Sinclair Justice Read online

  She’d been using her hands to describe a building she particularly liked and seemed not to have noticed the slipping shawl. He noticed. The sundress wasn’t low cut, but it had a lace-up ribbon bodice that emphasized her curves. This time, when he leaned over her, she smelled of roses. Not Chanel, or any of those other, even fancier names that ended in vowels. Just roses. Again, it was unexpected that this complicated, wealthy, well-educated woman would scent herself with smells of the earth instead of an expensive perfume.

  When she accepted the glass, their fingertips brushed. Fire tingled up his hand. He jerked away so fast, the liquid sloshed in the martini glass, dribbling on her dress. He flushed. “I’m so sorry. Let me get a towel.”

  She brushed at the dribbles. “No problem; the garlic will cover the scent of the vodka and the hotel has laundry service.” She took the olive out of the glass and ate it with gusto in two bites. “Do you have some more olives?”

  Glad for the escape from the scent and sight of her, he went behind the bar and dumped half the contents of the olive jar into a small glass dish. When he took it back, she was nursing the martini and staring into the cold fireplace. She opened her mouth, closed it, and used the toothpick he’d given her to spear another martini olive, but he caught her slight shiver.

  Sighing, he did the right if not the expedient thing and took the time to stack firewood in the grate, enough for a good-sized fire. She put her glass down to help, but he waved her back.

  He had a gas log, so the kindling was already catching by the time he dusted off his hands and sat in the second chair to sip his own martini. He caught the sideways looks she kept sending him and finally asked, “Have I grown two heads, or do you just like keeping people off balance?”

  She took another sip for courage and rushed out, “I was just wondering why you made the fire. It’s late, and I know you have to work tomorrow. This really isn’t a social visit, so I’m fine if we just get on with the plans—”

  “I could see you wanted one.”

  That really tilted her head sideways as she stared at him. “I’m in a tiny apartment in Baltimore and I miss having a fireplace, but you couldn’t know that.”

  He shrugged. “It was in your face, and you shivered.” It was his turn to eye her speculatively. “I’d have thought you owned your own fancy townhome with lots of windows and an itty-bitty lawn.”

  “So you’ve been to Baltimore?”

  He nodded. He’d been to more than one fancy, power-elite party thrown by various family members.

  She opened her mouth to say something obviously vehement, thought better of it, finished her martini in a gulp, and put her glass down with a snap. “No, I don’t live in a townhome. Anyway, thanks for the drink and the olives, but it’s getting late, so we need to get to the plans.”

  Now what had he said to make her go evasive like that? Ross wondered. He could usually read people early and well, probably the main reason he’d risen in the Ranger ranks as quickly as he had, but she was an enigma. When she got up to open the old, yellowing plans he’d spread out on the sofa table, her face and form limned beautifully by the firelight, he thought she must fit Fibonacci’s famous golden ratio in the balance of her form and face: 1.618. The ideal of true beauty and symmetry . . . what would she look like naked?

  She’d already flipped through the entire set of plans while he was drooling over her. “See this structural schematic?” She pointed at a structural blowup drawing of the area where they’d stood beneath the brown ceiling.

  He had to physically grip the edge of the table to master his restive urges and force himself to listen. Dammit, why must she smell so good?

  “See this structural red iron beam that supports all the floor joists? We can get a good read from a structural engineer and the soils analysis to discover whether it still meets these tolerances. Then we’ll know for sure if I’m right that the leak is cosmetic.” She let the plans roll back up again. “We’ll need to have these copied so we can give him a complete set. I have someone in mind who I’ve worked with before, but if you have your own firm, that’s fine. . . .” She trailed off to stare at him.

  Only then did he realize that he was standing all too close but not looking at the plans where she pointed. Instead, he was staring fixedly at the hollow of her throat, at the pulsing beat of her heart. He felt like a vampire, so badly did he want to taste that vibrant rush of blood and life and test it with his tongue. He reddened at her expression and stumbled back a step, his own flush so bright it heated his face even in the warmth of the fire. What the hell was wrong with him? His booted foot brushed against one of the wing chairs and he stumbled slightly.

  Automatically, she reached out to catch him, but by then he was a good six paces away. “Mr. Sinclair, is something wrong?”

  Everything, he wanted to retort, but with this much distance he was able to master his out-of-control libido. “No, I’m just tired, stumbled a bit. You go ahead, contact whoever you think is best for the job. The structural inspection we had done was several years ago and was only a walk-through, so I can see we need something more thorough. Just have him send his scope of work and estimate to my home e-mail before he starts.” He scribbled his home e-mail on the back of one of his work cards and handed it to her, careful not to touch her fingers. “Would you like another drink before you go?”

  She got the message. Shaking her head, she grabbed up her shawl and wrapped it close around her shoulders. Not quite a protective cocoon, but he also got the message: hands off. “Would you like me to have the plans copied, or do you want to do that?”

  Her voice was very cool, and because he was all but rushing her to the door, he couldn’t blame her. Wordlessly, he wrapped the rolled plans back in their brown tube and handed them to her. She accepted them in one arm and slung her purse over her shawl on the other, turning for the door.

  He drew a sigh of relief but followed her to courteously open it. She moved to cross the threshold but stopped and looked up at him. “Do you have . . . a public information officer on the task force for human trafficking?”

  He blinked. What the hell? How did that have any bearing on the debate over his buildings?

  She must have seen his confusion because she said primly, “I’m looking into the disappearance of . . . a friend. I was told in Baltimore that she was probably brought through Texas to Mexico, and that the Texas Rangers are heading the task force. I saw your name listed yesterday in the San Antonio paper—”

  Ross pulled her back inside and slammed the door. “Is that what this has all been about?” Dammit, he knew she’d had some kind of hidden agenda beyond her job. “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I couldn’t give you details of an ongoing investigation.” He read the words trembling on her tongue and said bluntly, “And even if you could help in some way, which you can’t, I wouldn’t be the one to question you—”

  She took the ire out of his words with one simple sentence. “I know.” She walked back to the bar to set the plans and her purse down. Then she turned to him and said simply, “But I may have information about a key piece of evidence.” Quickly, she explained about the dragon-head pipe. “Couldn’t you, like, test for fingerprints to see if it’s really Yancy’s?”

  “Yes, of course, but that won’t help us find her, at least not yet.”

  “But at least I’d know.”

  The silence was broken when a log fell with a crackle and burst of fire. Ross saw his budget for the quarter in his mind’s eye, already in the red. He was about to tell her no, it was a futile exercise, but the dark desperation in her normally cloudless blue eyes troubled him. “What is this Yancy to you?”

  She took a deep breath and then admitted, “My half sister. They took her daughter, my niece, too. That’s how Yancy went missing, looking for her. Her name is Jennifer. They’re both . . . natural blondes and beautiful. Yancy has green eyes and Jennifer’s are blue.”

  Few knew what that meant better than Ross. Women like that were h
ighly prized in various rough corners of the globe. He felt a bit sick to his stomach as he visualized which corners, and what two such women were doing right now. Despite his distaste at her now obvious attempts to grease the flow of information with a box of cigars, Ross understood exactly how she felt. He escorted her back to the armchair and, without her asking, mixed them both another martini. He knew this time he’d have to let her have a guest room rather than drive, or stay up with her for at least another few hours, but he sensed the anguish behind her quiet, waiting expression.

  She was getting to him in a way he didn’t like, and he knew he should keep any meetings between them impersonal, but a missing sister and niece were anything but. Gratefully, she accepted the drink, as before, concentrating on eating olives with each sip.

  “Have you had dinner?” he asked.

  Again, she seemed surprised that he’d read her hunger. “Is my stomach growling?”

  “No, but you just ate through half a bottle of olives.”

  She looked down at the empty little dish and gave an embarrassed shrug that pushed the shawl off her shoulders.

  His gaze fell to the hollow of her throat, and to disguise his own hunger, he stood abruptly. “Follow me. Bring your drink.”

  And so it was that Captain Ross Sinclair, forced by circumstance and the common courtesy drilled into him since he could walk, played host yet again to a woman who represented all he’d rejected when he’d left Elaine. While he hastily threw together a couple of sandwiches with glasses of milk and homemade cookies for dessert, he asked questions.

  Fifteen minutes later, he knew the what, where, when, and how of the case, but as to why . . . ?

  She bit into her sandwich, took a few appreciative chews, swallowed, and said, “Well, in Jennifer’s case, she was hanging out with the wrong crowd. Some of them were doing drugs, even heroin, brought in from Mexico. It’s only a theory, but I think one of the cartel’s suppliers saw her at a party or something and staked her out. At least she disappeared two days later . . .”

  Sitting across from her at the large granite-topped island in the gourmet kitchen that was his favorite room in the house, Ross nodded and wiped his mouth. “Most of the drug cartels have also started human trafficking. Oftentimes they use the same transportation pipeline or tunnels under the border to move victims out of the US.”

  She leaned forward eagerly, her sandwich dropping to her plate, forgotten for the moment. “But if you know that, why can’t you track them?”

  “As soon as we find one tunnel, they dig another. Remember, we’re fighting not just a lone kidnapper but an organization with increasingly international ties and almost unlimited funding. We think there may even be some connections between one of the most vicious gangs known here in the US as the Los Lobos cartel and some of the Chechnya extremists.”

  Frowning, she nibbled at the edge of a potato chip. “That’s the cartel Curt mentioned in his story. He admitted he didn’t have proof yet, but he said there were indications their web of allies stretches nationwide.”

  He smiled bitterly. “Yes, well, his little theories make it that much harder for us to collect concrete evidence, especially when he broadcasts the names of some of our contacts.”

  She was nodding, and he realized she must have done her research. He shoved his half-eaten sandwich away. “This dragon pipe . . . if I get you in to view the evidence we’re still collating from that warehouse, do you think you could ID more of their belongings?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Jennifer and Yancy and I went shopping together. A lot.”

  Of course they did. Everything about this woman said she had money to burn. But he didn’t let her see his thoughts as he rose and dumped the rest of his food into the trash. When she finished, he took her plate, ignoring her protest that she’d do it herself, and scraped the remnants of her bread crust and chips into the trash, too.

  He’d been thinking furiously, and he turned to her with a new suggestion but stopped with it half formed on his lips when he saw her sitting there patiently, hands clasped together on top of the granite. His reluctant respect for her grew. She knew when to push and when not to. He also noted she’d barely touched the martini. While he still felt a bit used, he couldn’t really blame her for being manipulative in hopes of getting information about her sister and niece. And he knew if he turned her over to the system and she tried to go through appropriate channels, she’d get stonewalled. He had visions of her breaking into the evidence warehouse. While he was still getting to know her, it was patently obvious the two of them shared one trait: sheer bullheadedness.

  “Do either your sister or your niece have any distinctive habits or needs that might set them apart and give us a paper trail? An ailment, a special food they have to eat, or a custom shoe, that kind of thing.”

  She frowned, concentrating, then she said, “Yancy has a mild case of hemophilia A. She usually controls it with oral meds, but if she goes off them for long she has to have intravenous shots. She’s allergic to the other protocols.”

  “You know the name of this drug?”

  She stared into space. “I’ve seen her take it often enough . . . Effluenatasis. It hasn’t been available long and it’s made in the US. It’s got to be hard to get in Mexico.”

  “That at least gives us somewhere to start.” He scribbled down the name of the drug.

  She worried her shawl fringe again. “Do you . . . think they’d quit treating her and just let her bleed out? If she’s been off her meds most of this time . . .”

  He wanted to tell her no, her sister was valuable, and they’d try to keep her healthy, but he couldn’t lie to her. All the cartels were notorious for cutting their liabilities ruthlessly, and Yancy was much older than their usual targets. He stayed silent.

  Her mouth trembled, but she managed, “Thanks for not lying to me. I guess there’s really no way you can give me an answer to that.”

  He almost reached out to take her hand but stuck his hand in his pocket instead. It was dangerous to touch this woman, even in comfort. He cleared his throat. “Her picture is on all the missing persons sites?”

  She nodded. “And the police in Baltimore distributed it, but the only hit we had didn’t lead anywhere except . . . maybe here.”

  “What is your sister’s last name?”

  “Russell. Yancy and Jennifer Russell.”

  The names didn’t ring any bells, but Ross seldom saw the case files themselves because he was managing the investigation. He rarely got involved in fieldwork. “You have pictures of them?”

  She pulled her cell phone from her dress pocket and flipped it open. The picture of two gorgeous blondes who looked more like sisters than mother and daughter had a background of the Bellagio hotel in Vegas. Ross recognized it instantly. “So your sister likes to gamble?”

  She nodded.

  Ross handed the phone back. “Thanks. Well, I don’t know how much good it will do, but it always helps to associate a name with a face. I’ll do what I can to get you into the evidence room, but I’ll have to clear it with our attorneys.” Privately, as she wiped the granite while he washed the few dishes they’d generated, Ross suspected her sister and niece would never be seen again. Women that beautiful were just too valuable. . . . And Yancy resembled her younger sister, at least in the perfect bone structure and sparkling intelligence in her eyes, and no doubt, in determination. One sister had gotten herself taken by conducting her own investigation, and it was his duty to see that Emm didn’t suffer the same fate.

  For about the sixth time since he’d met her, Ross wished this woman had never come to Amarillo. It was hard enough remaining impartial about human trafficking so he could dispassionately conduct his job, but now he would be haunted by those two gorgeous blondes, not just how they’d looked on their fun vacation spree but how they probably looked now . . . if they were even still alive.

  The next day, Emm rose late after a night of tossing and turning. Because she’d barely tou
ched the second martini, she’d been fine to drive last night and had insisted on returning to her hotel even when Sinclair halfheartedly offered her a guest room. She sensed he didn’t want her embroiled in his private life, and given the circumstances, she could hardly blame him. But to herself, at least, she could admit she was strongly attracted to the iron-haired and iron-willed Ranger captain of Company C. “Horrid timing, you idiot,” she said under her breath as she dressed. “He’s only the key to successfully resolving my first case and to finding my sister and niece. Hands off.”

  With that resolve in mind, Emm quit looking at her cell phone, hoping to see it ring with his name, called the structural engineer she knew from Fort Worth, and explained the issue, plus that this was something of a rush as she was staying in Amarillo until the results came in. Then, after a quick light lunch, because she still hadn’t gotten the approval from Sinclair to go to the evidence warehouse, she decided to visit the downtown Amarillo library.

  The Web was fabulous for research, but only to a point. Older research materials, such as newspaper articles from several years back or old case files from prior kidnapping cases, were seldom online. She’d already performed some cursory research before she’d come here and had stumbled across mention of a cold kidnapping case from three years earlier that had been reopened after a body had been found in a shallow grave in the scrub outside Lubbock. The dental records had matched a missing girl from Baltimore, and the little she’d read about the case had eerie similarities to Yancy’s circumstances. Black truck, two men, girl missing from a downtown Baltimore bar. The case had been referred to the Baltimore police and then handed back to the Texas Highway patrol, who had jurisdiction over the area of the grave site.

  But Emm knew local papers often carried stories the big dailies wouldn’t. If she searched the database the library subscribed to, she was hoping the Amarillo paper had been digitized at least three years back and would carry more detailed information. After she registered and was given a swipeable ID card, she sat down before a vacant bank of computers. She entered the girl’s name and was surprised when five hits came up. All but one of them were highlighted in blue, which meant she could click on the full article. She clicked on the oldest article first, her pad beside her so she could make notes. She could print the articles and read them later, but Emm loved libraries and was grieved they were struggling. Just like seeing a movie in person, researching next to other seekers of knowledge held its own charm.