Asking For Trouble (25 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Beau paced the hall outside of the emergency
room where Lucy was waiting for the doctor to see her. Robbie was
sitting in a chair beside the bed to keep his sister company. The
social worker hadn't shown up yet to meet them. It had taken him
over an hour at the restaurant to convince Lucy to let him bring
her to the hospital to get checked out and call the woman who was
supposed to be looking out for her.

Now, he got a call from the woman
he
was supposed to be looking out for, Jazzie Ramos, and she was in
trouble, and he couldn't do a damned thing to help her right now.
Frustration saturated every pore of his being and his muscles felt
like tight rubber bands about to snap he was so tense.

The only thing he'd managed to do for her
was to get his boss to call in some backup units in the area to
intercept them. Hopefully they'd get there in time to help...before
something worse happened. He'd also called Susan Whitmore and told
her what was going on with Jazzie and that Carlos Ramos had been
abducted.

What was that word Glen had used before to
describe this situation?
Goatfuck
--that was a perfect
descriptor, and one he'd used with Susan.

Regardless of that, the stubborn woman told
him they were still on for tonight, that this would make it even
easier to convince the consortium to play ball with them. She said
it looked like they were desperate. The abduction and the danger
Jazzie and her agents were in now didn't even seem to faze the
woman. It seemed ice water ran through the woman's veins instead of
blood.

Out of the corner of his eye on the downward
pass of his pacing, Beau saw the doctor walk into the room with
Lucy and hustled down there. He walked in and Lucy was sitting up
on the bed near the top, kind of folded in on herself
protectively.

"Lucy it's okay, darlin', this is the doctor
who's going to take a look at your legs," Beau told her then shot
the man a glance, before looking at Robbie to say, "Sport, why
don't you go to the waiting room and give Lucy some privacy...I'll
be down there in a second."

"I'm Dr. Turner," the man stuck out his hand
and Beau shook it, then he asked Beau, "Are you her father?"

"No!" he said quickly, then calmed his voice
and said, "Um...can I speak to you outside for a second, doc?"

"Sure..." the doctor said then walked back
out into the hall with Beau and folded his arms across his chest,
waiting patiently for Beau to speak.

"Both of these kids are in the foster care
program in Dallas. A friend of mine was giving volunteer violin
lessons at an inner city school today, and Lucy was supposed to be
one of her students, but didn't show. Her teacher sent me to pick
her up, because she thought it was a transportation problem that
kept her from coming.

I went to the house and it was horrific, and
the kids were alone and hadn't eaten since yesterday. Lucy was in
her room crying, so I went in there to check on her and she had on
shorts and the back of her legs were full of belt marks. She also
has a bruise on her face. I called her social worker two hours ago,
and she said she'd meet us here, but she hasn't shown. Honestly, in
my opinion that woman needs to be fired."

"Okay, so you're a concerned citizen who
thinks there might be some abuse going on and want me to check her
out and verify that?" the doctor summarized.

"I'm a Texas Ranger who found young kids
being neglected, living in squalor, and being abused. I felt
obligated to protect them, and if you could help me do that, I'd
sincerely appreciate it," Beau told him.

The doctor, who looked to be of Indian
descent, nodded then said, "I'll be happy to help in anyway I can,
but you have to know this is not uncommon. The foster care system
is overloaded, as are all the case workers. I'm not making excuses
for them, but it's terrible what some children have to go through,
because they are simply a number in a system that's already choked
with numbers."

Beau had sympathy for the social worker,
because he knew what the doctor said was true, but he wasn't buying
the total neglect she'd shown in dealing with these two kids was
from her caseload. She hadn't seemed overly concerned when he'd
talked to her on the phone earlier either.

"There still should have been some follow up
after they were placed with these people, but thank you for the
information," Beau told the doctor, then they walked back into the
room.

A nurse walked in behind them to assist the
doctor. She walked around the bed and helped Lucy lift her skirt,
and lie on her stomach, so she could be examined. The nurse gasped
when she saw the ten or so crisscrossing angry red whelps on the
back of her thighs. Some of them looked to be crusted with blood.
Beau swallowed down the sickness in his throat and turned away.

"I'm going to sit with Robbie in the waiting
room, Lucy...if you need me, just let them know." When Beau walked
out into the hall his phone rang, and he answered it quickly. It
was Susan Whitmore. "Yeah, you find out anything?" he asked her
shortly.

"They got Jasmine too..." she told him
somberly.

"
What!?!
" Beau shouted and his voice
echoed off the walls of the emergency department. Robbie stuck his
head out of the waiting room and looked at him with fear in his
eyes. Beau held up a hand and mouthed, "It's okay," to the little
boy, and he nodded then went back inside the waiting room.

"Calm down," Susan said gruffly, then told
him, "The Ferarri cut them off, before they got to the interstate,
and the agent driving curbed the car and hit a light pole. The
impact knocked one of them out, and the guy in the Ferrari shot the
other agent. He took Jasmine from them, and then took off in the
car. The agent who survived just said it was a red Ferarri and
there aren't many of those around, so I put out an alert."

"Unfucking believable," Beau said as
adrenaline shot through him. He had to go help find her. Those guys
were so crazy, there was no telling what they'd do to her. He was
sure they'd never leave her alive to identify them, after they got
what they wanted. "We have to call off tonight and regroup...we've
got to find Jazzie," Beau told her flatly.

This is what he got for playing the good
Samaritan. If he'd have just stayed at the school with her, none of
this would be happening. Those assholes wouldn't have her, and he
wouldn't be worried sick they were going to hurt her. That had been
Beau's problem all his life, he was always the white knight, if he
saw something wrong, he tried to fix it, to help. That's why he'd
chosen to be a Texas Ranger over ranching with his dad.

Because he couldn't just fucking keep his
nose out of unjust situations, and mind his own damned
business.

This time it might cost him someone he cared
about. Hell, he didn't just fucking care about Jazzie, he loved
her. Although Beau finally admitted that to himself, he knew he'd
never be able to say the words. He hadn't even been able to say
them to the woman he'd asked to marry him, and that was why she'd
left him. Eventually, Jazzie would get tired of waiting too, and
she'd leave him with his heart and his dick in his hands.

"No, we need to go ahead with tonight...it's
the only way we're going to save her, and lock this case up.
They'll kill her Beau, I have no doubt about it, unless we can give
them something they want more in exchange."

"If we give them Frankie, they'll kill all
three of them," Beau told her and shoved a hand through his hair,
holding back a moan that wanted to roll out of him.

"We're not giving them Frankie--we're just
going to make them
think
we are. We can't leave him where he
is, they'll find him soon, just like they did Jasmine, and they
will kill him. Someone inside is giving them information, and we
need to find out who that is."

Beau hesitated and wrapped his brain around
what she'd said and it made sense to him, so he fought the urge to
go jump in his truck and track down that red Ferrari and beat the
shit out of the guy who had the balls to put his hands on Jazzie.
This was a better plan, but not an instinctive one for him. "All
right, I'll be ready tonight and meet you there."

After he hung up, Beau walked into the
waiting room, and Robbie was sitting in the corner with his knees
up in the chair, hugged to his chest. Beau's heart twitched and he
walked over to him and sat down then put his arm around Robbie's
shoulders.

"You doing okay, champ?" Beau asked him and
he nodded, but his lower lip trembled.

"Well, I'm not..." Beau said, then asked
softly, "Think you could give me a hug to make me feel better?"

Robbie dropped his legs to the floor then
stood up and threw his arms around Beau's neck, hugging him
tightly. Beau closed his arms around the little dark-haired kid who
probably hadn't had many hugs in his life and squeezed tighter. He
pulled back after a minute and said, "Thanks, man...I needed that,"
and Robbie smiled.

A frazzled-looking red haired woman dressed
in jeans and a t-shirt came shuffling into the room, with a
briefcase over her shoulder. She walked over to him, then shoved
her tortoise-shell glasses back up on her nose and said, "Are you
the man who brought Lucy and Robbie here?"

Beau shoved up to his feet and rubbed his
hands on his jeans, then extended his hand to her, "Beau Bowman,
I'm a Texas Ranger. Are you their social worker?"

She shook his hand and hers trembled, then
she pulled it back quickly and glanced at Robbie. "Cheryl Thomas,
and yes I'm their social worker."

"Ms. Thomas when is the last time you
visited the, um, home where you placed Robbie and Lucy?"

Her face turned bright red and her eyes
darted away from his, before she replied, "I only visit every six
months, unless there's a reported problem, and they haven't been
there six months yet."

"Did you go by there after I called you?" he
asked her pointedly. It had been almost four hours now, and she'd
had plenty of time to do that.

"I did go by there...that's why I was
delayed getting here. Their foster parents were frantic and worried
about where they were," she told him, with a slight reprimand in
her tone.

"
Really
, now...did you happen to go
inside the dwelling?" he asked her in a tone his friends would
recognize signaled he was about to lose control.

"I did not. Mrs. Jenkins said her husband
was under the weather with the flu...and I certainly don't need
that," she told him with a snort.

Beau felt blood rise up his throat to his
face and he took a step toward the woman. His hands itched to close
around her skinny neck. "Well, if you
had
followed up on
your responsibility to these children,
regardless
of what
the woman
told
you, you would have
seen
how they are
being neglected, and the state of the home those people are
providing for them," he told her gratingly.

Her hand rose to her throat as if she could
read his mind and she said defensively, "I have a problem with your
tone Mr. Bowman."

"And I have a problem with your recklessness
in making sure these children are properly cared for, Ms. Thomas.
Were you aware that the home had dirty clothes strewn all around
the house? Were you aware that there were months of dirty dishes
piled in the sink and rodents on the countertop?"

Beau narrowed his eyes and took another step
toward her, then put his finger very close to her non-existent
chest, and continued, "Were you aware that the Jenkins's left these
two children alone overnight, while they went out last night? Were
you aware the contents of their refrigerator and pantry consisted
of beer, a stale bag of chips, and a moldy block of cheese?" Her
face had gotten redder, even her ears were red now, and he took a
deep breath and said finally, "And were you aware that one of them
whipped Lucy across the back of her legs until she bled?"

"No, I wasn't aware..." she said in a
shocked whisper.

"Well, it was your
job
to be aware,
and you failed at it and put these children's lives in danger, Ms.
Thomas. If you can't do a better job than this, then maybe you
should find another job with less responsibility and
consequence."

"I'm so overloaded, Mr. Bowman...I do the
best I can," she said and her lower lip trembled.

"Well, your best isn't good enough where
these children are concerned, Ms. Thomas. Now, either you can do
something about their situation, or I can go to your boss, and his
boss, and all the way up the line, until someone removes them from
that home."

"There's nowhere else for them to go right
now, unless they go to a group home, we don't have any foster slots
open," she said and shook her head.

"I'll find someone to foster them, you just
get them approved immediately. I'll take responsibility for them
for now, and find them a place. Can you do that?" he asked her in a
tone that said she better damned well agree.

"Yes, let me talk to the doctor and get the
documentation on Lucy's injuries," she said and took a breath, then
looked over at Robbie. "We probably should have the doctor look at
Robbie too...I'm sure this wasn't an isolated event."