So, I came down to investigate.”

“If you’re a cop in Dallas, how are you working down here?” I didn’t try to hide my skepticism.

“I’m not with the Dallas PD.”

“Then who are you with?”

“The Texas Rangers.”

Wow. That was big time. “And they let you work on your brother’s case?” I asked in disbelief.

He made a face. “They don’t know about Cody. They only know about the two guys Cody told me about.” He nodded toward the windshield. “Is that the coffee shop?”

I glanced ahead and saw the giant metal rooster on top of the ten-by-six-foot building off the side of the road with the words Rise-n-Shine in flashing lights next to it. “Yeah, that’s it.”

He turned into the strip mall parking lot and got in line for the drive-thru behind four cars.

“Why are you working undercover?” I asked. “Why not investigate like a normal cop?”

“Because I’m tryin’ to infiltrate the group.”

“No offense,” I said with a short laugh, “but you don’t look like someone who’d get recruited into a cartel.”

He shot me a smile. “What does someone who works for a cartel look like?”

I had to admit I’d seen my fair share of stereotypes, but the image that popped into my head was the man who’d kicked off this whole thing. “Like the guy who came into my store.”

He held out his hand. “Can I see?”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened my text messages. I found the thread with Garrett and pulled up the photo.

He took my phone and stared at the image.

“It’s not a great photo,” I said. “We can probably get a better one from Garrett. He came in to check out the surveillance footage while I was working and snapped a quick photo of the guy to see if I could ID him.”

Boone still stared at the image, his face devoid of expression. “How long ago did you see this guy?”

“Wednesday night.”

He turned to look at me, still holding my phone. “Your instincts were dead on, Iris.”