Disclaimer: No, I don't own the rights to Walker, Texas Ranger or Sons of Thunder, but if the Norrises would give the rights to Sons of Thunder to me, I have some pretty good ideas for the show.  For the moment, at least, Walker, Trivette, Gage, Sidney, Alex, Trent, Carlos, Kim, Butch, and Tommy still belong to Chuck and Aaron.  You could send money to them if you really feel moved by my words.  Just don't send it to me and get ME in trouble, k?
As always, I LOVE YOU MARCO!!

Just a little side note:  If you haven't read my other story, "Cirq 30," first of all, you SHOULD! and secondly, you might wonder what's going on.  Carlos, for my purposes, is still a member of the Dallas PD as well as working with Trent, who has a significant other, Margo Jones, who I introduced in the aforementioned Cirq.  And hey, if you actually read this, drop me a line!Enough blather...read on.

Rating: I think this is a pretty clean story, really...PG.  Unless you have a very vivid imagination or I'm better with words than I thought...in which case R.
 

        Carlos Sandoval was pissed.
        The handsome Hispanic mulled over his misfortune as he drove to a crime site.  He was working two demanding jobs: police detective by day, private investigator after hours.  He wasn’t sleeping nearly enough, especially not since he had finished his undercover work on the Ramirez gang two weeks ago.  Bringing them down meant becoming close to the gang, but he could never lose sight of his goal.  He had been forced to arrest some good friends, and that weighed heavily on his mind.  To make matters worse, his girlfriend dumped him while he was risking life and limb on the case.   She dumped him.  Carlos was never the dumpee!  He was the dumper!
        He pulled his beige four-door over to park along a curb behind a marked police car and got out, fastening the buttons on his smart blazer.  Ducking under the flimsy yellow police tape, he strode confidently to the chalk mark on the sidewalk where the murder had taken place, scrutinizing the surroundings with a careful eye.
        “Watch your step!” a woman yelled.  Carlos turned toward the sound.  She approached him, transferring a fat black bag to her left hand so she could offer her right in a handshake.  “Danae Launey from the ME’s office,” she introduced herself.  “I’ll be working with you on this case.”
        Carlos stifled a sigh as he shook her hand.  Medical examiners (or MEs, as they were commonly called) such as Danae made his job as a homicide detective easier, but they worked slowly and were hesitant to draw concrete conclusions.  In his mind, they were more hindrance than a help.  “Carlos Sandoval,” he answered as he dropped her hand.  “Homicide.”  He pointed at the white body outline.  “What do we know?”
        “The victim’s name was Tim Orson,” she answered in a strong voice as she led him closer to where the body had lay.  “Caucasian male, thirty years old next month,” she listed the facts.  “The condition of the body suggested that it was a single gunshot wound to the chest and that he had been dead for little over two hours before we were called in.”
        “That’s not a lot of time,” Carlos said with surprise.  “Do we have witnesses?”
        “A few people heard an argument out here around six this morning,” she replied.  “Then a loud noise that they thought was a car backfiring,” she said with skepticism.  “A homeless man called 9-1-1 at eight to ask if he could have the man’s shirt.”
        Carlos whistled and spotted a shabbily dressed man talking to some officers across the street.  Someone had given him a blanket to cover his pointy frame and some coffee to fill his empty stomach.  The detective suspected his colleagues had fed the poor emaciated gentleman as well. “So no one saw what happened?” he asked as he turned his attention back to Danae.  She was squatting near the outline and squinting up at the sun just rising above the building.
        “I’ll know more once I see the body,” she answered him.  She pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of her back jeans’ pocket and snapped them on.  She approached the building’s limestone edifice, lightly tracing her fingers down the rust lines.  Carlos followed her.  He could tell that she was new to this job; she seemed youthful in her casual pants and tailored coat.  She was average height for a lady, with long legs and a thin face.  While she was slim, her body frame was not petite.  Rather, she was sturdy and elegant.  Her hair was a light brown color, and curly, and she wore it in an improvised ponytail.  “This is a bad part of town,” she muttered as she studied the stains.
        “Are you new to Dallas?” he asked, humor in his voice.
        “I’m sorry…what?” she asked.  Her thoughts were elsewhere.  She knelt and unzipped her bag.  Inside were various compartments, all of which held assorted tools for gathering evidence.
        “I asked if you were new to Dallas,” he repeated.  “There are way worse neighborhoods than this.”
        “I am, actually,” she smiled up at him.  “Want to see something cool?”  She stood, holding a spray bottle in one hand and a black light in the other.  She sprayed the stain and maneuvered Carlos to stand with his left shoulder against the wall, throwing his shadow over the spot.  Danae herself stood with her right side to the wall, further dimming the wall.  With her left hand, she turned on the light and held it a few inches from the stone.  An eerie blue glow was emitted.  She met Carlos’ deep brown eyes with laughing blue ones.  “It never gets old,” she told him.
Carlos laughed at her antics.  Any younger, he thought, and she might have actually giggled.  “What does it mean?” he asked.
        Danae was again hovering over her bag.  “I won’t know for sure until I get it run through the lab,” she said as she scraped at the wall with a file.  “It’s most likely iron, but it could be blood,” she said as she captured her scrapings in a clear plastic tube.  “Curiously, that thoughtless Mr. Orson didn’t leave much blood for us.”
        “It seems low for a splatter,” Carlos observed.  “It’s the wrong shape, too.  Where’s the bullet?”
        Danae shrugged.  “We have an entry and exit wound, but no bullet.  It’s fishy.”  She flashed another contagious smile.  “I’ll call you when I get the results.  Nice to meet you, Detective.”

[

        Trent Malloy was having the time of his life.
        He sped down the streets of the Dallas suburban on his motorcycle, welcoming the unusually warm January weather.  He was headed for the popular bar Uppercuts.  Actually, he wasn’t going to the bar, but to the office of Thunder Investigations located in the top floor of the same building.  He had founded his private investigation practice a few years ago and had been struggling ever since to keep it open.  The name of Thunder was rapidly becoming respected and renowned for its reliability, and currently the business was booming.  To top off his flourishing job, he had recently been reunited with his estranged love, Margo Jones.  After her nightmarish undercover assignment for the FBI, she had been given a job out of the FBI headquarters in Dallas, which allowed her to see Trent often.  He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had been happier.
        Trent took the stairs up to the Thunder offices two at a time and opened the door, whistling merrily.  “Good morning, Kim,” he said to the perky red-head at the main desk.  She flashed a sparkling smile.
        “Good morning, Trent,” she replied with equal enthusiasm.  She gathered papers and followed the blonde into his private office.  “We have your mail, your voice messages, and assorted letters of praise,” she said as he hung his leather jacket on a coat rack.  She laid these papers and a few manila folders on his desk.  “You also need to sign off on these cases, and here’s some coffee,” she sat down a steaming flowery mug in front of him.
        Trent sat down at his desk and leafed through the pile as he took a sip of the coffee.  A moment later, he realized Kim was still in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her nervously.
        “Is it good coffee?” she asked in an over-sweet voice.  Now Trent knew there was something wrong.
        “What do you want, Kim?” he sighed as he set the mug down and folded his hands.
        “A woman called here after hours last night,” Kim walked forward, heels clicking on the floor tiles, to pull out a piece of paper.
        Trent read it and re-read it carefully.  “No, Kim,” he said as he handed her the small orange note.
        “But Trent,” she pleaded, “You should have heard this poor girl’s voice.  She’s for real.”
        Trent sighed and ran a hand through his short blonde hair.  “I hate these kind of cases, and you know that,” his voice was an almost whine.  How was it that Kim could talk him into anything?  And she wasn’t even pleading like she normally did.  Maybe he was going soft…
        “I’ll help you,” she rushed to say as she handed the note back to him.  “You’ll need someone good with computers anyway.”
        Trent looked down at the paper in his hand.  “‘Looking for internet soul mate,’” he read aloud and scoffed.  “Why?” he raised his eyes to the ceiling.  The white plaster held no answers for him, and he sighed.  “Ok.  I’ll take it.”

[

“Detective Sandoval?” Danae asked over the phone.
        “Carlos,” he corrected.  “Yeah.”  He wedged the phone between his head and shoulder as he sifted through the mountains of paperwork and food on his desk.  At last he found Tim Orson’s sparse file.  All he had so far were pictures of the body and its surroundings and Orson’s basic information.
        “That stain on the wall was a little rust…and a lot blood,” she said.
        Carlos pushed away from his desk.  “Then it WAS a blood splatter,” he asked in surprise.
        “That’s the way it’s looking.  As to the autopsy, it’s your basic gun shot to the chest cavity.  The bullet ruptured things that shouldn’t ever be ruptured, and he bled out in a matter of minutes,” she said candidly.
        Despite the gruesome details, Carlos couldn’t help but smile.  Danae had a wicked sense of humor he appreciated.  “What’s next?” he asked.
        “How good is your trig?” she asked impishly.  Carlos groaned, and she explained.  “The crime scene is surprisingly clean.  The best information we can get from the evidence we have is an estimate of how tall the shooter was, from where he shot, etc.  If we get lucky, we could be able to piece together the crime.”
        “Exciting,” Carlos said dryly.  “When do I get this pleasure?”  He took a sip of his coke and waited for her answer.
        Danae sighed.  “I’ve got another autopsy yet, and I’m waiting on ballistics to come through on another case.  Will 4:30 work?  I know it’s late…”
        “That’d be fine,” Carlos answered.  “I’ll pick you up then.  I need to get the guy’s personal effects from you people anyway.”
        “It’s a date!” she said before hanging up.  Carlos chuckled to himself.  Leave it to his bad luck to be paired with the only insane coroner in Dallas.

[

        “Got it!” Kim yelled from her computer in the main room.  Trent came out of his office to peer over her shoulder.  On her screen was a series of numbers and gibberish symbols.
        “Got what?” Trent wanted to know.
        “I found the dates, times, and places JC9758 was when he made these emails and chats,” Kim tore a long sheet of paper from the printer and handed it to him.
        “That’s all we have?  A screen name?” Trent posed the question as he looked over the lengthy list.  “Set up an appointment with…with…”
        “Sherry Kinney,” Kim finished his sentence, supplying the name of the client.  “I’ll have her come in as soon as possible?” she inquired.
        “Sherry Kinney the millionaire?” he asked.  Kim nodded.  “Yes please,” Trent was already looking over the list, checking for patterns.  Wherever “JC9758” was writing from, it wasn’t a home computer, for several different addresses were listed.  He stumbled back into the office, kicking the door shut behind him as he studied places and times.  Grabbing some highlighters, he began to mark the patterns he saw.  He was startled out of his hard work when his cell phone rang.  He sprang from his chair and dug through the pockets of his jacket to find it.  He flipped it open and jammed it to his head.  “Yes?”
        “Hey stud-muffin,” a low female voice answered.
        Trent grinned.  “Hey beautiful.”
        “You ready for some lunch?” Margo asked.
        “Absolutely, darlin’,” he replied.  “I’ll meet you uptown in ten minutes.”  She agreed to a restaurant, and they hung up.  “Kim,” he called as he put on his jacket, “I’m going to lunch.  Be back in an hour,” he added as he paused by the door.

[

        Soon after Carlos had picked up Danae, they had exhausted their conversation about the case.  She sat in his passenger seat and fidgeted with the seatbelt in the odd silence.  “When did you move here?” he asked her finally.
        “A few months ago,” she replied.
        “What brought you to Dallas?” he prompted.
        Danae looked out the window, hesitant to answer.  “I needed to get away and start over, I guess,” she said finally.
        “Get away from where?”
        “Indiana.”  The silence once again engulfed them.  “How long have you lived in Dallas?” she wondered.
        Carlos let loose a small laugh.  “My whole life,” he said proudly.  “It grows on you,” he stole a glance at Danae and winked.
        “So it does,” she agreed with a smile.  “I quite like it here.  There’s good people.”
        “None better,” he answered.  “Have you gotten to know the area yet?”  She replied in the negative, and Carlos launched into a detailed description of the city:  which neighborhoods were best avoided and which were prime places to party.  “Tell you what,” he said as they got out of his car and walked across the street to the crime scene, “After this, I’ll take you to meet my man Butch and some friends.  If Butch can’t hook you up, you’re hopeless.”  Danae laughed and ducked under the yellow tape, while Carlos followed her.  “What’s the plan?” he asked.
        Danae put her loaded bag on the ground and rifled through it.  She grabbed some spools of thick orange string and some tape and approached the wall.  “What we do,” she began to explain, “is first try to find the bullet or the bullet hole.  Then we attach really long pieces of strings to it.”  She handed Carlos a spool and went on to detail the process they would take.  Carlos began doing as he instructed and found a hole where the bullet had been dug out of the wall.  They now knew the angle the bullet had taken, and the approximate height of Mr. Orson’s wound.  Therefore, Danae reasoned, they would be able to find out the approximate height of the killer.
        “Are we looking for a midget?” Carlos asked sometime later.  They had more or less decided where Orson had been shot, but the trajectory suggested the shot had to have come from no more than two feet above the ground.
        Danae frowned.  “Maybe I did this wrong,” she mused as she went back to the wall and studied the stains.  She traced the strings, running through any and all possible scenarios of the shooting in her mind.  None of them made sense with the measurements she’d taken.  She crouched down on the curb next to Carlos.  “I can’t imagine…” she started to say when a spot of pain ripped through the muscle between her neck and shoulder.  Carlos was splattered with blood instantly, and reflexively tackled Danae to the ground to protect her from further shots.  He frantically searched in the direction the shot had been fired.  No one was around.  “Carlos,” she said, voice in awe.
        “It’ll be ok,” he told her quickly.  He searched one last time for a shooter and pulled out his radio to report the incident.
        “Carlos,” she said again, more urgently when he’d finished.  He turned his attention to her and saw that the right side of her body was a bloody mess, but she still held the end of the strings.  “Look,” she said.  He got off of her and followed her line of sight.  The strings were perfectly straight.  “This is how Orson was shot,” she whispered, a triumphant smile crossing her face.  She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, putting her left hand over her oozing shoulder.  “This smarts, ya know?”
        Carlos choked out a laugh and spoke into his radio again.  “Where’s my ambulance?” he asked.  Within minutes, he heard sirens, and before long, the paramedics had packed them both into the back of the ambulance.

[

        Trent was finding it hard to transition from thoughts of Margo to thoughts of his case.  His mind kept drifting back to his girlfriend and how much he loved her.  Should he say something about it?  Or was it still too soon to make such a loaded declaration?  At last he began to focus on this case.  He had no idea who he was looking for:  no descriptions, no name, not even a fake identity he could track!  The addresses corresponded to a few cyber cafés around the Dallas area, a place of business, and sporadic dates and times Trent assumed corresponded to a laptop.  Whoever JC9758 was, he did not want to be traced. Trent would have been frustrated if he hadn’t realized long ago that he liked challenges.  He relished challenges.  Grabbing his coat, he told Kim he was headed out to one of the cyber cafés on his list to do some sleuthing.
        He parked his motorcycle outside his first location and sized up the building.  They must be like books, he reasoned taking in the battered façade, You can’t judge them by their covers.  Indeed, the building was crammed in the middle of a string of aspiring businesses, most of them owned privately.  Within a year, an ambitious entrepreneur would set up shop, struggle to stay open, and then fail under the stiff competition of large corporations.  These cyber cafés, however, were taking root quietly.  Anyone could come in, get a cup of coffee, and sit down at their own private computer terminal.  There were, of course, expenses for using the internet, but patrons seemed to not mind.  It was the great irony:  people flocked to these places to connect to the world, but they rarely sat down and talked with other customers.
        Trent strode to the front desk, figuring it to be the best way to get information.  “How do I sign up?” he inquired of the young man.
        The kid-barely out of his teens-was absorbed in his monitor and never tore his eyes from it.  “Mac or PC?” he asked.
        “PC,” Trent answered.  To his complete amazement, the kid handed him a form and a pen without looking to see where they were.
        “We need your basic information and a deposit before you can get on the computer.  Please read the rules and regulations for using our facilities.  A signature and payment, and you’re ready to go,” he said before frantically clicking his mouse.
        “Do you keep all these on record?” Trent asked hopefully.
        “Yessir,” he answered, “but they’re strictly confidential.”
        “Why?”  Trent was puzzled.  Most businesses would readily give a list of their clients to the police, lawyers, and sometimes private investigators.  Even hospitals could divulge if a person was treated, though they could not say for what ailment.
        Light reflected off the young man’s glasses, and he pushed away from the computer.  He had lost the game he was playing.  “Some of our customers come with the express purpose of being anonymous.”  The boy cast a quick glance around to be sure no one was within earshot and leaned in to Trent.  “Cyber affairs are becoming more and more common when marriages hit a dry spot,” he said in a low voice.  He leaned back again.  “Of course, real affairs are more easily conducted this way, too.  The significant other can’t find the emails.  I suspect other…” he paused and raised his eyebrows, “shall we say shady transactions are made online.”
        Trent agreed uneasily.  He tapped the papers in his hand on the counter.  “Well thank you.  I’ll get back to you when I have more questions.”  He visited two of the other cafés on his list before calling it a day, leaving the last for tomorrow morning.  His second stop gave him hope, as the young lady in charge tentatively agreed to let him see a list of names.  It was a start, at least.  Checking his watch, he realized that he would be a few minutes late to Uppercuts, where he was to meet up with his friends.  He hopped on his bike and zipped off into the setting Dallas sun.
        Once a week or so, Trent and Carlos would meet up with Cordell Walker and Jimmy Trivette of the Texas Rangers.  Walker and Trivette had been friends of his for a long time.  Mentor was a better word, since Walker’s guidance had more or less shaped Trent’s life for the better.  In addition, the two Rangers brought their significant others and fellow Rangers Sidney Cooke and Francis Gage.  The whole group-plus Margo and minus Carlos-was there waiting.  Trent joined them, after giving Margo a quick kiss hello, and ordered.  They were midway through the meal before Trivette asked about Carlos.
        Trent checked his phone and laughed.  “He called me on my way over here.  Just a sec.”  Trent dialed his voice-mail, listened to Carlos’ message, and frowned.  “He’s not coming,” he said.
        “Well, did he say why not?” Trivette asked.  “I’m dying without him!”  The rest of the group laughed, as it was customary to pick on Trivette when Carlos wasn’t around to provide the comedic relief.
        “I’ll call him and see,” Trent said.
        Carlos answered impatiently.  “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to call me back?” he demanded.
        “What’s up?” Trent asked, ignoring his friend’s foul salutation.
        “I got her shot,” he said.
        “What?  Who?”
        “Remember I told you about Danae?  I was going to bring her to dinner?”
        Trent smacked his forehead.  “I completely forgot,” he said apologetically.
        “We were going over the crime scene one last time, and someone shot at us.  She took the bullet,” Carlos explained.
        “Will you stop being so melodramatic?” Danae hollered good naturedly in the background.
        Trent laughed.  “I heard that.  She’s ok then?”  The concern returned to his voice.
        “Apparently,” Carlos laughed outright at this.  “She thinks she’s invincible or something.  Hey, stop that!”  There was what sounded like a scuffle, and Carlos added, “I’ve got to go.  I’m going to take her home and go to sleep.”
        “At her place?” Trent asked suspiciously.
        “Pervert,” Carlos muttered before he hung up.
        “Carlos has another girl,” Margo announced.  “I win the bet!”
        Trivette stayed her hand.  “Let’s just wait and see,” he said sorely.
        Trent related the story as best he could with the few details he had, and Margo grudgingly gave up her five dollars.  More questions about Danae surfaced, and Trent tried to remember what Carlos had said about her when they spoke earlier.
        “TEN bucks says they hook up,” Margo challenged Trivette.  She wanted her money back.  He accepted, and the two shook hands on it.

[

        Carlos carried Danae’s things up to her third-floor apartment for her.  Her shirt was ruined, and her pants were stained, so the hospital had provided her with scrubs to wear home.  Carlos was not so lucky.  He still sported his soiled garments.  Danae just barely managed to unlock her door with her left hand, and she turned on the lights and bade Carlos enter.  He stood on the worn brown carpet dumbly and looked around.  Danae kept her apartment fairly clean, but he could tell that she worried very little about order.  She set down her keys on the kitchenette counter and shrugged off Carlos’ jacket, which he had been kind enough to let her wear.
        “You can leave that bag on the couch,” she told him as she brought him his jacket.  He set the plastic bag full of her clothes, medicine, and hospital extras on the cushion and turned back to her, taking his coat.  They both started speaking awkwardly at the same time.
        “You go first,” he said with a smile.
        “Thanks,” she said.  “You’ve been really good to me, and there’s been talk about how much you dislike us MEs, so thanks for being nice.”
        Carlos laughed and looked at his feet.  “You guys talk about me?” he asked, eyebrow raised curiously.  “Wait, I don’t want to know,” he replied as she opened her mouth.  “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
        “Oh no!  It’s not your fault,” she said.  There was a pause.  “Better me than you.”
        He snorted.  “Are you sure you’re going to be ok?  You don’t want me to stay?”
        “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said.  “You need to go home and get cleaned up.”
        “You could stay at my place,” he pointed out.
        “I’d be in the way,” she said dismissively, though he shook his head at her.  “You’re sure?”  He nodded.  “Ok then,” she flashed a contagious grin at him.  “Let me get some clothes.”

[

        The next morning came too quickly after the evening’s happenings.  Danae and Carlos had stayed up late talking, and despite her best efforts not to impose upon him, she needed him to get some of her pain pills in the middle of the night.  She made it worthwhile to get out of bed, however, because she made him laugh while explaining the irony of childproof caps on medicine for people who only had one good arm.  When Carlos did get to sleep, he dreamt of snipers on his trail who kept shooting at the people he cared for.
        Carlos hit the snooze button when his alarm sounded the first time and was jarred awake when his alarm went off nine minutes later.  Wearily, he pulled himself out of bed (Danae had insisted on the couch, as it was somehow more comfortable with her injury) and trudged into the bathroom.  He scraped the whiskers off his face mechanically, somehow managing not to nick himself.  A hot shower revitalized him enough to stumble into the kitchen, where the enticing aroma of coffee was waiting for him.
        “You’re a godsend,” he told Danae.  She was seated at his table with her own steaming mug.  “Can I get you anything for breakfast?”
        She shook her head.  “I just need a phone to call in sick,” she said.  “I’m not awake enough for this.  I just got up to say thanks again.”
        “You didn’t have to,” he said with exasperation as he sat down with a doughnut at the other end of the table.
        She smiled and finished her cup of coffee, rinsing the mug out in the sink.  As she walked back through the kitchen to the living room, she paused to kiss Carlos unexpectedly on the top of the head.  He didn’t have long to wonder about that, however, before he heard a knock at the door.
        “Carlos?” Trent called.
        “In the kitchen,” he answered.  Trent came in and poured himself a cup of coffee before launching into a series of questions.  “Sh,” Carlos chided.  “She’s sleeping.”
        “She’s here?”  Trent’s eyes were big.
        Carlos rolled his eyes.  “Don’t get excited.”
        “Well, can I meet her?” Trent wanted to know.  He knew Carlos better than his friend knew himself sometimes, and he wanted to see this potential girlfriend.  Carlos had been moping over his last one for way too long.  Trent trailed his friend into the living room, where Carlos knelt down by Danae and shook her softly.
        “I’ve been awake, you goon,” she said with a smile as she sat up and vainly tried to make her wild curls presentable.  Carlos introduced her to Trent, and she shook his hand with her good left hand.
        Carlos checked his watch.  “Hey, I need to get ready!” he said.  “Be right back…”
        “How long have you two been friends?” Danae asked.
        Trent ran a hand through his hair and sighed.  “Forever,” he said finally.  “He’s always had my back, I guess.”
        “He’s a pretty nice guy like that,” she agreed.  “I think he may be a little tired.  You might want to watch him today.”
        Trent laughed.  This Danae girl is interesting, he thought.  Maybe she’s just the thing Carlos needs.  “I will,” Trent said aloud.
        Carlos came back into the living room, shrugging on a jacket.  “Help yourself to anything, Danae.  I’ll be back to check on you over lunch.”  Danae started to protest, but he silenced her with a hand over the mouth and explained where the food, the phone, the computer, and the shower were in case she needed them.  She nodded, and Carlos left, followed by Trent.
        “It was nice to meet you,” Danae called after the blonde.  Trent, outside the door, gave a look to Carlos, who just shrugged.