No Escape by Mary Burton Page A

transfer had landed on his desk. In the last three years, the Rangers had bounced him all the way from El Paso to Brownsville. Most times when he settled in a new place he unpacked immediately. He liked order. But this go-around he’d not found the time to organize his apartment. The chaos grated on his nerves but nonstop action at the office had stolen all his time.
    He’d rolled off the mattress, still sitting beside the bed frame he’d not assembled, and grabbed clothes he’d managed to pick up from the dry cleaners Saturday morning. A hot shower went a long way to making him feel human before he dressed. At his dresser he picked up his gun, cell phone and badge before he moved into the kitchen. He didn’t have many groceries but had managed to pick up coffee and bagels. He rinsed out the mug he’d used yesterday, snagged a bagel and headed to his car.
    The drive into Austin took less than twenty minutes. However, this morning instead of heading to the off ice, he drove toward the medical examiner’s office, grateful to miss morning rush-hour traffic.
    Sitting at a stoplight, he shrugged his shoulders, working the kinks from his neck and back. Fixing the damn bed had to be priority number one as soon as he had a spare minute. As a Ranger he’d spent enough time sleeping in bad motel beds, cars and bedrolls in an open field. When he’d been younger his body had been more forgiving. It took the abuse he tossed its way. Not so much anymore. He needed to get his bed together and get his routine back.
    His folks lived in Austin and they had offered to put his place together or lend him their spare room, but he’d declined. Lord knows they’d not deny him. Hell, they’d jumped through lots of hoops to get him raised and educated. But going back to that wasn’t right.
    When he’d been in Jo’s house, he’d been struck by the home’s comfort. Not fussy, high-priced furniture but comfortable and clean. Her walls had been lined with bookshelves stocked full of well-creased books. Jo had always loved her books, even in college. When he’d first come into the tutoring center she’d been sitting in one chair, feet propped in another, reading. It had been a book on math theories. He’d known instantly he was out of his league.
    But that message hadn’t reached his dick. From the moment she’d first explained that mumbo-jumbo English literature, his Johnson had pulsed hard. She was pretty but not a stunningly beautiful woman. Not like the cheerleaders and sorority girls who hung around the team. She’d worn no makeup, a gauzy peasant top that silhouetted full breasts while hiding a narrow waist, and god-awful shoes old women favored. And yet his boner made it damn near impossible to think.
    He’d figured all the crap that had crowded between them fourteen years ago would have tempered his reaction to her, but when he’d seen her climbing on that damn wall, he’d been right back in the past – dumbfounded and rock hard.
    Shit.
    Better to let that one go, son. You scorched that bridge a long time ago.
    A horn beeped, Brody spotted the green light and punched the gas. Minutes later he reached the medical examiner’s office.
    Brody pushed through the stainless swinging doors connecting to the autopsy room and found the pathologist, Dr. Hank Watterson, talking to his assistant. Both dressed in scrubs, they stood in front of a gurney holding a sheet-clad body. Watterson, in his late thirties, had joined the medical examiner’s office last year. From Colorado, he’d gone through medical school on an Air Force scholarship.
    ‘Ranger Winchester,’ Watterson said, glancing up. He wore heavy rimmed glasses, his sandy blond hair brushed back off a narrow face etched with deep laugh lines around his mouth and forehead.
    Brody extended his hand. ‘Dr. Watterson.’
    Dr. Watterson glanced at the clock. ‘Beck is sending Santos to work the case with you. And Santos called and said he’s running late. Traffic on