Sinclair Justice (14 page)

Abby’s noncommittal gaze went cold. “Not yet.” She waved Emm inside. Emm entered, this time reluctantly, her gaze fixed on the boxes of evidence, but Abby was angrier than she’d ever seen her.

“Don’t you think it’s time we dispensed with this roundabouta-tion? If you persist in this imprudent behavior, I will be forced to inform Mr. Sinclair, and he will be forced to arrest you. Is that what you want?”

Emm’s smile fell like the façade it was under Abigail’s full frontal assault. “No, but I don’t have many options. I’ve tried to get you both to tell me more and you won’t.”

“We are bound by law and sworn duty to keep our evidence secure. Surely you understand that there is a chain of evidence procedure here we must follow if we want to eventually bring these perpetrators to justice?”

“How much meaning will that far-in-the-future result have if both Yancy and Jennifer are dead?”

Abby waved Emm into the only chair. “Very well; if we are at an impasse, I must contact Captain Sinclair.” She picked up her cell phone, but Emm leaped to her feet and covered her hand.

“Please don’t. Can’t we do this on the QT without telling anyone? I swear on my sister’s life I won’t tell a soul if you let me look at the evidence.” When Abby stayed very still, glaring at her, Emm’s voice grew passionate. “Ross is a Texas Ranger captain, and he has to do things by the book. I’m a concerned private citizen who has tried the legal route by filing the appropriate police reports, handing out flyers, and so on. I got diddly. Once I return to Baltimore, obviously I’ll be at the wrong end of the trafficking pipeline. Call me reckless if you want, but I seem to be the only person on the face of the earth—including my mother—who is really trying to find Yancy and Jennifer. If I have to bend the law a bit to do that, I do so with full awareness of the possible consequences.”

Abby’s stern mouth relaxed a bit. “So you are willing to go to prison for a first-degree felony?”

Emm sat back down more heavily than usual, but she was suddenly very tired. “If it secures their release and return to the States, yes.”

Abby sighed. She put the phone back in her purse. “Tell me why you think you might see something we have not.”

“I know who and how often Jennifer and Yancy dated, I know the foods they like, the music they listen to, and the places they’ve traveled. Any one of those things could have influenced their movements and how they were captured. A concert, a restaurant, a trip.”

Abby hesitated, but then she went to a box of evidence, opened it, and removed a file folder marked “Jennifer Russell Internet Communications.” She set the file on the table before Emm, but when she shakily reached for it, Abby held up a cautioning hand.

“The only way to make this legal is for me to interview you as a family member. As such, you would be privy to some of these communications. In fact, I’ve seen your name more than once, so here you make a viable witness.” Abigail removed a small recorder from her purse and turned it on. “Ms. Rothschild, you’ve approached me with a request to review Jennifer’s e-mails, Facebook pages, and Tweets three months before she was taken. I’m allowing this unusual exchange, given you are the person closest to both victims. The MO of the Los Lobos cartel shows fast action in their pick of merchandise, and they gravitate to beautiful young women who have little family and are imprudent in their behavior. We suspect they would have taken Jennifer Russell shortly after they became aware of her vulnerability and beauty. If there is a link you can see in these com-muniqués, it could facilitate our ability to find whoever took her.” Abby shut off the recorder. “Proceed.”

Emm fell on the file like a rabid dog.

Ross glanced yet again at the clock on his bedside table. He’d resorted to brandy and cigars to calm his nerves, but they were not as effective as usual. He’d resolved to go to bed early—he had a full day tomorrow. It was almost ten, but he remembered Emm also had problems sleeping. Every urge in his body bade him to go to her now, to stake his claim, but if he did that, he’d be creating a clear conflict of interest. Maybe no one else would know, but he would.

He pounded his pillow and tried the other side of the bed, but thirty minutes ticked away. He was rising to warm himself some milk when his cell phone vibrated. He looked at the text. It was from Abigail Doyle and only said, “Sorry for the hour, but we have a possible new evidence vector. Can you come straightaway to my hotel room to meet with me and Ms. Rothschild?”

Ross was reaching for his clothes before he finished reading.

 

Thirty minutes later, Emm and Abby were sitting in an uncomfortable silence. After she’d highlighted several of Jennifer’s e-mails as possible clues, Emm had asked to also look at Yancy’s file and been denied. Abigail said only Ross Sinclair would determine how to proceed from this point, but first he had to hear why Emm thought these e-mails could lead to a key piece of evidence on how the women were snatched.

A firm rap came at the door.

Abigail got up and unlocked the door. “Thank you for coming so late.”

Ross was scowling when he entered, and Emm noted that he hadn’t taken time to comb his hair, which was mussed. His shirt was even buttoned crooked. This evidence of his haste and concern might have touched her at a less tense moment, but at the look in his eyes, she had to force herself to sit very still rather than defend herself. She let Abby do the talking and was touched when, to some degree at least, the woman covered for her.

Abby said, “Ms. Rothschild came by late to see if I’d care for a cocktail, and when I invited her in, she asked about Jennifer Russell’s Internet communications. Given I’ve seen Ms. Rothschild’s name many times in both victims’ e-mail accounts, I thought it might be of use to interview her. Forgive me if I overstepped my bounds and should have brought her to your office tomorrow, but . . .”

Ross waved an impatient hand. “I trust you to do what’s right, Abigail, and I’m also sure you know how to conduct an interview. You recorded it?” When Abby nodded, some of his sternness was piqued to eagerness. “What did the two of you find out?”

Abby spread out three different pages of the printed Internet communication file. “There are three e-mails from an account we previously dismissed as junk mail from one of the many bars Ms. Russell frequented in downtown Baltimore. A flyer announcing live music, another inviting Ms. Russell to karaoke, and a third advertising a St. Patrick’s Day party.” Abby looked at Emm. “Please tell him what you told me.”

“I was at that St. Patrick’s Day party a bit over a year ago,” Emm said. “The bar owner has his own publicity firm—they did the flyer and e-mail blast—but that was the night Jennifer met him. His name is Brett Umarov, a former rock star whose stage name was, I think, Reefer Marty and the Stoners.”

Ross’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Abby. “That’s a Chechen surname. You cross-reference it?”

Abby nodded, showing him the master list of the users of each IP address. “There is no e-mail account under either of those names.”

“I’m not surprised if Jennifer kept her contacts with him mostly quiet,” Emm inserted. “The night she met him, she was swept away by his guitar playing and stayed out all night, the first time ever, upsetting Yancy. I’d forgotten about this until I saw the flyer. Jennifer was an honor student, and Yancy tried to get her away from this guy, a former rock star who opened his own bar and introduced her to the wrong crowd, but Jennifer was at the rebellious age and wouldn’t listen to her mom.”

Emm tapped the next e-mail listing Abby had highlighted. “This was the karaoke event Yancy invited me to, but I was preparing for my orals and didn’t go. I don’t know precisely what happened, except that she and Brett had some type of confrontation and Jennifer moved out of Yancy’s apartment and into his.” She looked at the date. “This was only a month or so before she was grabbed. The last event I missed, too, for the same reason, but I know it was a big rock music concert, and Jennifer dressed entirely inappropriately.” Emm showed Ross her cell phone. “I e-mailed these pictures to the Baltimore police, but they seemed clueless. They told me they interviewed the employees at this bar but didn’t find anything that led to a person of interest, even though Jennifer disappeared a few days later. I believed them and didn’t realize how key the dates were until I saw these e-mails.”

Ross looked down at the photo of Jennifer in skintight jeans with holes and a tank top that revealed her slim waistline and impressive cleavage. “E-mail me these pictures, please.”

Emm nodded. “Anyway, Yancy told me after Jennifer disappeared that she thought Brett had introduced her to cocaine at that concert. She said the powder was everywhere like snow, and that she suspected he might be a dealer as his band had never sold a bunch of CDs, yet they seemed to have very expensive equipment and played gigs nationwide that she was pretty sure they had to pay for. She’d enlisted me to go with her to Brett’s place to try to talk Jennifer away, but by the time I could schedule it, Jennifer was gone.” Emm’s eyes filled with tears. If only she’d put that meeting first, before her own ambitions . . . Emm started when Abby put a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“It’s not your fault,” Abby said. “This is indeed a very viable lead, and we should have questioned you earlier.”

Ross skimmed through the rest of the e-mails. Emm saw his strong throat flexing from some emotion, but she wasn’t sure what. She got control of herself, blew her nose fiercely on the Kleenex Abby offered, and then asked, “Now what?”

Tossing the e-mail list back, Ross said, “Now you come into the office tomorrow for an official finding. Abigail, would you please bring Yancy’s Internet communications also, so we can get Emm to take a look at those? And I’ll put my best people on, making follow-up phone calls tomorrow, do some more digging on the activities at this bar, see if we can come up with some witnesses at these events. And I’ll ask the Baltimore police to interview this Brett character again in more depth.”

Emm frowned. “Don’t you have someone besides the Baltimore police who can interview him? They already did and said they got nothing. I don’t fully trust them.”

“That’s obviously out of my jurisdiction, but I can make a couple of phone calls. You think they’re incompetent or . . . ?” Ross trailed off, obviously not liking what he was hearing, but drug and trafficking money turned a lot of formerly good cops into crooks.

“I don’t know, but the older cop—Ruiz, I think his name is—makes me uneasy. He was very . . . dismissive and cursory in his analysis, so far as I could see,” Emm replied. “I asked about Brett specifically at one point, and he said they’d interviewed him, but he seemed clean and genuinely upset at Jennifer’s disappearance.”

“I see. One of my colleagues is high up in the DEA on the East Coast, and I know he’s also trying to track the Los Lobos cocaine pipeline. If this Brett character is involved in distributing, as it sounds like he might be, there’s plenty of probable cause here to collar him for a more in-depth interview.”

Emm took a deep breath, feeling for the first time in over a year that there might actually be a breakthrough imminent. “Thank you. Both of you.” She stood and kissed Abby’s cheek.

Abby reddened, and Emm realized the brilliant forensics expert was far better at tearing cases apart than accepting physical affection. Emm offered Ross a tentative smile and got one in return that brought red to her own cheeks.

“Don’t I get a kiss, too?” His drawl this time was pure Texas, with no hint of a New York accent.

Emm said before she could correct herself, “I think you’ve had enough of that for one weekend.”

Abby’s eyebrows shot to her hairline as Ross laughed.

Emm scurried for the door. “I’m available for an interview the day after the survey. Thanks for listening.”

Ross’s taunting laugh and its promise of more to come followed her through the door, into the corridor, into her car on the short drive to her hotel room, straight into her dreams.

T
he next morning, Emm dressed very conservatively for the survey, as if that could make up for the eroticism of her dreams. Ross Sinclair spent most of the night making love to her in front of his roaring fire, then doing unspeakably sensual things to her in his bed, then . . .

Emm shied away from her own flushed face in the mirror. “Traitor!” she muttered to herself, grabbing up her stuff and slamming out.

On the way to the buildings to meet Ross and the engineer, she tried the bromide,
Just business
, but it was no more palliative than sleep had been. No matter how she lectured herself on the facts—that she’d be gone soon, that she didn’t belong in Texas and Ross would never leave, that she’d just landed her dream job and couldn’t quit—she felt inevitability hovering over her like the thunder brewing in the distance.

In the end, as with most complicated things when they were distilled to their essence, reality was both stark and simple: She wanted Ross Sinclair. And he wanted her, too. Regrets aplenty she’d have afterward, but she’d always been a very poor practitioner of what might have been. At least she’d have a few happy memories to sustain her, for she had a feeling she was unlikely to ever again meet a man similar to Ross Sinclair.

Feeling at peace with herself for the first time since her arrival in Amarillo, Emm didn’t have to pretend a big smile when she saw Ross waiting in the lobby of the unlocked old building. He did a double take when he caught her expression, as if he’d never seen it before. His own eyes darkened, and his pupils dilated. He’d just opened his mouth to say something when the structural engineer arrived.

The next few hours were very professional. If the engineer, Burt, caught the strange undercurrents between Emm and Ross, he didn’t let on. He measured and took borings of the foundation and curtain wall, while the soils engineer took borings in the parking lot to confirm the soil was still supporting the old structure as designed after almost a hundred years. The soils analysis would also be the determining factor in whether more square footage and height could potentially be added to the building.

Explaining he was conducting something called a Rapid Visual Screening, Burt squinted at the “as builts” Emm had copied for him and walked every corridor, looking for signs of weakness or failure. He made notes on his iPad, and when Emm looked over his shoulder she saw a complicated Excel matrix he was feeding into as they investigated. He even took stud samples at a few places that showed a bit of sagging. He walked the basement and, with Ross’s permission, exposed a beam he was concerned about by using a small saw to cut a neat long hole in the wall. He took tiny scrapings of the old iron beam and shined a flashlight in both directions as far as he could see, testing its vertical stability with a laser-held device. Then he did the same on the higher floors and finally reached the roof. He walked it, staying away from the crumbling, darker area but agreeing with Emm that it was probably the source of the leak she’d found below. He took more measurements with the laser, making notes on his iPad until he was satisfied.

Then, shortly after noon, he bade the two of them good-bye and promised a detailed report in a week, about the same time the soils analysis was due.

“Twelve thousand dollars later . . .” Ross grumbled as he watched Burt saunter away.

“The bulk of his time is the analysis he’ll spend a week compiling, not the survey itself,” Emm pointed out.

Ross glanced at his watch and then back at her. “Do you have time for a late lunch?”

“Don’t you have appointments for the rest of the day?”

“I cleared my schedule until four or so.”

“In that case, I’d love to.”

He opened the door and escorted her out. “Where would you like to go?”

Emm hesitated so long he gave her that curious look behind half-mast eyes that was becoming both familiar and beloved to her. He raked his hand through his hair, leaving it more mussed than usual, and she realized he was nervous, too.

That knowledge gave her courage. “I’ve been wanting to try the room service menu at my hotel,” she blurted as she skirted past him, careful not to touch him.

When she didn’t feel him follow her, she turned back. He was standing still half in, half out of the doorway, staring at her with eyes so deeply, brilliantly blue they shone even in the shadows. They weren’t half-mast anymore. They were wide open, aware of exactly what she was implying.

Blushing, Emm moved toward her car. “If you’d rather stop somewhere closer, I understand.” Her voice was too high-pitched, and he probably thought she was an idiot. She was about to melt into a puddle of humiliated goo on her seat, but in a few strides he closed the gap between them and gently shut the car door she’d left open. He caught her elbow to press her against the side of the car with the entire long length of his body.

“I don’t want any more misunderstandings between us, so I’ll just ask—are you inviting me for more than lunch?”

The sun was behind his head so she couldn’t see his expression, thankfully, for she was already trembling, half sorry she’d obeyed her very unruly impulses. She had never felt so at war with herself. She stared at the pulse beating in his throat, but she’d started this and she wouldn’t back out now. All she could manage was a nod.

He seemed to sense her unease, for he only lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss it, back and then front. Her fingers tingled, as if she’d been shocked by a taser. Her knees went weak, both at the sexual chemistry bubbling between them and at her own daring.

He whispered into her palm, “I accept. Shall I drive? I’ll bring you to your car before I go back to the office.”

Again, she could only manage a nod.

The short drive to her hotel involved zero conversation but rampant speculation on both sides. She saw his quickened breathing, the slight flush on his high cheekbones, and she knew that inside, he was almost as worked up as she was; he was just better at concealing it. The elevator ride was equally boring, at least on the outside.

She had to fumble several times to get her door open until finally he took her key card and opened it for her. He closed the door behind them, then slowly, decisively, he reached behind him without looking and put the chain in place. “Eat after.”

She nodded. She was so nervous, hunger had fled, and besides, now she could see his face and eyes, she was wondering if she’d been premature. Oh, he wanted her, no doubt about that. She could see the bulge in his pants. But still, he stayed where he was, looking at her. Waiting.

Suddenly, she realized why. He didn’t want to scare her, had picked up on her skittishness. She had begun this, but she had to indicate her willingness to explore the sexual promise that had sizzled between them since they’d met outside his ranch on a long and winding road . . . was it only a few weeks ago?

Emm felt the dampness beading between her legs, but still she stayed frozen; whether heaven or hell awaited, she truly didn’t know. And never would if she didn’t take three short steps.

His breathing evened out a bit and his voice was deep, low, but still controlled when he asked simply, “Why are you doing this, Emm? Are you having second thoughts?”

She took such a big breath her breasts rose and fell. When his gaze lowered, her heart skipped a beat at the almost tangible caress. She debated hedging, but she owed him honesty, and she’d have regrets aplenty back in Baltimore without adding lying to the memories. “Because after I leave here, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what it would have been like.”

At her raw honesty, he took a compulsive step toward her. She couldn’t help it, she backed away. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down so hard she saw the full lip go white. “Don’t torment me if you’ve changed your mind.” He leaned against the door again, as if he needed the support.

He was tormented, too, and that realization broke through to her. Things had gone too far between them to turn back. She also knew that even obviously aroused, he’d leave her alone if she asked. Perhaps there was no future for them beyond this afternoon, but what came tomorrow was decided by what began today. For once she’d do what she wanted to, right or wrong, prudent or foolish. She spanned the short gap between them until they would have been almost nose to nose if she hadn’t had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. He’d left his hat in the car, so his thick hair was tousled, as if inviting her to mess it up further.

Emm gave him what she hoped was a seductive smile, but she was clumsy when she went to unbutton his shirt. It didn’t help that her hands were shaking.

Still standing against the door, he clenched his hands at his sides, as if only then could he control his need to ravish her. But as he eyed her awkwardness, he gave her a smile that was so tender it almost brought tears to her eyes.

Then he said something totally unexpected. “I apprehend the ruses of sexual conquest are not in your hitherto vast lexicon?”

Emm’s hands froze. Sweet nothings, lies, and even the promises men and women exchanged at such moments could not have moved her like his teasing statement. It spoke volumes of his innate understanding of her character, for him to use such “big words” to both tease her gently and put her at ease. Not to mention the fact that both his diction and etymology were perfect, unlike the other men she’d dated . . . She had to swallow the lump in her throat and bury her face in his soft chest hair, hoping she could master the urge to cry.

Then Emm, the PhD, the history and science lover, the verbose and the loquacious, could manage only two words: “Thank you.”

With a husky chuckle, he lifted her chin and swooped toward her mouth, giving her the gift of laughter and himself.

But there was one more thing . . . She covered his mouth with her hand and looked up at him, her eyes so dilated they were more black than blue. “Just sex.”

“Texas friendly, ma’am. So I won’t bite . . . much,” Ross replied, his deep voice still tinged with laughter, like a promise on her mouth.

With the first touch of male to female, all the controlled stillness that had kept him leashed erupted into fluid movement. He yanked her to him at the same time, lowering his head to encourage her tentative fingers to explore all she wanted. She was pleased that even this first time, when usually men had to feel their way in pleasing her, Ross had read and encouraged her wish to bury her fingers in his thick hair and learn the perfect shape of his skull. But in giving her that leave, he took his own. At the same time, his knee nudged her legs apart so he could tilt her lower body into the hard vee of his. He broke the kiss for a second, only to slant his head at the perfect angle to hers.

This time, his lips took her. There was no other word for that complete possession.

He’d been tender and patient in his kiss before, letting her learn him. Not this time. This time, he kissed her open mouthed, his tongue urging her mouth to open for him and accept the demanding thrust of what was to come. Simultaneously, he rubbed his hips against her, tilting her so far over the arms clasped around her waist that she would have fallen if he wasn’t supporting her. The tingling that had begun in her hands forked through her body, centering between her legs in an almost painful throb. Helplessly, she opened to his explorations, submissive in a way totally foreign to her. Her mouth opened wider still, and her tongue began to duel with his, presaging what was to come in a way almost as arousing.

Still, it wasn’t enough . . . She wriggled, her hips moving in tandem with his, trying to press every molecule in her body to its counterpart in him. As if she belonged to him, as if all the primal rights between men and women since time began ruled them in this twenty-first-century hotel room. He didn’t quite wear a bear skin and carry a club, but he was all Texas arrogant male by way of wealthy New York Yalie, and the complexity of who he was fit her own duality perfectly.

She’d intended to take some control—it was her invitation and her hotel room after all—but her knees were so weak she could barely stand. Laughing even more throatily against her mouth, he lifted his head and picked her up in his arms. She expected to feel the soft mattress against her back, but he surprised her again by instead whirling her around in a circle three times, holding her carefully, exulting in the weight of her and the joy to come.

And she laughed back, body, mind, and, though she feared to admit it, soul. This was the joy she was made for, but only he had ever called forth such total intimacy. The room spun, and his face became the center of her world. He was gloriously, righteously male, luxuriating in his possession of her. And again, in this wordless way, she realized how much he’d wanted her, that he’d feared never seeing her again, too, so he was extending the moment of possession like the precious thing it was to him, setting their intimate world symbolically spinning even before the sex act.

His boyish joy was infectious. Any semblance of shyness or hesitation was left scattered on their private whirlwind.

Her feet knocked the bedside lamp.

The papers on the small table fluttered in the whoosh of air to the floor.

His boot caught the chenille spread, which fell in a heap to the carpet. It also upset his balance enough to make him stumble, but like a good Texas Ranger captain, he had a great sense of direction—straight onto the bed.

He was even in control enough to land on the bottom so he didn’t crush her. And so it was that Mercy Magdalena Rothschild, for one stolen afternoon, learned at almost forty what it truly meant to be a woman for the first time, in the arms of a man who fit her perfectly in every way. She looked down at his laughing face, totally unaware of how dark her own eyes had gone. Her smile faded. She straddled him, scrabbling at her blouse.

His laugh broke off abruptly. She pulled at the fabric, her fingers too shaky to manage the small buttons, so he gallantly offered his help by ripping off her shirt. She reached behind her back to unlatch her bra. It fell, and she tossed it across the room, sighing as she finally felt free, in every way. She’d expected to be shy this first time, but instead she sat very still and let him look.