Sinclair Justice (8 page)

And, since in the last five months or so Yancy had never tried to escape or, from all the eyes and ears on alert wherever she went, even tried to use a phone other than the restricted one they allowed her, her jailers had relaxed enough to leave her alone occasionally. Besides, as she herself had told Arturo on more than one occasion, she’d never leave Jennifer behind. Because Jennifer had tried to escape several times, and slit her wrists once, she was kept under constant armed guard. Yancy was allowed to see her on supervised visits once a week.

And that visit was tomorrow, and was the reason for her risky maneuver. Yancy patted the dogs again, hitched her tight red silk dress above her thighs, kicked off her heels, and climbed up the brick wall. She’d always loved rock climbing, and from a distance this wall looked too smooth to scale, but there were breaks where the mortar was loose, and with the stakes so high, she had no choice but to chance it.

She slipped once, scraping a knuckle as she scrabbled to hold on, but using the upper-body strength she maintained by calisthenics in her room when she was alone, she topped the wall, dangled her legs down the first six feet, and dropped the remaining four feet to the asphalt road. She knelt down, staying in the shadow for a moment to get her bearings between the cameras watching the road and the wall. She ignored the slight wound on her hand, aware that it was still bleeding—Arturo had been slow to get her very expensive meds for her in the last month or so, and she hadn’t been able to take them consistently. The little money she’d saved would have to go toward the pills for Jennifer, which were also expensive and hard to get in Mexico.

She confirmed there were no cars in sight and then darted across the road. She rounded the corner and went through a small copse of trees to a tiny clearing, expecting the little red Fiat to be there, where it always was. Her heart sank when she saw the empty clearing. What now?

While she stood there debating, she heard a very smooth, powerful engine approaching the bend. Crap; she recognized that sound. Only an armored Rolls-Royce Corniche could sound that quiet and powerful all at once, which meant Arturo had returned early from his meeting.

Her heart pounding, she ducked behind a tree until she heard the electric gates open, and then she tore back across the road, using a stump to vault herself as high as she could toward the top of the wall. She scrambled down the other side and high tailed it toward the back door that led to the kitchen, plucking a few roses from the lush grounds on the way. She stuck her dirty feet into her red stilettos, glad she’d selected pumps so her soles were covered, and entered the kitchen, calling for a vase.

She wrapped a paper towel around her hand to staunch the blood, but it was still welling up. As she arranged the flowers, she heard her name being called in that mellow basso voice that in other circumstances she might have yearned to hear. “In the kitchen!” she called back in Spanish. His English was broken at best, another reason, she was sure, he’d selected someone proficient in Spanish as his latest mistress.

Arturo entered, smiling indulgently when he saw her trimming rose stems, but his smile faded when he saw the bloody paper towel on her hand. He took her hand and removed the towel to look at the small wound. “I’ve told you before to have the maids cut the flowers for you, precisely for this reason,” he scolded. He gently wrapped a fresh paper towel around her hand, pressing on her cut to try to staunch the blood. His dark brown gaze, which could go brandy hot with lust and the next instant take on the cold glare of a snake, traveled down her form, pausing on a couple of snags on the tight silk.

She ducked her head over her task, muttering, “They never get the right ones. I snagged my dress on the bushes. I was going to change before you came, but you’re early.” She put the last rose in the vase with her free hand and stepped back, eyeing her handiwork as she pulled gently away from his touch. She’d learned early on that resistance only made him more brutal.

He slipped the towel off her hand. The blood had slowed to a dot. “Good. I will send María into town for more of your medicine. You’re out?”

She nodded, cupping his cheek with a faux tenderness and gratitude he seemed to take as genuine. At least so far.

Mollified, he embraced her, muttering,
“Pobrecita, idiota,”
and kissed her ruthlessly on the mouth. She did what captive women have been doing since time immemorial: She stifled an urge to kick him in the balls and kissed him back, running her hands through thick hair graying at the temples.

She had one imperative: to survive one more day and to protect her daughter until they could escape . . . And with her second breath she gave a plea to the only other person on the planet who really loved her and Jennifer. “Emm, I hope you haven’t given up on us. . . .”

 

In downtown Amarillo, Emm, Curt, and Ross sat near the back of the dark little bar, each nursing a glass of wine. The exchange of information had begun slowly, with Emm sharing what she’d learned in the library. “Girls had been disappearing in Maryland long before Jennifer, and I found at least one victim who was originally from the Baltimore area but was found in the Texas Panhandle . . . Baltimore could be a hub for this particular group.”

Sinclair shared what the lab had deduced so far from the warehouse of confiscated items. “We traced clothes, purses, shoes, even some of the makeup, but other than your sister’s custom weed pipe, most of the things were cheap knockoffs sold in any city in the nation. We’re trying to trace them but haven’t found anything of interest yet.”

“So that’s why you hired Dr. Doyle?” Emm asked.

“Partly. It’s a massive amount of evidence and I just don’t have manpower enough to thoroughly vet everything. She’d also already been retained by the DEA to assist with the Los Lobos cartel on the drug-smuggling end of the spectrum, so it just made sense to share her fee.”

Curt’s eyes narrowed. “You think this Los Lobos gang is the one behind the human trafficking in Baltimore?”

Sinclair shrugged. “I can’t make that connection yet, but we have confirmed they’ve broadened their focus in the last few years to include trafficking.”

“How do you know that?” Curt asked.

Sinclair hesitated, his eyes taking on an icy sheen in the dim glow of the shaded lamps. “Off the record?”

“I told you I wouldn’t print any of this,” Curt protested.

“Yeah, well, you said that before I found my name and one of my operative’s names broadcast all over Texas in your glad rag.”

Curt sipped the last of his wine and placed it just so on his napkin, his bright head bent but a flush coloring his cheekbones.

Looking between the two men, Emm intervened. “My niece and sister won’t care who gets credit for what . . . if they’re even still alive. Our only chance of finding them is to work together . . . Please . . . Can you tell us how you know the Los Lobos cartel is in the human trafficking trade?” She focused on Sinclair.

He shoved his half-finished wineglass back and said shortly, “Surveillance picked up a semi crossing back into the US from Mexico. ICE agents found a false bottom in it that was empty, but there were traces of human hair and no drug residue whatever. The driver was a known accomplice of the Los Lobos gang. We arrested him, but he’s refused to talk even under threats of life imprisonment, which, frankly, we probably can’t make stick without more evidence. We can’t deport him because he’s a US citizen.” He saw the words trembling on Emm’s tongue and held up his hand. “Of course we took samples, but in most cases these girls are young, with no record, so we don’t have DNA on them to cross-reference anyway.”

“Yancy has a record. Disorderly conduct, possession, even a shoplifting charge when she was younger,” Emm pointed out. “It’s possible they took samples on her last arrest.”

Sinclair nodded. “I know, it’s in her file. If we get any matches, we’ll know at least where she went across, but this semi was searched just a month ago, long after she and your niece disappeared.”

“And were you able to trace ethnicity on any of the . . . hair fibers?” Emm hated the word
merchandise
, and
victim
was equally stark. “I know DNA tracing has advanced hugely in the last five to ten years.”

Sinclair nodded. “We found seven fibers, two of one vic, the other five across the spectrum in ethnicity: Irish, English, Scandinavian, American Indian, Hispanic, Jewish.”

“In other words, the hairs could belong to just about anyone in the US,” Emm said.

Sinclair nodded grimly.

Curt asked, “Were you able to trace when and where the driver came across the first time?”

“Of course. He checked out with a full load of manufacturing equipment for a new factory in Sinaloa. The agents who cleared him vaguely recalled the vehicle and driver. Both said they heard zip from the cargo bay, smelled nothing, and the dogs didn’t alert anyone.” Sinclair fiddled with his napkin in a nervous way uncharacteristic of him, which Emm realized spoke volumes about his state of mind. “Tests indicated the occupants of that cavity were so drugged they were undoubtedly comatose, so they couldn’t make a sound. And any scent the dogs might have picked up on was disguised by cans of paint and chemicals, part of the shipment. It was also the type of truck with built-in vent fans that are on continuously.”

Emm pictured a stifling cargo hold, pitch black, with barely enough air to breathe, and women—no, girls—bouncing against one another, the hell of where they were still better than the hell of where they were headed. She looked down to disguise her tears as she thought of what Yancy and Jennifer must have done in the last year to survive. If they survived . . .

Sinclair’s hand on top of hers was comforting in a way she couldn’t think about right now, but she knew she needed a clear head, so she equally gently withdrew her hand from his. Again, Curt looked curiously between them.

“All right, I suggest we all take a week to work the case and then see where we are,” Emm proposed.

Sinclair just looked at her, but she knew him well enough by now to read disapproval behind that opaque stare.

“I’m not doing anything but research. Heck, it’s no different from what I do in my job, or what I had to do to get my PhD.” When he still looked at her, she snapped, “If you want to stop me, there’s only one way.” She crossed her wrists over the table in front of him.

“Don’t tempt me. A few weeks in lockup would do you good.” He stood so quickly the table leg scraped on the floor, but he only picked up his hat and pinned her with a gaze that was very clear now, and pure threat. “There’s a reckoning coming between the two of us, whether either of us likes it or not. Watch your step, because Rangers are pretty touchy about people interfering in their investigations.” Smashing his black hat on his head, Sinclair stalked out of the bar.

This time, Curt ignored her don’t-ask signal. “Why don’t the two of you get a room and get that part of this equation settled?”

Emm glared at him, tossing down enough cash to cover the tab. In another measure of Sinclair’s unusual behavior, she realized he’d forgotten to pay for his drink. “Don’t be crude.”

“Hey, babe, I’m a reporter. I see what I see. And I’ve never seen Ross Sinclair so off balance because of a woman.”

Emm stood and grabbed her car keys. “It’s not me, it’s the case.” She stalked out, trying to ignore the scornful sound he made in her wake.

Still, on the short drive back to her hotel, she had to ask herself: Was it possible she confused Ross Sinclair as much as he intimidated her?

 

Ross had intended to go back to the office, but he was so flustered when he walked out that he decided to go home instead. He had plenty of files to read there. On the drive to his ranch, he kept remembering the tremor in Emm’s full mouth, the shaking of her small, warm hand as he covered it. He couldn’t question her terror for her sister and niece, but on the rare occasion when she let her guard slip, she showed a feminine vulnerability that reached deep inside him. And, instinctively, he’d tried to comfort her . . . He pulled into his driveway, still deep in thought, but a big grin stretched his face when he saw the new SUV parked in front of his house.

He leaped out of his own unmarked SUV and ran inside, bellowing, “Where’s my boy?” as he went.

Chad Foster poked his head out of the den. “So he’s yours now, huh? Okay, I’ll have you come give him his two a.m. feeding tonight.”

Ross held his arms out for the curious and alert blue bundle. Chad tilted his hat back to proudly watch two of his favorite people in the world eye each other. Trey junior had his brother Trey’s blue eyes and at least some of Trey’s sense of mischief: He blew a raspberry that spattered Ross right in the face. Ross just used a piece of blanket to wipe his cheek and grinned like an idiot down at the infant. “He gets bigger every time I see him.”

“That’s common with such exotics as pronghorn antelope and newborn boys,” Jasmine teased, stepping up to kiss Ross’s other cheek. She eyed the practiced way he supported the baby’s head on one arm, folding the blanket tighter with the other hand. “You’re very good at that. You really need your own.”

Ross’s smile dimmed. With a last gentle kiss on the rosy cheek, he offered the boy back. “I’m getting too old for that. So what brings y’all into town from Lubbock?”

Jasmine gladly accepted her son, even if she looked skeptical at his remark.

Chad only shrugged. “Took a few days off to handle some business.”

“Great; you’re both welcome to stay here, you know that. I even have a bassinet somewhere that I keep for the reunions.” When they hesitated, Ross insisted, “Believe me, I’m glad for the company.”

“I like to stay at the homestead when I’m here, check up on things,” Chad replied. He waited, then added, “Besides, you may have other things to do. I hear there’s a new arrival in town. Someone from back East?”