Publisher's Synopsis
Texas Rangers are hard to kill. Since 1823, the year the Rangers came into existence to quell a spate of Indian raids in the Mexican province of Texas, less than one percent have died in the line of duty - only four since 1935. Add one to that list. But Frank Carter wasn't shot in the middle of an arrest or a drug bust or a gunfight. He was sitting at his desk when someone put a bullet through him. This is the twenty-first century. Who would dare walk into a room and shoot a retired Texas Ranger - in particular, this Ranger, a man possessed of a heroic reputation? Had to be something other than murder. Carter's death sat a hair-trigger's pull from being declared a tragic accident. Or suicide. Christina Juanita Maria Davida Jones Sandoval, aka Mickey Jones, always wanted to be a cop - a real cop - one that ferrets out the criminals, runs them down, and puts them away. But her small size kept her out of the academy. Even after she became a martial arts expert, a forensic scientist, and a lawyer. Then, when she's about given up hope, she gets a break. She goes to work for retired Texas Ranger Jackson Cobb. A year later Cobb makes her a partner and renames his formerly one-man private investigations firm Cobb & Jones. She isn't a cop, but she figures being a PI is maybe better. Certainly less restricting. Two days after Mickey becomes Jackson's partner, Abigail Carter, widow of storied Texas Ranger Frank Carter, hires Cobb & Jones to find her husband's killer. Mickey takes point on the assignment because of her forensics expertise. Her first task is to disabuse the authorities of the notion that Carter accidentally shot himself or committed suicide. But her visit to the Lubbock Morgue to meet the autopsy physician and view Carter's body turns into much more than she expects. Mickey and Dr. Jim Wyatt get off to a rocky start, but their mutual attraction overcomes their initial encounter and a budding romance develops. One that nearly gets Wyatt and his dead brother's family killed. Mickey and Jackson pursue a meth gang bent on murder, and endanger themselves and everyone around them in the process. To make matters worse, everything they discover gets twisted around: A girl reported dead turns up alive. Her husband, whose disappearance first involved Carter, may or may not be dead. And the presumed killers of Ranger Carter may or may not be guilty of that murder, but certainly of others. As Jim Wyatt might put it, Mickey's pursuit of Carter's killers has more twists than a horse's gut. And the chase threatens to cost Mickey her PI license, her rights before the bar, her freedom ... and her life.
