The Texas Ranger (8 page)

 

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 ac
quainted 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 rape—although 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 college—and 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.

S
an 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 office—cramped 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 streets—for 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.”

“I know,” Josette said with a grin. “If I still lived here, I'd have voted for her on qualifications alone.”

“She's a tiger. So am I,” she confided. She leaned forward. “Is there some particular reason you're marking time in state government?”

She was persistent, Josette thought. She smiled sadly. “Just after I graduated from college, Dale Jennings's murder trial made national headlines. I was an instant notorious celebrity, past and present, and made out to be a liar. Nobody wanted to hire me except Simon Hart. I've known him most of my life. He was the only person who was willing to take a chance on me.”

“Tough,” Linda said quietly. “I'm sorry. All the same, if you ever change your mind, we're not prejudiced here. We'd be happy to have you.”

“Thanks,” Josette said. “I'll remember that.”

“I'll be happy to have you on this case. If you need anything, anything at all, you just ask.”

“I may need more than you want to give,” Josette said quietly. “This is a high-profile case, involving a member of state government. That's one reason we've got Marc Brannon of the Texas Rangers involved. We're going to have to cross a lot of jurisdictional lines. With luck, we may get our hands on
your local mob boss Jake Marsh. But it may also involve prosecuting someone pretty high up.”

Linda nodded. “None of us here are afraid of bad publicity.”

Josette let out a sigh of relief. “That's just what I wanted to hear. Thanks.”

Linda stood up. “You'll have to share an office with Cash Grier, but he's not so bad, despite what you'll hear about him from Brannon. They used to work together. Sort of.”

“I'll remember. Thanks for the help.”

Linda smiled. “That's what we're here for—doing the job.”

 

By the end of the day, Josette knew several people on the staff and felt vaguely comfortable in her new office. She hadn't met Grier and she hadn't seen Brannon. She assumed he'd be working out of the local Ranger office. That was a relief. She didn't know how she was going to manage being close to him day after day.

But when she got back to the room she'd rented at the Madison Hotel for her stay in San Antonio, she had a surprise waiting. Brannon was sitting in a late-model unmarked sport utility vehicle, black, with antennae all over it.

She hugged her purse to her chest as she stood beside her car and waited for him to get out of his own vehicle, watching him with a carefully noncom
mittal expression. That was difficult, when her heart was trying to escape through her ribs.

He leaned against her car, his arms folded, and stared down at her in that arrogant manner of his. He was the most attractive man she'd ever known. He was also sensually intimidating, and in her case, she was certain he did it on purpose. He knew very well how she'd felt about him before she accused his best friend of murder. He was rubbing it in.

“I thought the Rangers issued you a car,” she drawled.

“I'd rather drive my own,” he replied shortly. “How'd your day go?”

“I moved in with an assistant district attorney,” she said without preamble. “I assume you'll be working out of your own office?”

He nodded.

“Did you get the files I sent?”

He nodded again.

She lifted an eyebrow and cocked her head at him. Her dark eyes twinkled. “I speak sign language, if you'd rather not answer me directly.”

He chuckled. “You haven't changed.”

She adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses. “Oh, I've changed, Brannon,” she said. “But I try not to let it show.” She turned. “If you'd like to discuss the case…”

“I would. But not in a hotel room,” he added coldly, stung by her remoteness.

She didn't look at him. “Fine. I'll take a minute to check my messages and be right back.”

That irritated him. He couldn't seem to make her angry. He wasn't sure why he wanted to. Her calm demeanor made him uncomfortable. She was so damned self-confident.

Ignoring him, she went into her room, called the desk and found no messages, refreshed her makeup and went right back outside, locking the door behind her. She'd taken barely five minutes.

Brannon was obviously surprised. “Five minutes. For a woman, that's a world record.”

“For a man, it would be a miracle,” she murmured dryly. “Where do you want to go, and I'll meet you there.”

“Don't be absurd.” He opened the passenger door of the SUV.

She gave it a doubtful look. “Got a ladder?”

“It's not that high to climb up into,” he said shortly.

She shrugged and got in with as much grace as possible. He closed the door behind her with exaggerated patience.

When he was behind the wheel, he fastened his seat belt and checked to make sure she had her own in place before he started the truck and pulled out into traffic. He drove like he did everything else, with ease and mastery. She looked at his beautiful
lean, brown hands on the steering wheel and remembered how they felt on bare skin…

She shifted in her seat and looked out over the golden grass as they passed pastures scattered with pumper wells, small grasshopper-shaped machines that brought up oil from beneath the grazing pastures. Cattle plodded around beside them with magnificent unconcern.

“Those tanks barely look half full,” she remarked, eyeing the concrete depressions that caught rainwater, called “tanks” in Texas.

“The drought is hitting everybody hard. Of course, some people do get rain, as long as they don't need it,” he added.

He glanced at her from under the broad brim of his Stetson. “I spoke to the D.A. before I got off duty. She says they like you over there.”

“Shocking, isn't it?” she replied drolly.

“That isn't what I meant.”

She glanced toward him with a bland expression. “What do you want to talk about?”

“How a convicted murderer got put on a work detail,” he said.

She pursed her lips, watching fences and cattle and grasshopper-shaped oil pumpers fly by. “Now there's a valid question. I didn't think to wonder about it, either, but it's not exactly standard policy to let murderers pick up trash on the roadside.”

“Exactly.” He glanced at her. “Something
more—the Wayne Correctional Institute isn't a federal prison, either, it's a state prison. Jennings was sent to federal prison.”

“So, what was Jennings doing in Wayne at all, right?”

“Right.” He pulled off the highway toward a truck stop. “Coffee and a burger suit you? That's about all I can afford until payday.”

“I pay my own way, Ranger, so suit yourself,” she said without embarrassment. “Have you talked to the warden?”

“Not yet. But it's pretty obvious that somebody pulled strings to get Jennings transferred there.”

She whistled softly. “Some strings!”

“I'm waiting.”

“For what?”

“For the obvious inference—that the Texas lieutenant governor probably has contacts who could manage it.”

She gave him a steady glance. “Why state the obvious?”

“Bib didn't kill Henry Garner, or Dale Jennings,” he said firmly.

“Nobody could ever accuse you of being disloyal to your friends,” she remarked. “But I'm keeping an open mind on this case, and you have to do the same,” she added firmly, her eyes steady on his face. “We're both prejudiced in favor of the people
we think are, or were, innocent. That has to make us extra cautious about any accusations.”

“You're very broad-minded for a woman with your past,” he said curtly. “And I don't mean that in a derogatory way,” he added quietly. “I can't quite figure you out.”

“No need to try,” she assured him. “We're doing a job together, nothing more. When we get the culprit, I'll go back to Austin and do what I do best.”