The Texas Ranger Page 7

  But before he could say anything, she'd turned her head toward him. "Don't ever call me. Don't ever come near me again," she'd choked, her voice breaking on the words as she glanced in his direction, but not meeting his gaze. "It was just sex, wasn't it? It was just sex you wanted, all along, and you thought I'd be easy because you thought I was easy at fifteen!"

  He remembered glaring at her with mingled frustration and anger. "You're a damned disappointment, that's what you are, Josette. You led me on deliberately tonight, knowing I couldn't have you. It was revenge for not believing you in Jacobsville, wasn't it? It was payback, pure and simple."

  Her face had flamed scarlet. "You started it!"

  He didn't like remembering that. "You didn't fight very hard, did you? But don't worry, I won't be back. I don't have any desire to see you again. You never were woman enough for me in the first place!"

  And he left her, with those cold, heartless words, driving away before she even reached her front door.

  After that, he'd gotten drunk. A few days later, he'd resigned his Ranger job and accepted one with the FBI. Josette had accepted a date with Dale Jennings to go to a party Bib Webb was throwing. In fact, Silvia Webb had put her on the guest list at Jennings's request. Soon afterward, there was a trial, a speedy trial because Bib Webb's opponent had suddenly dropped out of the race at the last minute and Webb had been elected lieutenant governor.

  During the trial, Josette was made out to be a liar. Marc hadn't provided that information about the rape trial. But Bib Webb had remembered hearing about it, and told the prosecuting attorney. Josette thought it was Marc. He hadn't gone near her because he couldn't bear the condemnation in those soft, dark eyes every time she looked at him. Then, the longer he'd waited to apologize, the more impossible it had become. In the end, he didn't contact her again. Not at all. He just left town for good.

  Actually he needn't have left San Antonio, because soon after the trial, Josette moved to Austin to work for Simon Hart, to get away from the publicity. Her mother had died of a stroke a couple of months later, and her father had died of a heart attack not long after that. There were no siblings.

  She'd mourned both of them bitterly, and alone, because she had no family left.

  Now here she was, back in Marc's life, and he had to try to keep his head around her, and not let her know how powerfully she still affected him. He wondered if she'd had something going with Jenningsor anyone elsesince the trial. She seemed very self-confident, self-assured, businesslike. But the one time he'd gone close to herdeliberately, because he had to know if he still affected her physicallyhe'd seen her blouse shake with the force of her heartbeat.

  She was still vulnerable to him; a little, anyway. But she didn't want to be. Even if she didn't hate him, she was so remote she appeared disinterested. He wondered if he was ever going to get close to her again, especially now, with the two of them on opposing teams outside the investigation.

  He knew that Bib Webb would never be a party to corruption or murder. He just didn't know how to make Josette see it. She was prejudiced, and maybe with good reason. Silvia had been vicious, sniping at her in the press and quoting things that her husband hadn't actually said about Josette's penchant for lying. It had turned Josette against Bib, and maybe that had been Silvia's intent all along.

  When Silvia had seduced Bib into marrying her, against Marc's advice, years before to escape poverty, she'd been pregnant. But she'd lost the child while she was out of town. She was ambitious from the start, and she loved money. It was her own ambition that had first pushed Bib into partnership with childless widower Henry Garner, and her ambition that had been responsible for his election to lieutenant governor. It was her ambition that had him running for a U.S. senate seat that he'd privately told Marc he didn't really want.

  Bib's idea of heaven was to spend his life selling farm equipment or working with the horses on his ranch. He loved the ranch. He loved the open country. He was more a cowboy than a diplomat or a politician, but that would never have suited Silvia. She wanted expensive clothes and jewels and the cream of society in her living room sipping imported champagne. Marc wondered how different his friend's life might have been if he'd never married Silvia.

  But it wasn't possible to relive the past. If he could do that, he wouldn't have made the mistake of his life trying to seduce Josette Langley on his sofa.

  Marc left his rental car at the airport and boarded the plane back to San Antonio, finding that he was the only passenger seated in that particular set of seats over the wing. He didn't mind that. He wasn't in the mood for a talkative companion.

  He put his hat in the extra seat and leaned back with his arms folded and his eyes closed as the big plane took off and shot up into the blue sky.

  Funny how many of his most vivid memories were tied up with Josette Langley and her family, he recalled. He and her father had first become acquainted when he was a patrolman with the Jacobsville police force. He'd been trying to get a repeat DWI offender into an alcoholic rehabilitation clinic. The man had been a member of the Langleys' church, and Josette's father had intervened on his behalf. Marc and Mr. Langley had a lot in common, because Langley had started out to be a career policeman. But he felt the call to preach, and he'd quit his job and gone to a seminary to complete his education. Marc came to the house often to see Josette's father, and he got to know Josette as well. He thought of her as a cute and mischievous child; or, he had, until he'd seen her undressed in the company of a half-naked boy one unexpected night.

  The boy had been very convincing. Josette had sneaked out of her house to meet him, he told Marc; she'd wanted him. She came on to him. But when he agreed and got enthusiastic, she started fighting and screamed rape, wasn't that just like a girl? Marc, to his shame, had believed him. He'd even felt sorry for him. So, despite his affection for the family and his friendship with Josette's father, he'd helped investigate the incident. The intern at the hospital where Josette had been taken that night gave a taped deposition, which stated emphatically that there had been no rapealthough not the reason why there hadn't. It had convinced Marc that Josette was afraid to tell the truth about what had really happened, for fear of hurting her parents. That was a common enough response for a girl who'd never done anything wrong in her life; in fact, Marc had recently seen such a case in court. The girl had tearfully admitted fault and apologized, and the case was thrown out of court.

  So, remembering that trial, Marc had testified for the boy, repeating what he'd said at the scene. The boy had won. Josette was publicly branded a liar. Her parents were humiliated. The whole family was disgraced. And when Josette tried to finish school in Jacobsville, the taunts and cruel jests of her fellow students, male and female friends of her attacker, had made it impossible for her to continue.

  Her father had moved his family to San Antonio, taking a lesser job in order to give Josette some peace. He and Marc didn't see each other anymore. Then Marc was assigned to the San Antonio Ranger post, during Josette's senior year in college. Marc had taken a course in criminal justice that had landed him in a class of hers when she was twenty-two.

  It had been difficult at first for her to speak to him at all. She hadn't forgotten or forgiven what he'd done to her at the trial. But she was attractive and he was drawn to her against his will. With gentle teasing and comradery, he'd worked his way back into her life, despite the disapproval of both her parents. He was never allowed in their home. Her parents had forgiven him, of course, but they didn't like the idea of Josette being friendly with him. They could never trust him again after his betrayal at the rape trial. They had never believed Josette guilty, despite the trial and the boy's assurances.

  Marc had ignored that disapproval. He'd taken Josette to dances, to picnics, to the theater at the college. He'd brought her little presents and phoned her late at night just to talk. She'd fallen head over heels in love with him. His own emotions were confused and hard to define.

  And then he'd invited
her to a dance, the night after she graduated from collegeand he'd attended graduation, even though he sat apart from her family.

  That last date they'd shared had changed everything. Marc's painful discovery about her had prompted him to write her a letter, a long and rambling letter of apology. He'd almost mailed it. Then Henry Garner had been murdered and Marc had been assigned to help solve the case. Josette had been right in the middle of it, as a guest at the party.

  After the story of Josette's rape trial hit the papers, Marc threw away the letter. He knew she'd tear it up, unread. She'd blame him for that publicity, assuming that he was the only person who'd remember it, without knowing that Bib Webb knew.

  Marc had left town after Jennings's conviction, devastated. He couldn't bear to know that he'd destroyed Josette's life by believing the culprit and denying her innocence. A young girl, drugged and almost raped, had then been subjected to sordid gossip and accused of lying, so that the perpetrator went free and lived to gloat about it.

  Marc had done that to her. He'd helped cost her father his good job as youth minister of a Jacobsville church. And he'd not only destroyed her young womanhood, but he'd come back into her life just long enough to make her trust him and then he'd betrayed her all over again by accusing her of making false accusations against his best friend.

  They were false, of course. He knew Bib Webb hadn't killed old man Garner. Bib loved the old devil as if he'd been his own father, who'd deserted Bib and his little sister when Bib was seventeen. Bib had raised the girl and then had to watch her die of a drug overdose when she was just eighteen. Bib's life had been rocky and painful until old man Garner came along and took him in. Silvia had reminded him of his sister in those days, being poor and unsure of herself and hopelessly infatuated with Bib. He'd married her seven years ago, and Bib had grown gray in the years between. He looked a decade older than Marc.

  The flight attendant passed him with the drinks cart, but he shook his head and she moved on by. He felt her eyes on him and had to hide a smile. The Texas Ranger badge and accoutrements did that to a lot of women. They saw the uniform and were drawn to the man wearing it. He wasn't bad-looking, and he knew it, but he wasn't overly interested in responding these days. Until Josette Langley had walked back into his life unexpectedly that morning outside Simon Hart's office, he'd thought he was dead from the neck down. It was discomforting to know that she affected him in the same old way. And in the same old places.

  He had to remember that he was involved in a murder investigation. Lives would be ruined when the culprit, whoever he or she was, was found. He had to have an unbreakable chain of evidence that led to the perpetrator, and he had to do some quick investigative work to make that happen.

  This was going to be a front-page case until it was solved. Inevitably it would subject Bib Webb to unpleasant publicity, as well as Josette and Dale Jennings's mother, and anyone else who'd had ties with the old case. He had to make sure that he didn't slip up. He had to be methodical, and not let his old feelings for Josette get in the way of good police work.

  He wondered how it was going to be for her, having to suffer his company when he was the one man in the world she had reason to hate. He felt sorry for her. He felt sorry for himself. He had plenty of regrets.

  Two rows up from him, a woman was cuddling a toddler, who was grasping her hair and gurgling as he smiled up at her. Marc smiled involuntarily, thinking of his young nephew whom he'd only seen in newsreels and in the photos Gretchen had sent him copies of. He wanted to see the child, to hold him, to see his sister's eyes in that young face. He would have bet that she and her husband Philippe spent a lot more time watching the baby than they spent watching television.

  He'd have liked a child of his own. He was beginning to see the long, lonely years ahead. He wondered if Josette ever thought about kids. He grimaced. With her distaste for anything intimate, he doubted she'd let herself think of kids. It was a shame, too, because she had such a sweet, nurturing personality. She was forever doing things for her parents, for neighbors, for kids she didn't even know. He remembered taking her to an amusement park once, and she'd found a little boy crying with a cut knee. She'd dug a bandage out of her pocketbook and put it in place, drying the tears and even buying him an ice-cream cone. By the time his frantic parents found him, he was laughing and holding Josette's hand as if it were a lifeline.

  He hated that memory. It had been the day before her graduation, before he took her to the dance. It had been the last full day they ever spent together. It was his last chance, and he didn't know until it was too late.

  He thought of the lonely years he had left and almost groaned out loud. He had to keep his mind on the case, not on the past; even if they did end up being one and the same thing.

  The past was inextricably linked to what was happening now. He and Josette had to find a killer before he decided to target another unknown victim. And they had to find him fast.

  Chapter Five

  » ^ «

  San Antonio was bigger than Josette remembered. She'd attended college here. She'd fallen in love here. Now she was up to her neck in a murder investigation, facing an enemy whom she'd loved with all her heart before he betrayed her.

  Her knowledge of the Jennings trial gave her an edge that most investigators wouldn't have. Still, she didn't want to step on any toes, especially those of the local police department. But it was a crime that could reach all the way to state government, and that required cooperation and sensitivity from all the agencies involved.

  It was going to be a tricky investigation. The murder victim had escaped from prison, where he was serving a long sentence for killing Bib Webb's elderly business partner. How he escaped, and why he was killed execution-style, were questions that currently had no answers. Josette was expected to help find those answers.

  She looked around the district attorney's office with a smile, because it reminded her of her own officecramped and bogged down with file folders. It was a nice, modern office, but she had yet to meet any district attorney who didn't have a caseload that he or she could never catch up with. It was almost a hallmark of the profession.

  A door opened and a trim young woman with dark hair and eyes motioned her inside another office, also stacked with files too numerous to fit inside the two filing cabinets.

  "I'm Linda Harvey, one of the assistant district attorneys," the young woman said pleasantly. "I'm the one who requested your help. We spoke on the phone."

  "I'm glad to meet you. I'm Josette Langley. I was just noticing the overflow," she added with a smile and a handshake. "I feel right at home."

  Linda Harvey just shook her head. "I expect to go to my grave with a box of unfinished case files," she admitted. "If you want coffee, there's an urn right outside the district attorney's door, just put a quarter in the box and help yourself."

  "Thanks, but I've had two cups to wake me up. Any more and I'll be flying around the room."

  Linda chuckled. "I know what you mean. Have a seat." She dropped into her own chair. "I understand from Simon Hart that you were personally involved in this case."

  "Far more involved than I wanted to be," Josette confided. "The murder victim was my date on the night he was supposed to have killed Henry Garner. I couldn't give him an alibi, but I never thought he was guilty."

  "I've read the file" came the quiet reply. "You suspected that Bib Webb was somehow involved."

  Josette grimaced. " That didn't win me any points, I can tell you. I only mentioned that he was the man with the most to gain from Garner's death, which was a fact. The media blew it into an accusation and went to town speculating on Webb's involvement, which was dynamite, considering that he was running for lieutenant governor at the time."

  "Yes," Linda said, frowning thoughtfully. "His opponent dropped out at the last minute, leaving him a clear field. I always thought the timing was interesting, especially since Webb fell behind in the polls after the trial." She smiled at Josette. "As I recall
, the prosecution was pretty rough on you when you tried to testify for Jennings."

  "They dug up a rape case I'd been involved in when I was fifteen," she said, obviously surprising the other woman. She nodded. "Yes, I was pretty sure that would be in my file." She leaned forward. "That boy did try to rape me," she said firmly. "I didn't realize until much later that he'd slipped something into my Coke. It was like a forerunner of the date-rape drug."

  The other woman let out a breath. "I wondered if it wasn't something like that," she confessed. "I'm glad you were honest with me. In fact, what I heard bothered me so much at the time that I tracked down that attorney, and had him tell me himself why the case was thrown out of court. He was very apologetic. He was young and the boy had family and friends who convinced him the boy was the wronged party."

  Josette took a slow breath. "How nice of him. And only nine years too late."

  "Women are still getting a rough deal in a lot of places," Linda said quietly. "But at least he's off the streetsfor good. The year before last, he had raped a young woman and strangled her almost to death in Victoria. He died trying to run away from the police in a high-speed chase."

  Josette grimaced. "I know. I had a lot of calls from people in Jacobsville afterward. Including one from the district attorney who prosecuted the boy. He believed in me, right up until the verdict and even past it."

  "At least you were exonerated," Linda said. "You've done well, despite everything."

  Josette shrugged. "I had motivation. I wanted to be able to do something for other innocent victims."

  "You're a trained investigator. Why aren't you working on a district attorney's staff? In fact, why aren't you a district attorney? We have a female one here."