Free Luke: Armed and Dangerous by Cheyenne McCray Page A

still been intact at both the front and rear
     entrances, and he found nothing suspicious.
    Once he’d made a quick round of the living room, single bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen,
     he slung his duster on the coat rack beside the door. He tossed his Stetson on the
     knobby top, where it rocked back and forth for a moment before going still.
    From out of his duster pocket he withdrew his PDA—a slim palm device. From the holster
     he pulled out his cell phone and switched it so that it would hum instead of vibrate,
     and then kicked back in the comfortable leather recliner in the cabin’s small living
     room. The room always smelled of mesquite wood from the pile stacked next to the old
     woodstove and of leather from the worn couch and armchairs.
    The furnishings weren’t much to look at, but it was neat and clean. A pair of ancient
     deer antlers was mounted on the wall beside the black stovepipe of the old woodstove.
     A few throw rugs were scattered around the tiled floor and the room had been paneled
     in a rustic knotty pine.
    On one of the wooden tables perched a small potted Christmas tree with miniature decorations,
     courtesy of Skylar who figured all her ranch hands needed something Christmassy in
     their quarters. The tree she’d put in the bunkhouse had been a little too big for
     his tastes, but the men had gotten a kick out of it.
    Luke managed to keep his mind off Trinity MacKenna—sort of—as he set to work. He turned
     on his palm device and used the stylus to tab through the pages of notes he’d made
     during the cattle rustling case, until he came to his short list of subjects and suspects,
     people he thought might be players in the Guerrero operation, or potential competitors.
    He added in Joyce Butler and Gina Garcia, though he wasn’t happy about it. Ralston
     thought Guerrero was using more than his charm to rope women into doing his dirty
     work—and Ralston’s instincts had proven pretty sharp in the past. As for Guerrero,
     damn, but that bastard deserved something worse than a bullet between the eyes.
    Maybe he and Rios could accidentally castrate the fucker when they took him down?
    Luke wanted to smack the PDA on the table, but stopped himself before he destroyed
     the little piece of technology. He needed to get the sociopathic drug lord out of
     circulation, and fast, but he hated the idea of having to lean on scared, vulnerable
     women to get the information he needed.
    Guerrero probably knew that, too.
    Tomorrow Luke had plans to head down to the county hospital to interview a UDA who’d
     been used as a mule to smuggle drugs in from Mexico. The man had been beaten half
     to death by the coyotes who had been loosely connected to the cattle rustling they’d
     stopped at this ranch a few months back. Maybe he’d get enough information from the
     mule to leave Butler and Garcia out of the picture.
    The hum of his cell phone snapped Luke out of his consideration of the suspects to
     date. He picked up the phone from the end table and saw by the caller ID that it was
     Rios.
    “Denver,” Luke said into the phone at the same time he shut off the PDA.
    “Just talked with Miguel Cotino,” Rios said.
    “The Special Ops supervisor over at CBP?”
    “Yeah.” A feminine giggle could be heard in the background and Rios’s voice lowered.
     “Said to not bother heading to the hospital to interrogate that mule. He’s dead.”
    “Shit.” Luke ground his teeth and thumped the PDA onto the end table after all. “Anything
     else?”
    “Nah. Catch you tomorrow. I got me a hot little thing waiting for me.”
    “Lucky bastard,” Luke said before punching the phone off and setting it back down.
    At least Rios was getting some tonight. He could use a distraction himself, like Trinity
     MacKenna. That was about as likely as a tornado in Arizona.
    With a frustrated sigh, Luke got up from the recliner. Damn the coyotes. Damn, damn,
     damn. Without the mule, what did he have, other than