Sinclair Justice (5 page)

“Call me Ross.”

“Please call me Emm.”

“Emmmm.” His lips quirked as he drew out her name, and she flushed as something very male flashed in his eyes when he surveyed her brass button–bedecked chest. But then he handed her a menu with a flourish and told her about the specials.

“You come here often?” she asked as she perused the menu.

“Just about every other day. It’s the best food downtown. It reminds me of Paris.”

She digested that, ordering the quiche and salad of the day. It didn’t escape her he ordered sirloin, rare. They made small talk while they waited, both of them storing up energy for the imminent battle. Despite the truce, Emm was acutely aware of every move he made, from the precise way he folded the linen napkin over his lap to the way he placed his water glass. When the food came, his manners were more a legacy of cotillions than a Texas ranch. Finally she couldn’t stand it.

During a lull in the conversation about how Amarillo’s booming economy was due, at least in part, to oil and gas, she blurted, “Why have you stayed in Amarillo?”

He blinked, obviously off balance, but only for a moment. He toyed with his napkin, finally admitting, “Because I feel free here.”

She paused with her water glass halfway to her mouth. From the way he clamped his mouth shut, she had a feeling he’d been more honest than he’d intended. But she only took a sip, put her glass down just so, and asked the logical question. “Don’t you miss your family?”

“Yes, but I see them at least twice a year. I host our annual reunion at the ranch, and they’ll all be here for it in a few weeks. And you? Do you live near your family?”

“My parents both live in Baltimore, so I see them weekly. My . . . sister is . . . gone.”

His eyes sharpened at her tone and the way she looked away quickly. “Gone? As in traveling?”

She took a deep, steadying breath, wondering if now was the time to explain about Yancy and Jennifer. After all, the cops had told her the Texas Rangers were spearheading the task force, so she figured Ross must be involved. But she had a feeling he’d only clam up and be obstructive to her, what with his obviously overdeveloped sense of duty. Plus, she was the classic outsider. Best to wait until they’d come to some type of compromise, if one were possible, over the buildings.

“Yes. Kinda. I’m trying to reach her, actually.” When he opened his mouth for another question, she folded her napkin over her plate and glanced at her watch. “It’s almost one and I have some work to catch up on, too. Are you ready to show me your buildings?” She lifted her hand for the check, but he grabbed the bill the waiter brought and tossed down three twenties. Big tipper. She liked that in a man, especially as her first job in high school had been waiting tables.

He stood aside for her to scoot out of the booth, offering his arm with old-fashioned courtliness. Trying to remember the last time any man had offered her his arm, she rested her fingertips on what felt like a camel-hair sleeve. He was dressed as before, in black jeans and starched shirt, though this time he wore a tan jacket. She had a feeling he’d look elegant even in overalls. The walk to his buildings was short, and they made a detour into the hardware store she’d seen earlier. He raised an eyebrow at her sole purchase, a level, but only escorted her back outside.

She stopped outside the Draper and carefully circled the small four-story red brick building. It was constructed in the spare style of pre-World War I, with the plain red brick rectangle accented by arched limestone quoins and an ornate Art Deco–style door that was badly scratched but seemed sound. He followed on her heels, watching the careful way she eyed the foundation. Once she knelt to put the level horizontally against a long flat side of the building. The bubble was very slightly off center. She picked at some crumbling cement near the bottom. The cement had been originally constructed in such a way, built up with a trowel, that it resembled stone. All the way around the building, the stone effect was crumbling.

“See the problem? This entire foundation is crumbling.”

She straightened. “That’s not part of the foundation. It’s a curtain wall, purely decorative, and repairable.” She tested with the level again on the opposite side of the building, where the curtain wall was intact. “See? Almost perfect after nearly a century. If the foundation was bad, the wall would be leaning slightly on each side. It isn’t.”

He scowled.

“Shall we go inside?”

Once inside, she eyed the long sweeping staircase and iron railing and banisters that led to the second floor. “Nice.” She tested everywhere: support walls, a decorative pilaster accenting a half wall, door frames. On the third floor there was a slight crumpling in the old linoleum where she pushed the level flat against the wall, perpendicular to the floor. At this point, the level’s bubble teetered far to the side.

He jumped on the opportunity. “How can you expect us to conserve something that isn’t structurally sound?” he demanded.

Her only response was to take a Swiss Army knife with every imaginable attachment from her purse. She carefully levered up the cracking linoleum near the wall to reveal wood flooring beneath. The wood flooring was warped.

“That’s what I thought.” She stood and looked up. Near the wall joist was an ugly brown stain in the ceiling. “You have a leak. Must be a pretty bad one to come down two floors. We’ll have to get confirmation from a structural engineer, but I don’t think this is structural. The wood flooring has bowed beneath from the moisture. Fix the leak and the floor and you should be fine.”

He glared at her. She smiled, sweeping her hand in front of her. “After you. Let’s see the roof. We’ll have to move carefully if there’s a leak, but I know what to look for.”

She was noncommittal for the rest of the tour. The survey of the Hoover building, which had a larger floor plan but was only three stories, went equally quickly. When she was finished, she dusted off her pants, only leaving more marks from her dirty hands. She shoved her loosened hair, which she’d swept back with an elegant clip, away from her cheek as once again they met on the sidewalk. She was totally unaware she’d left a streak of dirt on her cheek. She wondered why he kept looking at her face that way, eyeing her cheek, then her mouth.

This time he glanced at his watch. “I have to go. I have a two thirty meeting.”

“That’s fine. I need to see the ‘as builts,’ which I believe you told me you have at home. In the meantime, I suggest you let me bring in an historic resources expert to confirm my findings before I write an official report. It will probably cost around ten thousand dollars, but if I’m wrong, it may get you your development. But I don’t think I’m wrong. Both buildings were very well constructed for their time, and I saw no evidence of foundation damage. Everything you noted to me in your e-mail is easily fixed and would be addressed in any complete renovation.”

“I bet you’re never wrong.”

She lifted her chin at his sarcasm. “All the time. But seldom in my work. As far as men go . . .” She shrugged.

He put those mirrored shades over his darkening eyes, but not quickly enough. She saw something flash that reminded her of a shark circling deep blue seas.
Back at ya, lady.
While she was debating whether she’d just been insulted, he finished curtly, “I’ll have the ‘as builts’ for you later this evening at my house. Eight?”

She nodded and watched him walk away. March, really. He obviously wasn’t happy with her review, but she couldn’t help that. She’d given him her honest opinion, but, like she’d said, she could be wrong.

Back at the hotel, she was appalled when she saw the dirty streak on her face. No wonder he’d stared at her so strangely. She changed her clothes and took a quick shower. Then, more depressed than exhausted, she reclined on the bed and opened the paper she’d picked up yesterday but hadn’t read. She stiffened at the blaring headline: “Texas Rangers lead hunt for human trafficking ring ending in El Paso.” She read the rest of the article so quickly, she didn’t blink. It described how the authorities were one step behind the notorious Los Lobos cartel thought to be behind the nationwide kidnapping of many missing persons, mostly young women. The article further identified the FBI Agent in Charge, Rosemary Reed, and Captain Ross Sinclair, Company C of the Texas Rangers, West Texas division, as heading the investigation. The reporter didn’t come out and say it, but the implication was that both Ross and the FBI agent were incompetent because there were no strong leads even after months of investigation. The article went on to name a couple of operatives who had recently been wounded in a border skirmish with the cartel.

A warehouse filled with feminine goods, apparently hastily abandoned, had been discovered in Amarillo, the reason the authorities believed the city must be a stop on the pipeline. The article gave a partial list of items. She read it carefully, stiffening at one line: “A green dragon-shaped marijuana pipe, along with other drug paraphernalia.”

Yancy had a pipe just like that, and she always kept it in her purse. An old boyfriend had it custom made for her, and she said her weed never tasted the same without it.

When she finished the article, Emm went to toss the paper aside. As she did so, her eyes finally focused on the reporter’s name: Curt Tupperman. She froze. Curt? She knew him, not just slightly but well, because he was one of Yancy’s old boyfriends. She’d introduced them after she met him at school, and at first Yancy had liked him, but after a few months, as usual, she’d lost interest. He’d been working for the Baltimore paper, but when he went freelance about a year ago he’d moved home to San Antonio, though he roamed nationwide pursuing stories. She’d have to call him, press him for details.

She rubbed her forehead as she debated how best to open her own unofficial investigation. She’d only be here a few weeks, so she didn’t have a lot of time. Logically, she needed to see that pipe; it was her first concrete link to Yancy. If she just told Ross who she was, that she’d filed the missing persons reports on both Jennifer and her mother, would he let her see the evidence? She was sure there must be rules against that sort of thing, and he was none too happy with her at the moment.

So how? Legal or illegal, there had to be a way . . . and heck, he was already pissed at her, so what did she have to lose?

S
even thirty rolled around all too quickly for Ross. After another long, tedious day of paperwork and phone calls coordinating resources between the six different agencies he was managing in the human trafficking task force, Ross was in no mood for company. He’d only been home for a few minutes, and he had to drag his carcass up the stairs to his bedroom to freshen up. He brushed his unruly hair, trying to quell its tendency to curl a lock into his eyes, then his teeth, checked his deodorant, and put on a fresh shirt, resolving to get the damn woman out of there as quickly as possible. He cursed himself for not taking time to have the plans copied so he could give her a set and solve the problem, but it was too late now.

He was barely at the top of the stairs when the doorbell rang. He glanced at his watch. Eight exactly. She was punctual, at least. He liked that in a woman. Especially in a beautiful woman. He waved José away. “I’ll get it. See you in the morning, amigo.”

José gave the bottom of the stairs a curious glance, then looked back expectantly at his boss.

Ross hadn’t said a word to him about his late-night guest, but José had the hearing of a bat and the olfactory capability of a blood hound. Plus Ross knew he wanted his boss to have a señora to help run the ranch. Ross needed to work less and socialize more, or as José, who was as much a friend as a retainer, put it with a sly wink, “Dancing with señoritas
bonitas
is better for hombre looking
por una esposa
than—” and José mimed pushing papers around and stapling a pile, making up in acting ability what he lacked in English vocabulary.

Ross had always given José a lot of latitude, but he wasn’t in the mood for another one of their fruitless debates on the subject. José recognized his narrow-eyed glare and wisely closed the door to his small suite of rooms as Ross started down the stairs.
Yes, maybe I need a woman, but this isn’t the right señora,
he said to himself as he opened the door. But when he saw her, his critical thoughts scattered, and he froze at his own entrance.

Emm had obviously dressed and showered away the dust of the building tour. This time she wore a buttercup yellow sundress. Over her shoulders she’d draped a yellow Mexican shawl embroidered with enormous silk flowers and ending in a multicolored fringe. Again, he was nonplussed, trying to read her, for at first she’d looked more like a Vera Wang devotee than an earthy hippie type who loved huge flowers and fringe.

She extended her arms, showing off the shawl. “You like it? I found it downtown at a souvenir shop. They told me it was
hecho en
Mexico.”

Her unexpectedly perfect pronunciation of the Spanish broke the spell. Wasn’t there anything the damned woman couldn’t do? And must she always look luscious while doing it? When she tilted her head, looking at him curiously, he gathered his wits and swung the door open. “
Mi casa es su casa,
señorita.”

She playfully bobbed a curtsy and entered. He had the plans spread on a long console table behind the sofa, but he hadn’t had time to lay a fire, and now that the sun was down, the air was growing chilly. His mouth was literally watering at the sight of her, so he walked to the bar. “Can I get you something to cut the chill in the air?”

She put her fingertip to her chin, tilting her head. “Let me see . . . how about a Lemon Drop martini?”

He glared at her over the bar. “I might be able to scrounge up an extra dirty one because I have olives, vodka, and vermouth, but that fancy stuff you can order in town.”

She had to grab the shawl as it slipped off her arm, so her response was somewhat hurried. “I just thought you must have already juiced some lemons. Because of the look around your mouth.”

Sourpuss. She was calling him a sourpuss. He wanted to stay remote and rocky as Gibraltar, but a laugh slipped out. “I deserved that one. But it’s not you. It’s . . . the day I had.” He nodded at the chair by the fireplace. “Please, sit. Tell me what you saw in town today.”

While she described the retail stores she’d visited and what she could see doing with some of the old buildings still vacant, he expertly mixed up two martinis in the shaker. He poured one for her, one for him, and added two premium garlic-stuffed olives to both.

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 highly 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.