The Texas Ranger Page 13

  So he lifted his mouth slowly from her clinging, soft lips and gave her a long, searching look. Then he pushed himself away with a long, jerky sigh and got to his feet in one fluid, graceful movement. He gazed down at her with muted delight. Now she looked frustrated. Very frustrated. Good.

  "You're leaving?" she asked abruptly, propping up on her hands. Her eyes widened. "You're leaving now ?"

  He straightened his shirt and string tie, and picked up his hat. "What would be the point of staying?" he asked with faintly amused eyes and a soft chuckle. "I don't have anything in my wallet to use. And even if I did, if I tried to do what you're thinking of right now, we'd both end up in the emergency room!" He pursed his lips at her faint gasp. He pursed his lips and gave her a wicked grin. "Of course, we could rush right over to the hospital and ask if there's a gynecologist on call for emergency minor surgery?"

  She colored when she realized what he meant. She got to her feet and stuck her hands deep into the pockets of her robe. "You can stop right there, you sex maniac!" she said haughtily. "I don't sleep around, minor surgery or not! And I don't give a damn who says it's perfectly okay in a modern woman!"

  He smiled, without sarcasm or mockery. "That's more like the woman I remember. I always admired that about you," he said, with a faint glitter in his gray eyes. "You never followed the crowd."

  She shrugged. "My father was never one to keep his opinions to himself," she said, and smiled. "He taught me to be politically incorrect!"

  He chuckled, remembering some firm lectures he'd heard from the Reverend in the old days.

  There was an odd little silence. "Thanks for stopping to see about me."

  He moved close to her and tilted her chin up to his eyes. He noticed that she didn't have her glasses on. She'd left them on the vanity when he'd started drying her hair. "Can you see me?" he asked suddenly.

  "You're a little blurry," she confessed.

  He smiled. "And it makes you feel vulnerable." He nodded when her shocked expression blossomed. "Yes, I remember. You didn't have your glasses on that night, when I found you huddled in a corner of that boy's room, and the first thing you said to me was that you felt completely vulnerable because you couldn't see anything clearly. Then, years later when we were dating, you wouldn't wear glasses when you went out with me. Or contact lenses," he added.

  She smiled. "I always thought I looked better without glasses. I can't wear contacts," she said, "because I kept getting infections. I'm not meticulous enough about keeping them clean."

  "Excuses, excuses," he chided, chuckling.

  "Your vision is perfect, isn't it?"

  He nodded. "So far. When I get old, I expect I'll be decked out in reading glasses."

  She changed the subject. "Did you ask the police to keep an eye on Mrs. Jennings?"

  He grimaced. "I meant to," he said at once. "But I got sidetracked." He moved away from her and picked up the phone. He dialed a number and explained the situation to the duty officer, adding a thank-you before he hung up.

  "He'll take care of it," he told her. He shook his head. "I phoned the sheriff about Holliman and his place, but I forgot Mrs. Jennings."

  "You've been busy," she replied.

  "Not that busy." He moved back to her. "I'll pick you up for breakfast in the morning, and we'll go see some of Jennings's correspondents."

  "Okay." She smiled at him hesitantly. "You be careful going home."

  He touched her nose. "You be careful here. Remember what I said."

  "I will."

  He opened the door and waited outside until she closed and locked it. She peered out the Venetian blinds as he got into the big black SUV and drove off. Now she was worried about him. If two men had jumped him and been routed, what if the killer sent more back after him? She grimaced. This case was turning into a nightmare.

  She perched on her bed and stared sightlessly at the case files that had been quickly tossed aside by an impatient Marc Brannon. Her heart rippled with delight as she felt all over again the warmth of his hard mouth on her own, the feel of his long fingers on her bare skin. She shivered with desire. It was happening all over again. She was still in love, living for a sight of him, a phone call, a touch. She closed her eyes tight. She didn't dare walk that road twice. He'd turned and walked away from her two years ago without a single look over his shoulder. Which meant that he could do it again. She couldn't live through a second rejection. So she'd better remember the pain as well as the pleasure, and not get in over her head.

  The next morning, she phoned Simon Hart and filled him in on what was happening, especially about the computer break-in.

  "I don't like that," he said curtly. "I really don't like that."

  "Well, we've got our own hacker right in your office," she reminded him. "Phil Douglas could solve this case before lunch. He's the best cybercrime expert we have."

  "I sent him down to Mala Suerte, remember?" he said with a groan.

  "Then get him back! It won't take him an hour to find out who hacked into the files and got Dale transferred."

  There was a hesitation. "We do have other, more experienced, people in the cybercrime unit."

  "Simon, you're hedging," she said.

  He made a rough sound in his throat. "Well, the FBI borrowed him on another case."

  "You never loaned me to the FBI," she said, disconcerted, "and I've been there two years. Phil's only been there eight months!"

  "I didn't want to get rid of you ," he emphasized. "Okay. I'll phone their office and have him sent back."

  "He's very good at his job," she added.

  "I was getting even," he blurted out.

  She paused. "Huh?"

  "Do you remember that agent, Russell, who's been giving us so much trouble over Jake Marsh?"

  "The same one Marc almost decked at his ranch when his sister was there with the Sheikh of Qawi?" she asked.

  "Yes," he replied. "Anyway, Russell heard about this case and came in here like a pit bull, trying to get help to prove that a local mob boss had Jennings killed. Russell has been trying to get the goods on Jake Marsh for two previous unsolved murders in San Antonio."

  "Jake Marsh is our main suspect, too," she agreed, "but nobody seems to know where he is right now. But despite the best efforts of the forensic people and the evidence technicians, we can't tell anything more than the caliber of the gun Dale was killed witha nine millimeter pistol."

  "That's discouraging. If you had good evidence, I could inflict Russell on you. Anyway, he has suspicions, but he needed a cybercrime expert to go through the law enforcement database for him and run checks on mutual acquaintances and previous charges. I loaned him Phil."

  "You might hit paydirt by letting Phil work for Russell. We need all the help we can get. I would like to know who perpetrated that prisoner transfer."

  "So would I, and the more people working on it, the better. I'll get the crime lab guys over at the FBI office on it, too," he said with a chuckle. "If they can borrow our people, we should be able to use theirs. This is a capital crime, after all."

  "Thanks a lot, Simon. I'll be in touch."

  "Meanwhile, I'll get in touch with the state judicial board and get them to launch an independent investigation into the Jennings release."

  "Good idea."

  She hung up, more puzzled than ever. So the FBI was in on this, too, were they? Well, it did involve a candidate for national office, it was murder and there were rumors of mob ties. Jake Marsh's name kept turning up around every corner. She'd have to remember to tell Brannon that. If only they could find Marsh!

  When Brannon showed up to drive her down to Floresville to talk to Jennings's correspondent, she told him what Simon had said on the way down.

  "Jake Marsh, again," he murmured, frowning. "I know Simon wants to put him out of business as much as we do."

  "Yes. Your old pal Russell does, too," she added.

  "Curt Russell." His eyes began to glitter. "I still don't understand what he's doing o
n this case. Last time I looked, he was Secret Service."

  "Well, he told Simon that the FBI sent him, so I guess he's changed jobs. He's after Marsh," she told him.

  "He thinks Marsh was involved in Jennings's murder." He nodded thoughtfully. "So do we. But we still don't have a motive."

  "Not unless that information Dale had concerned Marsh and some of his dealings. If he had concrete proof of wrongdoing," she said with a curious frown, "that would certainly make a motive for murder."

  "It would," he agreed tersely.

  He led the way to the parking lot out back, where he'd left his black SUV. On the way, a small, tow-headed boy in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and sneakers was wandering along between the endless rows of cars in the huge lot and bawling his eyes out. He couldn't have been more than four years old.

  "Hey, partner," Marc called softly and picked the little fellow up. "What's the matter?"

  "Lost Mama" came the plaintive sob. Little pudgy fists wiped little wet eyes. "Lost Mama!"

  "Well, we'll just find her for you," he said, cuddling the child close.

  Josette's heart twisted. She'd seen Marc with children before. They changed him. The implacable law enforcement officer with his wild temper and furious expressions was suddenly every woman's ideal of the perfect father for her children. She looked at him and knew how he'd be with his own child. She wanted to throw herself down on the concrete and squall her own eyes out, just to get those lean, muscular arms around her so securely.

  "He can't be four yet," Josette said as she joined him. She smoothed the silky, clean hair of the little boy and smiled. "What's your name, little guy?"

  "Jeffrey," he sobbed. "I'm three years old." He held up four fingers.

  Marc and Josette exchanged amused smiles.

  From the hotel's side entrance came the sound of excited voices. "But he was right here!" a woman sobbed. "I just turned my back for a second!"

  "You never pay him any attention!" a sharp male voice countered. "You couldn't even postpone a phone call long enough to watch our son."

  "Somebody miss a kid?" Marc raised his voice.

  Two neat people, one in a business suit and one wearing ranch clothes, came quickly toward them. The man was irritated. The woman was blond and small and frantic.

  "Jeffrey!" she sobbed, holding out her arms. "Oh, thank God! If he'd gone in the street ! Thank you, thank you!" She grasped her child tight in her arms and covered his wet face with kisses.

  The man with her gave Marc a slow, quiet glance. "Thanks," he said tersely. "We'll get him home now."

  "Children wander far, and they do it quick," Marc told the woman flatly.

  She swallowed. "Yes. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." She gave the dark man beside her a worried glance. "We'll go now."

  The man nodded politely and followed along beside her, but he looked like a storm about to break.

  "There goes a marriage," Marc mused, watching them. He shook his head. "Sometimes it's just too much distance."

  "And others, it's too little communication," she replied.

  He turned to her. "That's a fact. Especially with you and me. We should have been totally honest with each other. If we had, we might be friends now, instead of reluctant co-workers."

  She searched his eyes. "You really like children, don't you?" she asked.

  He smiled. "Love them," he admitted.

  "Me, too."

  He slid his hand down to link with hers. Thrills of pleasure ran up and down her slender body.

  "We'd better go," she said.

  He nodded, and he walked beside her. But he held her hand all the way to the SUV. She didn't try to pull it away. Maybe he could help her forget how cruel he'd been in the past, if he went slowly and carefully, and didn't rush her. He had to hope so. He felt alive again. It was a good feeling.

  Chapter Nine

  » ^ «

  Sandra Gates was about Marc Brannon's age, with bleached blond hair and purple fingernails and the social graces of a small dog. Her trailer was jammed up against two equally sad-looking ones in a trailer park outside Floresville. She wasn't pleased to see Marc and Josette. She let them inside only when Marc threatened to get a search warrant.

  They sat down gingerly on the sofa, which was covered with clothes and newspapers and discarded candy wrappers. While Marc was detailing the reason for the visit, Josette unobtrusively slipped one of the candy wrappers into her pocket, on a hunch.

  Sandra sat back in her chair, her lower lip prominent. "I was just a friend of Dale's," she said with cold emphasis, waving a languid hand. Josette noticed that she wore a diamond dinner ring on her right hand. If it was a cheap ring, it certainly didn't look it. "I had nothing to do with his death," she added. "Nothing at all!"

  "We aren't accusing you of anything, Miss Gates," Josette said quickly. "We only want to know if he wrote you anything about being transferred to the Wayne Correctional Institute."

  She eyed them warily for a minute and her gaze went to the window before she took a slow breath and, without looking directly at them, answered, "Sure, I knew he was being transferred. He wrote me about it."

  "Did he tell you how he managed it?" Brannon asked evenly, observing her responses with keen gray eyes.

  She glanced at him, startled, and then averted her eyes again. "Whatdo you mean by that?"

  "Wayne Correctional Institute is a state prison, Miss Gates," Brannon replied. "Jennings was in federal prison in Austin until about a week or so before he was killed, when he managed to get transferred over here and assigned to an outside work detail."

  She folded her arms and gave him a cold glare. "He didn't say anything about that to me," she said. "I only know that it was easier to go see him here. I mean, it would have been easier for me to go see him, if he hadn't got killed."

  Brannon looked at her meaningfully. "I know that you knew him before he went to prison, Miss Gates, and that you visited him both in Austin and San Antonio."

  She looked irritable. "So I did. So what?" Now her legs were crossed and one foot started kicking impatiently.

  He ignored the question and looked around, his pale eyes lighting on a very expensive computer and printer setup. Considering the poverty around her, that was odd. So was that diamond she was sporting.

  "Do you like computers?" he asked pleasantly, changing the subject. "I'm barely computer literate myself, but we have to use them, like every other law enforcement office in the country."

  She seemed to relax a little. "Yes, I love computers. I took courses at the local vocational technical school in computer programming." She pointed to a certificate on the wall over her computer. Brannon got up and sauntered over to look at it, leaning toward it with one big, lean hand on the desk. His eyes shot down to the computer. It was an expensive one, and she had several CD-ROM disks lying around it, one of which was a photo program. Another was a sophisticated spreadsheet program.

  He stood up. "Impressive," he said, and walked back to the chair. "How long did it take you to get through those courses?"

  "A year and a half," she said and smiled jerkily. "My tips paid for that diploma. I was a waitress at a truck stop just outside San Antonio."

  "I used to be a busboy when I was in my middle teens," Brannon told her easily, and with a smile. "You don't make much at those jobs without tips."

  "You don't make anything," she muttered. "I was so damned tired of being poor" She laughed nervously. "Not that I'm rich now, but I design game software. My new one won an award from one of the computer magazines," she said, naming it with obvious pride. "I've come a long way."

  "Obviously," he said. "That's an expensive computer. Top of the line."

  Now she was nervous and on her guard again. "I have to have good equipment or I couldn't make a living." She uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. "I've got a lunch appointment," she told them, quickly checking the watch on her wrist. "Sorry to rush you off, but I'm out of time."

  They got up. "No problem," Bra
nnon told her with a courteous smile. "Thanks for your help, Miss Gates."

  "I didn't know anything!" she protested.

  "And I'm sorry about Jennings," he added, noting the faint flicker of her eyelids. "For what it's worth, I don't think he killed Henry Garner."

  She colored. Her lower lip trembled before her teeth caught and stilled it. Her face tautened. "He was such a loser," she said huskily. "Such a stupid, trusting fool!"

  "He wasn't all bad," Josette ventured. "He had some wonderful qualities."

  "A lot of good they do him now," she said coldly. "The world is full of people who use other people and get away with it."

  Josette started to ask a question, but Brannon caught her hand in his and pulled her out the door behind a pleasant goodbye to Miss Gates.

  When they were in the sports utility vehicle and headed back to San Antonio, Josette asked Brannon why he'd pulled her out the door so abruptly.

  "Because your next question would have been, who did she know that used other people and got away with it, and that would have been counterproductive," he explained. "She's in this up to her neck. If she was making that much money, she wouldn't be living in a downscale trailer park, driving a rusting old car and wearing shoes that look three years old. Designing software wouldn't explain that two-carat diamond or the computer and the printer. And I saw some software on her desk that sells for six hundred a pop."

  "You think Dale Jennings bought her the ring?"

  "If it's realand it looks realyes, I do," Brannon said. "And I'd bet money she's the one who hacked into the computer system and got Jennings sent down here."

  "That's what I thought, too, but we can't prove it."

  "Not yet, anyway." He shook his head. "She's one cool lady. You need to get the local D.A.'s cybercrime specialist on this one, and that guy Phil at your own office, too. I'll just mention it to our resident expert as well. She's not going to be easy to catch, at that, no matter how many people we put on the job. I imagine she's had a lot of practice at erasing her electronic footsteps. But we might find out something."