A racist killer uses the resources of his Aryan gang to falsify an innocence claim, intending to use fraudulent evidence to gain his release from prison. Only the original trial team, cowboy detective E.J. Kane and his former prosecutor ex-wife Rebecca Johnson, refuse to surrender to injustice. An unrelated suicide holds the key to unraveling a massive conundrum of DNA evidence.
Meanwhile, their daughter faces the stark consequences of drug addiction and continued victimization from sex trafficking. E.J. will have to battle a corrupt sheriff, an army of white supremacist, the legendary Big Thicket National Preserve, and a startling revelation about his past dishonor.
The fast-paced modern world of changing social norms forces E.J. Kane to question the traditional codes of his heritage. He must embrace truth and reject false values to draw the hard lines necessary to forge the future.
A racist killer uses the resources of his Aryan gang to falsify an innocence claim, intending to use fraudulent evidence to gain his release from prison. Only the original trial team, cowboy detective E.J. Kane and his former prosecutor ex-wife Rebecca Johnson, refuse to surrender to injustice. An unrelated suicide holds the key to unraveling a massive conundrum of DNA evidence.
Meanwhile, their daughter faces the stark consequences of drug addiction and continued victimization from sex trafficking. E.J. will have to battle a corrupt sheriff, an army of white supremacist, the legendary Big Thicket National Preserve, and a startling revelation about his past dishonor.
The fast-paced modern world of changing social norms forces E.J. Kane to question the traditional codes of his heritage. He must embrace truth and reject false values to draw the hard lines necessary to forge the future.
âAre you bomb disposal?â
âNo, maâam, Iâm the guy who drew the short straw. I enjoyed your talking fish movie.â Oven-baked air stuffed E.J.âs throat with hot, fine dust rising from the combination of red clay and sugar sand. His head twisted, spitting out the thick grit.
Gazing beyond the movie star, he caught sight above the tracks through the thick glass windows and doors of the cab. E.J. had been around the oil field enough to learn operators called the rotating compartment above the tracks, the house. Like an object materialized from an alien world, a crude bomb stood out from behind the tall, transparent door. The device appeared primitive, like sticks of dynamite out of an old Western movie.
âMaâam?â She shrieked like someone had stabbed her. Her athletic body pulled against the logging chains. The bonds fastened her through the massive track around an interior steel wheel. She slung her head back, ending the futile battle against the enormous dirt mover.
E.J. jumped across a deep vein the mechanical leviathan had cut into the earth. His arthritic knee buckled, causing him to regret the leap. Seventy feet of dried red dirt separated him from the green-needled pine trees standing arrow straight under a blazing sky.
Behind him lay the expanse of an unbroken pipeline easement parting a pine curtain. Raising his arms and lifting the leg eased his suffering.
âHey, idiot,â yelled the woman. âI call nine one one and they send me a geriatric cowboy with attention deficit disorder.â
Pain permeated E.J.âs bones, stabbing into one another. Like brittle spindles threatening to snap the kneecap backward, his legs faltered.
E.J. gritted his teeth, self-conscious he must look like a modern Moses separating a vast sea of pine timber. Scent from an ocean of dry evergreens diffused throughout the scorched air, despite the lack of a breeze.
By placing his boots on the steps of the enormous industrial machine, he gained the ability to analyze the explosive device closely. The bomb looked old-school except for a plastic two-by-two-inch box and a modern blasting cap wrapped atop the red sticks with duct tape.
âWell?â she wailed.
âCanât rightly say,â said E.J.
âWhat?â
âI donât know,â said E.J.
âYou donât know? You donât know? Why did they send you?â Her right hand struggled to lift a cell phone to her ear.
âNo. We donât know what sets it off. Might be the radio waves. No way of knowing,â said E.J.
âIâm going to die, and they send me the village idiot from inbred redneckland to diffuse a bomb who thinks mermaids are talking fish. Why didnât I ask Siri how to disarm the stupid thing?â
E.J. turned back to her. Googling the question didnât sound like a bad idea except for using a cell phone in proximity to the device. If he walked back some distance, he could ask a search engine. Surely there is some artificial intelligence floating in the ether of cyberspace that has the capability to formulate an answer.
Human intelligence had evidently concluded a person strapped to a colossal mechanical contraption topped by an incendiary device amounted to reason. One had the ability to only match the absurdity of the foolishness with the arrogance of giving credit to such boundless ignorance as scientific thought.
Reason dictated finding an alternative to such purported wisdom. Yet this woman acted as if he were the one acting stupid. She had put E.J. in a bad spotâworse, she put herself in extreme danger for nothing.
Still, her face drew his gaze back. He saw why she starred in movies. Even middle-aged, without makeup, and adorned in a white tee shirt with denim overalls, the woman exuded a brightness he could feel on his skin like the sunshine beating down.
Why couldnât he keep his mind on the task before him? Did death call a siren song audible only to him, or did others hear the tune?
Forcing himself back to the moment, he erupted. âLady, Iâm head of security for Devekon Energy, the company overseeing this pipeline project. I got sent to stop your little protest. Donât know anything about a nine-one-one call or a bomb.â He drew a deep breath, then continued. âIâm all the cavalry you got.â
She rolled her eyes, catching herself before speaking.
E.J. gritted his teeth. Who knew how you get rid of a bomb? Maybe he shouldnât have admitted the fact to a person already upset?
Sweat matted her blonde hair over her forehead. She looked down at her arms, then forced her chest against the chains, to no avail. âCowboy, we need a plan.â
E.J.âs head swung back from the force of her roar. âGot a plan. We get you out of here and let this behemoth blow up. What Devekon pays insurance for.â
âI got no key.â A shrill quality conveyed urgency.
âItâs what you told the crew, but nobody locks themselves to a half-million-dollar piece of equipment without an exit strategy. Only a total idiot would do that.â
âIâm the idiot? Chains symbolize our addiction to fossil fuels, so I donât have a key. Canât you see, humanity doesnât have a key? You idiot, humanity is throwing our key away literally every minute.â She peered intently at him.
E.J. returned the puzzled stare. Was she so deep into this environmental cause, she couldnât see the glaring stupidity of this scheme?
âYou donât see any of it, do you? Why I had to go to these lengths to get people like you to understand? The plan was the pipeline company would have to find some way to cut through the chains. It was meant to take time. News crews would come from everywhere, publicizing my plight as a concrete symbol for the murder of Mother Earth.â
E.J. peered into her dark eyes. She was as mentally unsettled as the crowd of pipeline workers over a quarter mile distant had claimed. However, the oil field workers had proclaimed their psychological assessment in the more graphic and vulgar language of the oil field. Would explosives sheering her flesh into a million concrete symbols save the planet?
He needed to end the ignorance now before this true believer got herself killed over nothing. âThere is a little plastic rectangle near the blasting cap. An electronic device, a counter, or a clock are all possibilities. Understand? Time might be ticking down to detonation right now. Give me the key,â demanded E.J. in his sternest voice.
âIâm telling you. Somebody overdid it. They changed the plan without including me. There wasnât supposed to be a bomb,â she screamed.
The dramatic artist threw her head back, slinging her perspiration-soaked blonde locks. âI see the message. The perfect imagery. The perfect message. Weâre all facing the ticking time bomb of climate change.â A strange laughter exhaled from the woman. âItâs genius. Total genius, but I wasnât in on it. I swear, no one told me.â
E.J. saw no intelligent thought in any of it. Was she talking out of her head? More than once, he had witnessed the moment people came to terms with their own mortality. The experience taught him there was no one-size-fits-all response.
The fact she hadnât panicked to this point didnât mean she wouldnât lose it, making a difficult situation impossible. Panic equaled death. Such was the only mathematical certainty universally true in crisis management. Her mind shouldnât focus on imminent death. âYou sound like my daughter,â said E.J.
âAnd any other rational human being,â snapped the thespian.
So odd, how she prided herself on her rationalism. However, she obviously put herself in an absurd situation, even if she didnât know about the explosives. What thinking person would chain herself to an enormous excavator without a way out? It was worth one more shot. âGive me the key.â E.J. barked the words at the top of his lungs.
The womanâs responding shriek rivaled in volume any screech of victim or monster ever appearing on the silver screen. âI threw the key away at the hotel.â
âKind of dramatic, isnât it?â
She rolled her eyes.
It hit him. A celebrity christened a modern-day saint by her Hollywood peers wouldnât have a good understanding of how strange she seemed to a group of Texas pipeliners. âYou see that gaggle of welders and dirt movers about a half mile down the line? Tried convincing one of them to drive a welding truck down here and cut you out with a torch,â said E.J.
âCowards.â
E.J. shook his head. âOrdinarily pretty brave lot. Suppose they think this is poetic justice. Tree hugger trying to take their livelihood does herself in.â
âShut up and come up with something.â The sharp tone rose to an even higher level.
âSeems like dynamite would be like gunpowder. We get it wet, and it wonât go off. Makes sense, right?â said E.J.
She stared at her phone, thumbs oscillating.
âI told you Iâm worried phone signals will set it off,â said E.J.
She shook her head in disgust mixed with fear. âYous people know nothing.â
âYous people, like New York or New Jersey?â E.J. grinned, emphasizing the last syllable in jersey.
âCincinnati by way of Philly parents. Congratulations, one trip to hick-land has undone thirty years of speech classes. Nitroglycerin can build up and explode unexpectedly when dynamite gets wet according to Wikipedia,â she said.
âWikipedia can be wrong,â said E.J.
Waving her head in disbelief, the movie star screamed at him. âWikipedia wrong? Itâs a better gamble than some cowboy flunky for big oil.â
The only other person capable of dressing him down in such a witty fashion had been his ex-wife, Rebecca. E.J. looked at the ring he couldnât bring himself to keep off his finger. The celebrityâs gaze jerked him back to the explosive device. Why did his mind wander?
He fumbled thumb to index finger on his phoneâs screen, sending a photo and calling the contact. Locking gazes with the actor, E.J. nodded to her, attempting to express assurance in the latest plan. âCalling the best munitions guy there is. Fellow was a firearms analyst for the DPS lab. Jay? Jay?â
The voice came through the speakerphone feature. âRanger Kane?â
âI need some help. Did you get the picture I just texted?â
âThis is real?â asked Jay.
âWhat Iâm asking you?â
âDrop me a pin and get out of there. Iâll have a bomb squad en route.â
âNot an option. Iâm on a pipeline location in the middle of nowhere. Crazy situation. Movie star has chained herself to a huge track hoe trying to stop a big pipeline project. Chain thicker than a set of bolt cutters can cut.â E.J. waited out an uncomfortable pause.
âYou know people in the FBI. Why call me and not Quantico? Iâm just an old toolmark analyst.â
âNot gonna trust our lives to a stranger. You know more about munitions than anybody. Might soak it with water, right?â
âNo. Go with diesel, but I wouldnât touch it. Probably a hoax. The bomb has more of a Wile E. Coyote look to it, though I wouldnât touch it. Get your movie star out of there,â pleaded Jay.
E.J. looked downcast at the woman, then spoke into his phone. âNot gonna happen.â
âFigure it out. Send me a pin. Iâm estimating a bomb squad is two hours out, but Iâm going to get one your way.â
E.J. ended the call. He had smelled diesel and the lesser odor of hydraulic fluid since he got there. A bucket of diesel wouldnât be hard to find.
âTwo hours. I need to call my kids and tell them I died in Ignorantville, Texas, killed by an incompetent, inbred buffoon.â
E.J. pointed along the massive thoroughfare, holding back both sides of a piney wood to a group of pipeline constructors. âWelding trucks have oxyacetylene cutting rigs and diesel tanks. Iâll be back.â
Her tears streamed dirty checks. âReally? Really?â
âReally,â said E.J.
âYouâre not coming back.â
E.J. turned back. He saw what must have been a daughter on the ladyâs phone screen. Every moment he wasted might make the difference. He looked deep into her dark orbs until, satisfied she had provided her full attention. âLady, I donât lie.â
Draw a Hard Line is the second exciting book in author Micheal E. Jimersonâs immersive, action-filled E.J. Kane Mystery series, which launched in 2022 with its stellar debut, White Gold. All its memorable characters return as E.J. and his ex-wife, attorney Rebecca Johnson, confront an old adversary when new evidence threatens to overturn the conviction of the murderous head of a dangerous white supremacist paramilitary group.
A little time has passed since the events of book one, and E.J. and Rebecca have both struggled with their efforts to help their daughter overcome her drug habit. Sharla has played her parents one against the other for years, and she now leans into her past successes with all the cunning of the addict she is. Readers learn so much more about the family: the death of the oldest child, son Konnor, in Afghanistan and its life-altering impact on E.J., Rebecca, and Sharla. While Rebecca blames E.J. for their sonâs death, E.J. goes one further, blaming himself and God. He struggles with the erosion of his relationship with the Lord, obviously hurting and wanting to re-establish his former faith, just as he tries to understand and repair the uneasy and awkward relationship with Rebecca, whom he still loves.
The author introduces a truly evil villain in the character of G.H. Burton, the incarcerated-for-life (they thought) former leader of the Aryan Triangle. Through the storylineâs court proceedings, I was surprised to learn that DNA is not the be-all or end-all that television, films, and crime fiction portray. Complicating the case is the shadow of E.J.âs tarnished reputation and the vitriol of his former Texas Rangers supervisor, Lt. Col Craig Fenton, and the machinations of treacherous Sheriff Benjamin Berryhill. B.B.âs storyline caused mixed emotions for E.J. and me. The man is a heinous individual, but his son and wife are wonderful people, and he holds the keys E.J. needs to reset his life.
The plot moves quickly, and the author deftly manages many moving parts. Not only are there E.J.âs personal family struggles and the Burton debacle and sideshow, but E.J.âs old friend, Rex Ashe, is slowly succumbing to the ravages of Alzheimerâs. In addition, E.J. is experiencing his own health worries. I could almost feel every misstep and jolt to his knee as he physically tried to do what needed doing. E.J.âs and Cooperâs terrifying flight through the Big Thicket and the eleventh-hour confrontation with Conrad Beams were as edge-of-your-seat as they come.
I enjoyed the East Texas setting established in book one, especially the Big Thicket action sequences where you could almost feel the humidity, marshy mud, and mosquitoes. However, the story isnât as location-specific as before, and readers new to the series may only get a general sense that the action is occurring somewhere in rural Texas.
I recommend DRAW A HARD LINE to mystery readers who enjoy character-driven stories, courtroom drama, and heart-pounding thrills.