WE MAKE ARRANGEMENTS for Carlos and me to visit the Pueblo tomorrow and talk with Ava about the cases. Then Carlos and I work until after sunset, searching the computer databases, making phone calls, checking in on other cases we’re involved in back in our home offices, and updating our respective superiors about what we’re up to here in West Texas. When we finally call it a night, I can tell there’s no chance I’ll be able to sleep anytime soon. Staying up all night and then taking the nap today have thrown off my circadian rhythms—not to mention what we’ve discovered about the eagle feathers left behind has me too anxious to relax.
I change into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and I tell Carlos I’m going to go grab a beer.
“Want to come?”
“Nah,” he says. “Not unless you’re planning on crossing over into Juárez to hire a couple of Mexican prostitutes.”
“Very funny,” I say. “Looks like I’ve finally figured out when you’re joking.”
“You think I’m joking?” he says, looking up with a surprised expression. “It’s perfectly legal in Mexico. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws.”
I feel a moment’s hesitation—Wait, is he joking?—and then his face breaks into a grin.
“You got me,” I say. “Again.”
In the parking lot of the hotel, I plug an address into the GPS. Twenty minutes later, I park my truck in the gravel lot outside a bar called the Outpost. I debate whether to go in. I felt a spark with Megan last night, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was also tempted to rekindle the flame with Willow. If not for Carlos’s phone call, I might have woken up next to Willow and spent the morning discussing the possibility of the two of us getting back together.
I remind myself I’m not cheating on anyone by taking an interest in Megan. The bottom line is that Willow and I aren’t dating anymore.
When I walk into the bar, I don’t spot Megan right away, and I wonder if I’ve misremembered her saying she is working tonight. The bar is spacious, but not very crowded, with only a few people seated at the numerous round tables. The floors are scuffed hardwood, the walls decorated with neon beer signs. There’s a pool table, shuffleboard, and a corner with roping dummies where a trio of college-age kids are practicing their lassoing skills. A small stage is positioned prominently in the room, but no band is playing tonight. Instead, a song by Shooter Jennings plays on the jukebox.
I slide onto a barstool next to a guy who looks a little out of place among the younger crowd. Even more out of place than I do. He’s probably in his late fifties, wearing—despite the fact that it’s summer—a tan jacket with patches on the elbows. The other patrons all look like college students; he could be their professor.
When Megan walks out from the back room, carrying a rack of pint glasses, she doesn’t notice me at first. She’s wearing cowboy boots, painted-on jeans, and a Tom Petty T-shirt. Her hair is pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail.
“Meg,” the guy next to me calls, clearly not concerned that she’s helping another customer. “How about a refill, love?”
As she looks up at him, she spots me, and her face lights up in surprise.
“What on earth are you doing here?” she asks, coming around the bar to hug me.
“I couldn’t wait to see you again.”
She gives me a skeptical look, knowing that I didn’t drive six hundred miles just to see her.
“Working on a case,” I say. “I’ll probably be here a few days. Maybe even a few weeks.”
She goes back around the bar and pours me a beer. She gets one for my impatient neighbor while she’s at it, then she introduces us.
“This is Neil Stephenson,” she says. “He’s my dissertation advisor.”
“Dr. Neil Stephenson,” he says, correcting her.
“Rory’s a Texas Ranger,” Megan says.
“Funny,” he says, “you don’t look like a baseball player.”
“The other kind of Texas Ranger,” Megan says, rolling her eyes in mock irritation.
Neil takes a drink, unimpressed.
Megan appears to be the only one working at the bar, so she’s soon pulled away and I’m stuck with her pretentious professor. His favorite subject is himself, and he drones on about how he tours Southwestern colleges giving lectures on American literature. As he talks, he doesn’t take his eyes off Megan, and I wonder if she realizes that he wants their relationship to be more than just teacher and student.
The clock approaches midnight, and the bar thins out. Besides Megan and me, there’s only Neil—I mean Dr. Stephenson—and a couple of guys shooting pool. Megan tells me she’s going to close the place down so she and I can be alone. Her professor, who is quite drunk, doesn’t seem too happy. I get the impression he is used to sticking around until closing so he can have time alone with Megan. Reluctantly, he orders an Uber while Megan heads over to break it to the pool players that this will be their last game.
“Come on—one more draft!” one of them says loudly, his words slurred. “My bitch girlfriend just broke up with me, and I don’t plan to leave until I’m good and shit-faced.”
“I think you’ve already achieved your goal,” Megan says, reaching for the guy’s empty glass on the rail of the pool table.
The guy’s arm flashes out and he grabs Megan’s wrist, gripping it tight.
“Now hold it there, honey,” he says.
“Let go,” she says forcefully.
“Either you fetch me a beer,” the guy says, “or I’m going to slap you around like I should have done to my ex.”
I rise off my barstool and start walking toward them. The jukebox is already off, and the sound of my boots against the floorboards carries across the room. The man turns his attention toward me, and Megan snatches her arm away and backs up.
“If you want to slap somebody around,” I say, “why don’t you try me?”