Free Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 by JM Harvey

and plowed into the Rover’s shattered grill. More crunching metal and shattered glass.
    “Aw, come on, man!” Zeke yelled as Val eased the truck forward.
    Before hooking up the Rover, Val checked the tow truck’s front end for damage. The push bar was smeared with black paint, but that was all. It was hard to hurt a tank. He went to the back of the truck and hit the hydraulics to lower the towing rig. He had used the tow truck to haul the Mustang so many times that he was an old hand at this. He hooked it up, put the safety chains in place then hit the lift button and raised the Rover’s front end before turning back to Zeke.
    The injured man hadn’t moved; he was still sitting beside the open driver’s side door, cradling his broken hand in his lap.
    “On your feet, Zeke,” Val said, “And get in the truck. We’re going to have a little chat with your daddy. And you better hope it goes well or Garland will be down one more son.”
    Zeke didn’t have anything to say to that.

9
     
    Victoria sat with the serial killer Randall Rusk’s case file in front of her, open to his booking sheet. His huge bald dome and overshot brows dominated the mug shots. His eyes were deep-set, his jaw a snowplow wedge. His overdeveloped shoulders and neck gave him a hunched, simian posture that matched his brutal visage. Rusk looked like something on display at a low-rent carnival freak show, but his crimes were not carnival kicks. The man was a sadistic predator. And life in prison wasn’t going to stop him, Victoria knew. She almost pitied the convicts that Randall would be housed with. One thing was certain, thanks to the plea agreement she was being forced to offer, Randall would live to kill again.
    Victoria closed the file. She still hadn’t written Rusk’s plea agreement and she had three other case files to review and annotate for her subordinates, but she just couldn’t focus. She couldn’t get her mind off her most recent meeting with Laroy Hockley.
    Jack had been told to keep Laroy up to date on the investigation, and Jack had failed to do that in any substantive way, yet Laroy hadn’t protested, hadn’t pressed or demanded or threatened. He hadn’t even seemed that interested. It was obvious that he had come with one purpose in mind: to give her Axel Rankin’s name and location. Just thinking about it made her temples throb. What kind of game was Laroy playing? Whatever it was, it just fed into her nagging suspicions that there was something criminal going on at the Sheriff’s office.
    Victoria’s cell phone rang from inside her briefcase. She dug it out and checked the caller ID before answering. It was Jack Birch.
    “What’s up, Jack?”
    “Looks like Hockley was right about Axel,” Birch yelled over the background noise of several men arguing heatedly and the squawking of a police band radio turned up to top volume. “We spotted him as soon as we rolled up, but they were waiting for us. Caught us flatfooted. They got Bastrop.”
    “What?” Victoria lurched to her feet, sending her chair rocketing into the wall behind her. “How bad?”
    “He’s dead, counselor,” Birch said flatly. “Bled out before the ambulance left the firehouse. The hostage negotiator is on the scene, but Axel ain’t talking and SWAT ain’t waiting. I’m going in with them. Gonna try to keep Axel alive. With one of us dead they ain’t worried about taking prisoners.”
    The roar of gunshots interrupted Birch. A half a dozen rounds were fired in rapid succession, like a string of firecrackers. The voices that had been arguing started screaming and then someone was bellowing orders through a bullhorn.
    “Take cover! Take cover! Move back! Move back! Jesus—”
    The cell phone connection was broken just as the ratcheting roar of machinegun fire blotted out everything else.
    Victoria didn’t stop to think about what she was doing, she stood, raced to her office door, jerked it open, and charged out into the hallway, almost