Sinclair Justice Read online

  “Get out of the car, please.” He stepped back slightly, appraising her with eyes she knew were arctic behind the shades.

  She looked at the Start button on her dashboard. She had one of the new ignitions, the kind that started only when the key was in the car. Her foot was on the brake, so she only had to punch that Start button and she could quite literally leave him in the dust.

  Be sensible, Mercy Magdalena, she could hear her Irish grandmother pleading from the grave. This was not a good beginning to her first field investigation, and fleeing an officer of the law would not endear her to her federal employers. She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Besides, she might need some help from the local constabulary in looking for Yancy.

  He’d stiffened alertly, as if he’d read her mind. His icy politeness softened to a Texas drawl that was somehow more menacing. “Please, do it. Resisting arrest carries a much longer sentence than speeding, and I’d purely love to buy your car at the police auction.”

  She took her foot off the brake and put the vehicle in Park. “It’s not fair that you can drive as fast as you want, but even though I’ve never had an accident and I’ve driven on racetracks, I can’t go over eighty.” She bit her lip when an eyebrow arched above his sunglasses. “Seventy-five, I mean.” Slowly, sullenly, she put the car keys in his outstretched hand.

  He finished scribbling a ticket and handed her a small board so she could sign. Reluctantly, she did so, stuffing the ticket into her purse without looking at it. “What have I done that’s so awful? I was only trying out my new car and no one’s even passed us since we’ve been sitting here.” She got out of the car. She didn’t like the way he towered over her, so when he moved to put the cuffs on her, she stuck her hands behind her back. “Let me go. Please? I promise not to exceed the limit again.” Until I make it out of this Podunk state . . .

  “Lady, I have a feeling you exceed every limit there is, but that’s the judge’s problem. You’ve already made me write my first speeding ticket in at least ten years.” He pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth, chewing on it as if he badly wanted to light it.

  “We all have our temptations,” she said pointedly, eyeing the vivid label, which she recognized as a very expensive brand because her Rothschild grandfather, Edgar, smoked the same one. When she tilted her head curiously, eyeing him with bright blue intelligence, he took the unlighted cigar out of his mouth, put it back in his pocket, and continued calmly, “Your hands, please.” The next thing she knew, he’d latched cuffs around her hands, put her in the backseat of his SUV, and started up his car.

  “You can’t just leave it there! Someone might steal it.”

  “You might be better off if someone did. What kind of idiot gives a speed demon a car like that?”

  “My father gave it to me as a graduation present.” She thought she heard a scornful, “That figures,” but when she glared into his rearview mirror, where she could see his face, his lips were still and set into a very stern scowl.

  She hated using this card, but it seemed the last one left. “Didn’t you see the name on my driver’s license? A Rothschild is many things, but an idiot isn’t one of them. I can’t believe you’re actually arresting me. I don’t have so much as an unpaid parking ticket!”

  “Ma’am, I don’t care what your name is, why you’re here, or even that you’re going to Amarillo. You’re a menace to public safety and your own, and in Texas if I clock you at twenty-five over the legal speed limit, I have the right to arrest you on the spot and confiscate your driver’s license. I clocked you at one twenty-five, fifty over the legal limit. Be thankful I’ve left you your license. For now . . .”

  The implication wasn’t lost on her. Her temper, always owing more to her Irish mother than her Jewish father, got the best of her. “So sorry I forgot my palm branch and grapes, but if I admit you’re the boss, will you let me go?”

  The SUV swerved slightly as those shades stared a hole in her. She swallowed the rest of her sarcasm, grudgingly impressed that he got the insult, glad when he finally looked back at the road. Great; no telling how much time and money it would take to get her license back after this escapade. She had to bite her tongue a few times, but she managed to keep quiet after that. Typically she could insult people without their being aware of it, but this cop was obviously well read. She was beginning to suspect he was more than a cop. And she couldn’t afford to piss off the chief of police or some other hodunk honcho.

  When they finally reached Amarillo, it was bigger and more modern than she’d expected. She looked around eagerly, but their route didn’t take them downtown, where she glimpsed a surprising number of tall buildings in the distance. She sank back against the seat, reality hitting home with a vengeance. Her arrival was less than auspicious considering she was cuffed in the back of an unmarked police car. She looked up at the obviously institutional building looming outside the window as he parked in front of it. Typical bureaucratic block construction.

  She’d only been to Texas once. When she was a child she’d been dragged by her Catholic grandmother, who had Texas roots, to see the Alamo in San Antonio. She vaguely recalled a very unimpressive cream adobe structure in the middle of a large city. The only hint of its glorious role in Texas independence had been bullet holes in the walls. Lots of them.

  Still, when they’d returned to their brownstone flat in Brooklyn, Emm had checked out books on old missions from her school library. As she grew older, her fascination with old buildings increased to a passion. Now here she was, the ink on her PhD diploma in historic preservation barely dry, driving halfway across the country to investigate the misuse of historic resources in Amarillo, Texas, under the auspices of her new employer, the National Parks Service in Washington, DC. They seemed to have a lot of faith in her because the family trust controlling this particular historic block in downtown Amarillo had both money and clout. Sinclair, she’d learned from her research. She was supposed to see the head of the family, the managing member of the trust, someone named Ross Sinclair. The negotiations to stop the demolition of two old office buildings would be tricky at best in a state notorious for its strong property laws.

  Especially now that she’d have to hire a driver to get around and hope this indignity didn’t get back to her employers.

  She realized the officer was holding open her door and got out. He caught her arm and escorted her up the steps. She followed meekly enough because she had no choice and because, deep down, she knew she’d been foolish to go so fast. She noted a prominent Texas Ranger seal on the door, and a bad feeling poked her in the stomach.

  It couldn’t be . . .

  Inside the lobby area, he nodded at a receptionist behind a thick glass wall. She buzzed them in, looking curiously at Emm. Emm was sure she didn’t fit the type of the usual culprits paraded through here. Her mug shot should be interesting. She debated sticking out her tongue . . . but she’d already pissed this peace officer off enough. Please, let him just be a lieutenant or something, she said silently to herself.

  When he brought her to another officer’s desk—“Corey Cooper,” based on the plaque at his desk—and sat her down while he fetched paperwork from a stack in a copy room, she smiled tentatively at the young officer. He looked Latino, so she tried a smile and a polite “Buenas días.”

  He nodded, his dark eyes skimming her legs appreciatively before he shielded his gaze with thick dark lashes. He began filling out the paperwork the other officer had handed him. The tall Texan in the black hat curtly explained the facts of the case and finished with, “We’ll take a shared arrest on this one. It may not quite make the record books, but it’s close.” He unlocked Emm’s handcuffs and stuck them in his back pants pocket.

  “How fast?” asked the young Latino officer.

  “One twenty-five and rising.”

  Corey whistled, cocking his head as he eyed Emm’s expensive but very conservative suit. But he stayed professional and just kept filling out t
he arrest forms.

  Emm read his thoughts, as she was so adept at doing. “I don’t look the type, huh?”

  The other officer had stepped several feet away and was now thumbing through messages an assistant had handed him.

  As Emm eyed him, she remembered his offhand remark, my first speeding ticket in at least ten years. He was an upper-ranking officer, obviously. She was in an office with a Texas Ranger seal on the door and a bigger one in the middle of the floor.

  She was Irish, or at least one quarter Irish. She kept the shamrock her grandmother had given her in her wallet as a talisman. She couldn’t be that unlucky, especially at the start of a new job. No way could he be the Ross Sinclair she’d researched.

  Captain Ross Sinclair, Texas Rangers.

  Emm looked at Corey but made sure black hat could hear her. “Some people do drugs, others eat too much, some drink to excess. I speed. And while it’s something of a compulsion, as vices go, is it really so awful? I’m a very good driver. I’ve never even had a wreck; check my driving history.”

  Corey looked like he was about to shrug, but his boss, whom Emm now realized black hat must be, tossed his messages aside and strode back to tower over her. “If you’d worked as many highway accidents as I have, you’d realize the sheer stupidity of that remark. Sometimes the remains at accidents involving such high speed have to be scooped up. Literally.” He swung on his heel and stalked away before she could respond.

  Corey eyed her blush with a bit of sympathy. “The captain’s brother died in a high-speed accident. He was driving a BMW.”

  The sharp pang became a knife. Black hat had never showed her a badge, but he’d been so obviously an officer of the law, she hadn’t asked to see one. Finally admitting the better part of valor, Emm just shut up and cooperated as best she could to get this over with. While Corey finished the paperwork she looked around, noting all the Texas Ranger certificates on the walls. She eyed Corey’s crisp shirt but didn’t see a badge. Corey wasn’t wearing it, but when she craned her neck, she saw a badge sitting on his desk, where he could grab it. Even she recognized that famous Lone Star.

  The knife became the sword of Damocles, hovering over her foolish head. In her background research on her adversary Ross Sinclair, she’d smirked at his occupation, thinking it appropriate enough for a man who liked to boast his authority. Her heart now hammering against her ribs, Emm scrabbled around in her purse for the yellow ticket she hadn’t even glanced at when he’d given it to her on the road. She’d signed in the appropriate place but had been too agitated to pay any heed to his name.

  She spread the crumpled ticket on her knee. The bold signature leaped out at her.

  Captain Ross Sinclair.

  Emm stifled a groan, hearing her grandmother’s voice more strongly than ever. Emm, me girl, that temper will get the best of you one of these days.

  Glumly, she eyed the calendar on the wall. This was the day she’d been looking forward to all her life, the day she finally began taking an active role in preserving the old structures she wanted to protect for future generations. Her first case, her first chance to prove herself by persuading a powerful scion of a wealthy family that renovating old buildings was usually better than tearing them down, and she’d blown it before she started. She’d even been taught negotiation tactics in her schooling and had always made As in those courses because she really was good at reading people and being diplomatic—at least where her job was concerned.

  And to top it off, her initial research had indicated this Ranger office was also managing the task force to which the Baltimore police had referred Yancy and Jennifer’s cases. With the luck she’d had since she’d crossed the state line, Ross Sinclair was probably heading that, too.

  Great. Just, great . . .

  As they escorted her to her very first mug shot and she stared into the camera unsmilingly, she knew she’d accomplished at least one of her goals: She’d made an indelible impression on Captain Ross Sinclair.

  CHAPTER 2

  Later that evening, in his vast den with its vaulted, crossbeamed ceiling, Ross Sinclair moodily swirled his brandy as he stared into the crackling fireplace. It was tall enough for him to stand inside, so he seldom used it because of the enormous amount of wood required. It was spring, anyway, chilly at night but warmer during the day. Normally even when he was alone, except for his single employee, a cook/housekeeper/valet/butler, he kept the chill at bay with pashmina blankets and a brandy, but tonight he felt cold and discouraged.

  The new eighty-inch LED TV on an adjacent wall was off. His expensive custom sound system, boasting discreet speakers throughout the five thousand square foot ranch house, played soft, mournful Celtic music. His favorite when he was feeling low.

  Somehow arresting that Rothschild girl—woman, really, as he’d been surprised to see when he looked at her license—had revived unwelcome memories of the past and incited fresh doubts about his future. The hot little brunette with the blond streaks in her lush mane of hair, driving that ungodly expensive red sports car, had reminded him too much of Elaine. Wealthy, spoiled, and selfish, heiress of a wealthy family, she’d broken his heart, propelling him to drop out of graduate school at Yale on the medical school track and, on a wild hair, move to Texas with a fellow Yalie who had family in Amarillo.

  Almost from the moment he’d set foot in West Texas, he’d loved it. Loved the open spaces, the friendly people, the desert climate, the openness to new ideas. While he missed his family, at twenty-three he knew he didn’t want to stay in school. He had his bachelor’s in political science, which was good enough. If he went back to the sprawling mansion in the Hamptons, his parents would push him to return to Yale, and he was sick of school.

  So he stayed. And for a long time, at least, he thrived. It took him a good five years to get settled in the Highway Patrol, another five after that to break into the ranks of the Rangers. Along the way, he’d used an inheritance from his great-aunt, one of the few in the family not scandalized by his desertion from New York, and his own stock market skills, to slowly acquire a hundred-acre parcel and add to it over the years until his ranch was now almost a thousand acres. The recent oil strike had been sheer luck.

  He understood the irony. The Sinclairs could trace their New England ancestry back to the Mayflower and had birthed a long line of successful tycoons and minor but still respected politicians, and Ross was one of the few of them who didn’t give a flip about money. Yet he’d made more on his own than he’d ever inherited. It was his career that truly challenged him and kept him grounded. He’d seen up close and personal the way money, especially inherited money, corrupted. His fortune was purely an accident of birth and geography. Money was little solace for the missing family and passionate love he’d secretly yearned for all his life. Seeing his friend Chad find it in such an unexpected way had proved that it was, after all, possible to combine The Job with the right woman.

  But only the right woman. And he wasn’t an easy match . . .

  As for the future, the job he’d always loved had, of late, been more chore than pleasure. He had almost twenty-eight years under his belt now, enough to retire early on a full pension if he chose. Now that his best friend on the force had become a lieutenant and accepted a desk job in Lubbock so he could spend more time with his infant son and wife, Jasmine, he seldom saw Chad Foster. Even the upcoming annual Sinclair reunion, when Ross’s home became a world-class dude ranch, didn’t fill him with his usual anticipation.

  As he stared into the amber liquid, he finally admitted part of the problem. The fact was, he was getting old. Pushing fifty-two, he could soon retire if he chose, but he still had a long career ahead of him if he wanted it. The question was, did he still want it? He certainly didn’t need the pension. Not to mention the second inheritance his grandmother was insisting on bequeathing to him over his protests. He’d already decided which charitable organizations to bless.

  Irritated at the circular nature of his thoughts, he tossed
back the last of his brandy and fetched the San Antonio paper. The headline blared up at him: “Texas Rangers lead hunt for human trafficking ring ending in El Paso.” Tilting the specs he hated onto his nose, Ross read the article. How the hell had Tupperman found out all this proprietary information? He picked up his cell phone and dialed the freelance investigative reporter who’d broken the story. He knew he’d get an answering machine this late, but he had to go on record with his concern. Besides, he golfed sometimes with Curt Tupperman; he even liked the guy.

  He minced no words in his message. “Curt, dammit, you know better than to go off half-cocked running a story like that with attribution. One of my assets may be in danger with the cartels, now you blabbed so many details. The cartels have very sophisticated information-gathering techniques, including hackers who can breach your security and get into your files. I want a retraction and a written promise from your publisher not to run anything like this again without clearing it with our office, or so help me, I’ll go to Homeland Security and ask them to bring you all up on charges for interfering in our investigation.” He hung up, not identifying himself because he knew Curt would recognize his voice.

  He wadded up the paper and tossed it into the fireplace for kindling. Being a Ranger captain just wasn’t fun anymore. It was bureaucracy, paperwork, soothing the big egos of all the VIPs in various federal departments. Every time he turned around, a new task force was being formed. Turf wars had always been rampant, but just keeping abreast of all the frickin’ laws the Texas legislature loved to pass was a challenge.

  And technology.

  Everywhere, every day, technology was a curse and a blessing. Like all great advancements, it could be used both for good and for evil. Drones, for example. They’d just received their first one, but he wasn’t sure he trusted either the guy operating it—he still had pimples and looked like a kid using a very fancy video game—much less the legality of the data collected.