April's Fool

We sat at the table, and the waitress appeared with a cup and a glass of ice water. She filled the cup from the tan carafe on the table and asked if we were ready to order. Matt said he wanted a three-stack of pancakes with sausage and eggs.

“Make it two, please,” I told the waitress.

“Are you two related?” she chirped.

“No, but we have the same parents,” I told her.

“Uh…” She tilted her head and touched an index finger to her lips, pretending to think.

“You’re both cops?”

I pointed at Matt. “Not him. He’s a deputy sheriff, which is to cops like monkeys are to astronauts. On the other hand, I’m a Texas Ranger.”

“Really? Cool.” She posed there in a waitress uniform, twenty-something, country-cute with dark hair pulled into a ponytail. Her name tag read “Chrissy.” She got all bright-eyed with excitement and said, “Texas Rangers? I love baseball. What position do you play?"

When Sam Cable, Texas Ranger, is assigned to protect a volatile and controversial candidate for US Senate, April Marie Fortney, his life is turned into a daily dose of hell on toast.

How could it get worse?

He finds out when he wakes up next to her dead body. With no memory of how he got there.

The spotlight focuses on Cable as he races against an impending indictment, highlighting him as the newest poster boy for an intense and divisive national debate on racial relations. Cable digs through a web of conflicting motives, politically-driven ambition, and the past of the murdered woman, desperately seeking the truth before time runs out.

His only ally? A feisty FBI Agent named Rita Goldman, whose sense of justice is as profound as her lack of field experience. Can a rookie FBI Agent help prove his innocence? Or will she be the one to bury him?