Josette came around the desk and walked right up to him, unafraid.

“I’m not prejudging anyone implicated in this case. That means you can’t, either,” she said deliberately. “I know what that—” she indicated his Ranger badge “—means to you. My job means just as much to me. If we’re going to work together, we have to start now. No acid comments about the past. We’re solving a murder, not rehashing an incident that was concluded two years ago. What’s over is over. Period.”

His gray eyes narrowed so that they were hidden under his jutting brow and the cream-colored Stetson he slanted at an angle over them. Until he’d seen her again, he hadn’t realized how lonely his life had been for the past two years. He’d made a mess of things. In fact, he was still doing it. She held grudges, too. And he could hardly blame her.

“All right,” Brannon said finally.

“I’ll keep you posted about anything I find, if you’ll return the courtesy.”

“Courtesy.” He turned the word over on his tongue. “There’s a new concept.”

“For you, certainly,” Josette agreed with an unexpected twinkle in her eyes.

The Texas Ranger
Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my grandfather,

Edward Thomas Cliatt,

who made childhood an adventure.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

There were framed black-and-white photographs of Texas Rangers on the walls of the San Antonio Texas Ranger office. Like sepia ghosts of times gone by, they watched over the modern complex of telephones and fax machines and computers. Phones were ringing. Employees at desks were interviewing people. The hum of working machines settled over the office, oddly comforting, like an electrical lullaby.

Sergeant Marc Brannon was sitting kicked back in his swivel chair, his wavy blond-streaked brown hair shimmering under the ceiling lights as he pondered a stack of files on his cluttered desk. His narrow, pale gray eyes were almost closed as he thought about a disturbing recent mishap.

A close friend and fellow Texas Ranger, Judd Dunn, had been almost run over by a speeding car a few weeks earlier during a temporary assignment to the San Antonio office. There were rumors that it had something to do with a criminal investigation into illegal gambling that the FBI was conducting on local mob boss Jake Marsh in San Antonio. Dunn had been working with the FBI on the case, but shortly thereafter, Dunn had transferred down to the Victoria office, citing personal problems. Brannon had inherited the Marsh investigation. The FBI was also involved—rather, an agent Brannon knew was involved; a Georgia-born nuisance named Curtis Russell. It was curious that Russell should be working on an FBI case. He’d been with the Secret Service. Of course, Marc reminded himself, men changed jobs all the time. He certainly had.

Apparently, Russell was knee-deep in the Marsh investigation. Attorney General Simon Hart had spoken with Brannon on the phone not two days ago, grumbling about Russell’s tenacity. The former Secret Service agent was now in Austin giving the local officials fits while he dug into state crime lab computer files on two recent murders that he thought were tied to Marsh. And who knew, maybe he was right. But pinning anything on the local mobster was going to take a miracle.

Marsh had his finger in all sorts of pies, including blackmail, prostitution and illegal betting, mostly in San Antonio, where he lived. If they could get something on him, they could invoke the state’s nuisance abatement statute, which permitted any property to be closed down if it were used as a base of operations for criminals. Since Marsh was known to be involved in prostitution and illegal betting at his nightclub, all they had to do was prove it to oust him from the premises. Considering the real estate value of that downtown property, it would hit Marsh right where he lived. But knowing he was conducting illegal operations and proving it were two whole different kettles of fish. Marsh was an old hand at dodging investigators and searches. Doing things by the book sure seemed to give career criminals an advantage.

Pity that you couldn’t just shoot the bad guys anymore, Brannon thought whimsically, eyeing a hundred-year-old framed photograph of a Texas Ranger on horseback with a lariat pulled tight around a dusty and wounded outlaw.

His lean hand went to the dark wood butt of the Colt .45 he wore in a holster on his hip. Since Rangers didn’t have a specified uniform, they were allowed some personal choice in both dress and weaponry. But most of the men and women in the office wore white shirts and ties with their star-in-a-circle signature badge on the shirt. Most of them also wore white Stetsons and boots. To a Ranger, they were neat, conservative, polite and professional when they were on the job. Brannon tried very hard to adjust to that image. Well, he tried to, most of the time. He was more cautious about his job now than he ever had been before. He’d made the mistake of his life two years ago, misjudging a woman he’d grown to…care for, very much. His sister said that the woman didn’t blame him for the mess he’d made of her life. But he blamed himself so much that he’d quit the Rangers and left Texas for two years to work with the FBI. But he’d learned that running from problems didn’t solve them. They were portable. Like heartache.

He could still see her in his mind, blond and sassy and full of dry wit. Despite the miseries of her life, she’d been the brightest, most delightful person he’d ever known. He missed her. She didn’t miss him, of course. And why should she? He’d hurt her terribly. He’d ruined her life.

“Nothing to do, Brannon?” a female Ranger drawled as she passed him. All the women thought he was a dish, lean and slim-hipped, broad-chested, with that square sort of face that once graced cowboy movie posters. He had a sensuous mouth under a nose that had been broken at least once, and an arrogant sort of carriage that excited more than it intimidated. But he wasn’t a rounder, by anybody’s estimate. In fact, if he dated, he was so discreet that even the office gossip couldn’t get anything on him.

“I am doing something,” he drawled back with a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m using mental telepathy on escaped criminals. If I’m successful, they’ll all be walking into law enforcement offices all over America as we speak, to turn themselves in.”

“Pull the other one,” she chuckled.

He sighed and smiled. “Okay. I just got back from testifying in a court case. I’ve got half a dozen cases to work and now I have to decide on priorities,” he confessed. He flicked a long finger at the file stack. “I thought I might flip a coin…”

“No need. The captain has something urgent for you to do.”

“Saved by new orders!” he joked. He jerked forward and his booted feet slammed to the floor. He got up and stretched enormously, pulling his white shirt with the silver Ranger badge on the pocket tight over hair-roughened, hard chest muscles. “What’s the assignment?”

She tossed a sheet on his desk. “A homicide, in an alley off Castillo Boulevard,” she told him. “White guy, mid-to-late-twenties. Two detectives from CID and a medical examiner investigator are already on scene, along with a couple of EMTs and patrol officers. The captain said you should go right now, before they call a contract ambulance to transport the dead body.”

He scowled. “Hey, that’s in the city limits. San Antonio PD has jurisdiction…” he began.

“I know. But this one’s tricky. They found a young white guy with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution-style. Remember what’s on Castillo Boulevard?”

“No.”

She gave him a smug look. “Jake Marsh’s nightclub. And the body was found in an alley two doors down from it.”

He broke into a smile. “Well, well! What a nice surprise to drop in my lap, and just when I was feeling sorry for myself.” He hesitated. “Wait a minute. Why’s the captain giving it to me?” he asked suspiciously, glaring toward the head Ranger’s closed door nearby. “The last assignment he gave me was looking into the mysterious death of a mutilated cow.” He leaned down, because he was a head taller than she was. “They thought it was aliens,” he whispered fervently.

She made a face. “You never know. Maybe it was!”

He glared at her.

She grinned. “He’s just ticked because you got to work with the FBI for two years, and they turned down two applications from him. But he said you could have this murder case because you haven’t embarrassed him this month. Yet.”

“It won’t be uncomplicated. In fact, I’ll bet a week’s pay that by dark it’s going to turn into a media feeding frenzy,” he said.

“I won’t take that bet. And, by the way, he said you should stop getting gas at that new all-female gas station downtown, because it’s giving the department a bad name.”

He lifted both eyebrows. “What’s he got against women pumping gas?” he asked innocently.

“Gas isn’t all they’re pumping.” She flushed when she realized what she’d said, gestured impotently at the assignment sheet and exited in a flaming rush.

Brannon grinned wickedly as she retreated. He picked up the sheet and went out of the office, grabbing up his off-white Stetson on the way.

In Austin, a slender woman with her long blond hair in a bun, wearing big gold-rimmed glasses over her twinkling dark brown eyes, was trying to console one of the state attorney general’s computer experts.

“He really likes you, Phil,” Josette Langley told the young man, who was in the first month of his first job out of college. He looked devastated. “Honest he does.”

Phil, redheaded and blue-eyed, glanced toward the door of Simon Hart, Texas Attorney General, and flushed even redder. “He said it was my fault his computer locked down while he was talking to the vice president on-line about an upcoming governors’ conference. He got knocked off the network and couldn’t get back on. He threw the mouse at me.”

“Lucky you, that it wasn’t attached to the CPU at the time,” she said with a wicked grin. “Anyway, he only throws things when Tira’s mad at him. It doesn’t last long. Besides, the vice president is his third cousin,” she pointed out. “And mine, too, come to think of it,” she added thoughtfully. “Never mind, Phil, you have to learn to just let it wash over you, like water on a duck’s back. Simon’s quick-tempered, but he gets over it just as fast.”

He gave her a baleful look. “He never yells at you.”

“I’m a woman,” she pointed out. “He’s very old-fashioned about yelling at women. He and his brothers were raised strictly. They don’t move with the times.”

“He’s got four brothers and he says they’re all just like him. Imagine that!” he said.

She remembered that Phil was an only child, like herself. “They’re not just like him. Anyway, they live in Jacobsville, Texas. The married ones are a lot calmer now.” She didn’t dare allow herself to think about the two remaining Hart bachelors, Leo and Rey. The stories about their homemade biscuit-craving and the things they did to satisfy it was becoming legendary.

“The bachelor ones aren’t calm. One of them carried a cook out of a Victoria restaurant kicking and screaming last week, and they sent the Texas Rangers after him!”

“They sent Judd Dunn,” she replied. “He’s our cousin, too. But it was a joke, sort of. And she wasn’t exactly screaming…Well, never mind. It’s not important.” She was talking too fast. She felt her face go hot at the mention of the Texas Rangers.

She had painful memories of one particular Texas Ranger, whom she’d loved passionately. Gretchen, Marc Brannon’s sister, had told her that Marc Brannon had gone on a drunken rampage two years ago, just after they broke up and ended up on opposite sides of the courtroom in a high-profile murder trial. Marc had left the Rangers shortly afterward and enlisted with the FBI. He was back in San Antonio now, back with the Rangers again. Gretchen also said that Marc had almost driven himself crazy with guilt over an even older incident when Josette was fifteen and he was a policeman in Jacobsville. Odd, she thought, remembering the painful things he’d said to her when they broke up.

Josette had told Gretchen that she didn’t blame Marc for his lack of belief in her innocence. Part of her didn’t. Another, darker part wanted to hang him by his spurs from a live oak tree for the misery of the past two years. He’d never really believed her story until their last disastrous date, and he’d walked out on her without another word, after making her feel like a prostitute. She’d loved him. But he couldn’t have loved her. If he had, he’d never have left Texas, not even if the murder trial had set them at odds.

She cleared her throat at the erotic images that flashed through her mind of her last date with Marc and turned her attention back to poor, downcast Phil Douglas.

“I’ll square things with Simon for you,” she promised him.

“I really like working here,” he said eagerly. “You might mention that. And I promise I’ll fix the computer next time so that his e-mail won’t ever lock down again. I’ll put it in writing, even!”

“I’ll tell him, Phil. Right now, in fact. I have to see him on a question one of the district attorneys faxed in this morning. Chin up, now. The world hasn’t ended. Everything passes with time—even things you think will kill your soul.”

And she should know, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

When she walked into Texas Attorney General Simon Hart’s office, she found him scowling at the telephone as if he’d just taken a bite of it and found it rotten.

“Something wrong?” she asked as she paused in front of his desk.

He shifted, the artificial hand resting on the desk looking so real that sometimes it was hard to remember that he was an amputee. Simon was big, dark-haired, pale-eyed and formidable. His gorgeous redheaded wife, Tira, and his two dark-haired young sons smiled out from a jumble of framed photographs on a polished table behind him. There was one of him with his four brothers just after he’d been elected attorney general. His brothers were giving him apprehensive glances. She smiled. Disabled or not, Simon was a force to behold when he lost his temper.

“That was the assistant district attorney in San Antonio,” he said, indicating the phone. “They’ve got what looks like a mob-related hit in an alley just a few steps from Jake Marsh’s nightclub.” He glanced at her. “A local mob figure,” he added. “Ever heard of him?”

“The name rings a bell, but I can’t place it. That case won’t concern us, will it?” she asked.

He was tracing a pattern on his desk. “As a matter of fact, it might. It depends on whether or not we can tie Marsh to the murder. I don’t have to tell you how hard the district attorney in San Antonio has been trying to shut him down. The D.A. phoned the deputy chief of police and cleared it to have the Texas Rangers send an officer over there to assist in the investigation. If the case can be tied to Marsh, we’ll be looking at multiple jurisdictions and we’ll end up in a high-profile case. In a senate election year here,” he added solemnly, “crime will be a campaign issue. I don’t want Texas in the spotlight again. Neither does the D.A. in Bexar County, so she’s making sure every step is documented and backed up.”

He was holding something back. She could see it in the way he looked at her.

“You know you can’t hide things from me,” she said abruptly. “What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

He shook his head and laughed. “I forgot that uncanny ability of yours to sense what people are feeling. Okay. They’re sending Marc Brannon to look into it,” he told her finally. He held up a hand when she froze and started to speak. “I know there’s bad blood between you, but Marsh is notorious. I want him as much as the D.A. does, so I’m going to send you over there to run liaison for my office during the investigation. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

She wasn’t listening. She had a bad feeling about it, too. Her heart was racing. Two years. Two years. “You’ll have a worse feeling if you send me there. Can you see me and Brannon, working together? It will only be possible if they confiscate all his bullets and make me leave my stun gun here in Austin.”

He chuckled. Despite her tragic life, she was strong and independent and dryly funny. He’d hired her two years ago when nobody else would, largely thanks to Brannon, and he was glad. She had a degree in criminal justice. Her choice of jobs was to be an investigator in a district attorney’s office. Fate had landed her here, working on the Prosecutor Assistance and Special Investigation Unit for Simon. She could be loaned out to a requesting district attorney, along with other investigative personnel and even prosecutors, providing resources for criminal investigation.

It was a harrowing job from time to time, but she loved it. She had access to the respected Texas Crime Information Center. It boasted a statewide database on wanted persons and provided real-time on-line information to law enforcement agencies. Josette counted it as one of her biggest blessings during investigations, particularly those involving cybercrime.

“It’s nothing definite yet,” Simon added. “They’re still at the scene. The murder may not even be connected with Marsh, although I hope to God it is. But I thought I’d prepare you, just in case you have to go out there.”

“Okay. Thanks, Simon.”

“We’re family. Sort of.” He frowned. “Was it your third cousin who was related to my stepgrand-mother…?”

“Don’t,” she groaned. “It would take a genealogist to figure it out, it’s so distant.”

“Whatever. They can’t accuse me of nepotism for hiring you, but we’re distant cousins anyway. Family,” he added, with a warm smile. “Sort of. Like the staff.”

“I’m glad you think of them like that, because ‘Cousin’ Phil wants you to know that he likes his job and he’s sorry he messed up your e-mail,” she told him, tongue-in-cheek. “And he hopes you won’t take away his job with the Internet Bureau.”

His light eyes flashed. “You can tell Cousin Phil to kiss my…!”

“Don’t you say it,” she warned, “or I’ll call Tira and tell on you.”

He ground his teeth together. “Oh, all right.” He frowned. “That reminds me. What do you want in here, anyway?”

“A raise,” she began, counting on one hand. “A computer that doesn’t crash every time I load a program. A new scanner, because mine’s sluggish. A new filing cabinet, mine’s full. And how about one of those cute little robotic dogs? I could teach it to fetch files…”

“Sit down!”

She sat, but she was still grinning. She crossed her legs in the chair across the desk and went over the question she’d been faxed from a rural district attorney, who’d asked for a legal opinion. For Simon’s sake, she acted unconcerned that fate might fling her in the path of Marc Brannon for a third time.

But when Josette left Simon’s office, she was almost shaking. It had to be an easily solvable murder, she told herself firmly. She couldn’t be thrown into Brannon’s company again not when she was just beginning to get over him. She went through the rest of the day in a daze. There was a nagging apprehension in the back of her mind, as if she knew somehow that the murder in San Antonio was going to affect her life.

Her grandmother, Erin O’Brien, had been Irish, a special woman with an uncanny ability to know things before they happened. The elderly lady would cook extra food and get the guest rooms ready on days when the Langley family dropped in on “surprise” visits. She could anticipate tragedies, like the sudden death of her brother. When Josette’s father had stopped by her small home to tell her the bad news, she was wearing a black dress and her Sunday hat, waiting to be driven to the funeral home. It was useless to try to watch murder mysteries with her, because she always knew who the culprit was by the end of the first scene. Erin was Josette’s favorite person when she was a child. They shared all sorts of secrets. It had been Erin who told her she would meet a tall man wearing a badge, and her life would be forever entangled with his. When Marc Brannon had rescued her, at the age of fifteen, from a wild party and near-rape, Erin had been waiting at her parents’ home when Brannon drove her there in the Jacobsville police car, with her arms open. Marc had been fascinated by the old woman, even that long ago. Erin’s death before the family moved to San Antonio had devastated Josette. But, then, so had losing Marc two years ago. Her life had been an endurance test.

That evening, she went home to her tomcat Barnes in her small efficiency apartment and deliberately got out her photo album. She hadn’t opened it in two painful years, but now she was hungry for the sight of that tall, elegant, formidable man in her past.

She’d loved Marc Brannon more than her life. They’d come as close to being lovers as any two people ever had without going all the way, but he’d discovered a secret about her that had shattered him. He’d dragged himself out of her arms, cursed her roundly and walked out the door. He’d never looked back. Scant days later, Josette had gone to a party with an acquaintance named Dale Jennings and a wealthy San Antonio man had died there. Josette had accused Marc’s best friend, and a candidate for lieutenant governor, of the murder, citing that he was the sole heir of the old man. Brannon had used her past against her in court to clear his friend. They hadn’t spoken since.

It had been a fluke, that whole situation. She couldn’t really blame Brannon for defending his best friend. But if he’d loved her, he couldn’t have walked away that easily. And he wouldn’t have treated her like trash, either.

Most people around San Antonio said that Brannon wouldn’t know love if it poked him in the eye. It was probably true. He was a loner by nature, and he and his sister, Gretchen, had suffered terrible poverty in childhood. Their mother had died of cancer two years ago, not long after Josette had split up with Marc. Gretchen had been wined and dined and then horribly jilted by an opportunist when he discovered that she inherited little more than debts. Like her, both Brannons had known betrayal.

Barnes purred and rubbed against her arm, diverting her from her sad thoughts. She petted him and held him close. His loud purr vibrated against her skin and gave her comfort, like the weight of his big, furry body. He was a battle-scarred alley cat who’d needed a good meal and a bath. Josette had needed something to come home to after a hard day’s work. She’d never been able to walk past anything that was hurt or deserted, so she’d loved Barnes on sight. She’d taken him to the veterinarian for a checkup and shots and then she’d taken him home with her. Now, she couldn’t imagine life without him. He filled some of the empty places inside her.

“Hungry?” she asked, and he rubbed harder.

“Okay,” she said, sighing as she got to her bare feet and stretched lazily, her slender body twisting with the motion. Her hair was down around her shoulders. It fell like a golden cascade to her hips in back. Brannon had loved her hair like that. She grimaced. She had to stop remembering!

“We’ll split a hamburger, Barnes. Then,” she added with a wince, “I have to comb through a thousand files and download a dozen pages into the laptop for Simon. After that, I have to write a summary and take it back to Simon so that he can compose an opinion on it. Then I have to fax it to the district attorney.” She looked down at Barnes and shook her head. “Oh, for the life of a cat!”

Chapter Two

Nothing about a crime scene ever got easier, Marc Brannon thought as he knelt beside the body of the shooting victim. The man was young, probably no more than late-twenties, and he was dressed shabbily. One bare arm bore a tattoo of a raven. There were scars on both wrists and ankles, hinting at a stint in prison. There was a pool of blood around his fair hair and his pale eyes were open, staring blankly at the blue sky. He looked vulnerable lying there; helpless and defenseless, with his body wide-open to the stares of evidence-gatherers and curious passersby. Evidence technicians went over the scene like bloodhounds, looking carefully for trace evidence. One of them had a metal detector and had just found a slug which they hoped would be from the murder weapon. Another technician was videotaping the crime scene from every angle.

Brannon’s big, lean hand smoothed over the neat khaki of his slacks while his keen, deep-set silver-gray eyes narrowed in thought. Maybe Marsh had nothing to do with this, but it was curious that a dead body would be found so close to his nightclub. No doubt Marsh would have an iron-clad alibi, he thought irritably. He had dozens of cronies who would give him one whenever he needed it.

Deep in thought, Brannon watched the lone medical examiner investigator work. She was going very slowly and methodically about securing the body. Well, she should. It could turn out to be a very high-profile case, he reminded himself.

The homicide detective for the central substation, Bud Garcia, waved at Brannon before he spoke to the patrol officers who’d apparently found the body. He sighed as he joined the medical examiner investigator beside the body, out of the way of the evidence technicians who were busily garnering trace evidence close to the body. Brannon had an evidence kit himself, but he would have felt superfluous trying to use it with so many people on the case. There were continuous flashes of light as the corpse was photographed as well as videotaped.

“Hi, Jones,” he greeted her. “Do we know anything about this guy yet?”

“Sure,” she replied, busily bagging the victim’s hands. “I know two things about him already.”

“Well?” he prompted impatiently, when she hesitated.

“He’s male, and he’s dead,” Alice Jones replied with a wicked grin as she put the last bag in place with a rubber band. Her hair, black and short, was sweaty.

He gave her a speaking glare.

“Sorry,” she murmured dryly. “No, we don’t have anything, not even a name. He wasn’t carrying ID.” She stood up. “Care to guess about his circumstances?”

He studied the body. “He’s got abrasions on his wrists and ankles. My guess would be that he’s an escaped prisoner.”

“Not bad, Ranger,” she mused. “That would be my best guess, too. But until we get him autopsied, we’re going to have to wait for our answers.”

“Can you approximate the time of death?”

She gave him a long, appreciative look. Her eyes twinkled. “You want me to jab a thermometer in his liver right here, huh?”

“God, Jones!” he burst out.

“Okay, okay, if you have to have a time of death, considering the state of rigor, I’d say twenty-four hours, give or take two either side,” she murmured, and went back to work. “But don’t hold me to it. I’m just an investigator. The medical examiner will have to go over this guy, and he’s got bodies backed up in the morgue already. Don’t expect quick results.”

As if he didn’t know that. Evidence processing could take weeks, and frequently did, despite the instant results displayed on television police shows.

He swore under his breath and got to his feet gracefully. It was a hot September day and the silvery metal of his Texas Ranger badge caught the sun and glittered. He took off his Stetson and swept the back of his hand over his sweaty brow. His blond-streaked, thick and wavy hair, was momentarily visible until he stuck the hat back on, slanting it across his eyes.

“Who called you in on this?” the assistant medical examiner asked cursorily as she worked to prepare the body for transit.

“My boss. We’re hoping this may be a link to a guy we’ve been trying to close down for several years without success, considering where the body’s located. Naturally my boss sent someone experienced and capable and superior in intelligence to investigate.” He looked at her mischievously.

She glanced appreciatively up at her rugged companion, appraising his lean physique and commanding presence. She gave a long, low whistle. “I’m impressed, Brannon!”

“Nothing impresses you, Jones,” he drawled.

He turned around and went to look for Bud Garcia, the homicide detective. He found him talking to another plainclothes detective, who had a cell phone and a notepad.

“Well, that sure fits the description,” Garcia was agreeing with a satisfied smile. “Right down to the raven tattoo. It’s him, all right. What a lucky break! Thank the warden for me.”

The other officer nodded and spoke into the cell phone again, moving away.

“Brannon, we’ve got something,” Garcia said when he saw the taller man approaching. “Wayne Correctional Institute down near Floresville is reporting a missing inmate who fits this man’s description exactly. He escaped from a work detail early this morning.”

“Have you got a name?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well?” Brannon pressed.

“It’s Jennings. Dale Jennings.”

It was a name that Brannon had reason to remember. And now the face that seemed so familiar clicked into place. Jennings, a local hoodlum, had been convicted of murdering a wealthy San Antonio businessman two years before. He was also alleged to have strong ties to Jake Marsh and his underworld. His photograph had been in half the newspapers in the country, not to mention the front page of several tabloids. The trial had been scandalous as well. Josette Langley, the young woman who had been Jennings’s date the night of elderly Henry Garner’s murder, insinuated publicly that the person who stood to gain the most from the death was Brannon’s best friend, who was Bib Webb, now Texas Lieutenant Governor.

But Webb’s attorney had convinced the prosecutor that it was Jennings who committed the murder and that Josette’s testimony in Jennings’s behalf was filled with lies. She had, after all, been proven a liar in a rape trial some years earlier. Her past was what had saved Webb from any charges. Silvia Webb, Bib’s wife, had seen old man Henry Garner outside and waved to him just before she left to take Josette home. She also said she’d seen a bloody blackjack on the passenger seat of Jennings’s car. Both she and Bib Webb had an alibi for the next few minutes, during which Garner was said to have lost his life on the pier of the private lake at Webb’s estate.

When Silvia came back from taking Josette home and saw Garner’s car still in the driveway, and empty, and nobody remembered seeing him recently, she called the police to report it. Several guests remembered hearing her make the call, and sounding disturbed. The guests were forbidden to leave the party while they searched for the old man, whom they found floating near the pier, dead. It looked like an accidental drowning, one newscaster said, and it was rumored that the old man had been drinking and walked off the pier, hitting his head on the way down. Still, no one was allowed to leave the scene until the police and the EMTs, along with the coroner, were finished. Witnesses were questioned.

Even so, it just might have passed for an accident. Except that Josette, who heard the breaking story on television later that night, called the police and told them that Garner hadn’t been drinking at all, that she hadn’t seen him outside when she and Silvia left the party, and that there had been no blackjack in Dale Jennings’s car. She knew because she’d ridden in it to the party.

A lump was found on Garner’s head when they pulled him out of the water. There was a blackjack lying visible on the passenger seat of Dale Jennings’s car. He’d protested wildly when the police took him away.

Josette was positive Bib Webb was involved. But it was that suspicion, against the ironclad alibis of Bib Webb and his wife, who stated that Jennings had a motive—an argument the day before with Garner over his salary. It turned out that Garner had been paying Jennings to be his combination handyman and chauffeur. It was alleged that Jennings was helping himself to the old man’s possessions as well. They found a very expensive pair of gold cuff links, a diamond tiepin and a lot of cash in his apartment, which added to the sensationalism of the trial. Jake Marsh had been pulled in and questioned repeatedly because of some nebulous work Dale had done for him. But there was no hard evidence and Marsh walked away without a blemish, to the dismay and fury of Bexar County prosecutors and State Attorney General Simon Hart.

Brannon stuck his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. They clenched as he recalled Josette’s face in another courtroom, years ago, when she was only fifteen and trying to convince a hostile jury that she’d been drugged and nearly raped by the son of a wealthy Jacobsville resident. Josette’s life had been a hard one. But it wounded him that she could have accused Bib Webb, his best friend, of something as heinous as murdering a helpless old man for money. It was so obvious that Jennings had done it. He even had the murder weapon in his car, blatantly in sight on the front passenger seat, still bearing minute traces of blood and tissue, and hair, from poor old Garner’s head. The medical examiner positively identified the blackjack as the weapon used to stun the old man before he was pushed into the water.

“You know the Langley woman, who works in Simon Hart’s office, don’t you?” Garcia asked suddenly, dragging Brannon back to the present. The two men had known each other since Garcia was a patrolman and Brannon a fledgling Texas Ranger.

Brannon nodded curtly. “We both come from Jacobsville. Josette and her mother and father moved to San Antonio some years ago. I heard that her parents were dead. I haven’t seen her in two years, not since she moved to Austin,” he added, reminded unwillingly that he’d broken off their relationship the week before Garner had died.

“No reason to, I imagine,” the officer said carelessly.

Brannon’s eyes went back to the body on the ground. “This does look like a professional hit,” Brannon said out of the blue, studying Dale Jennings’s body, with his hands bagged and his white, still face vanishing under the zip of the dark body bag. “One downward-angled gunshot to the back of the head at point-blank range. His knees were covered in red mud, just like this.” He moved the dirt caked on the pavement with the toe of his boot. “He was probably kneeling at the time.”

“That was my first thought, too. And it’s a pretty big coincidence that Marsh’s nightclub is only two doors that way,” the detective agreed, nodding toward the street that fronted the alley.

“If Marsh is involved here, I’ll find a way to prove it,” Brannon said bitingly. “He’s walked away from murder and attempted murder, drug-dealing, prostitution and illegal betting on sports for years. It’s time we made him pay for the misery he’s caused.”

“I’ll drink to that. But we can’t just walk in and arrest him without probable cause. Not that I don’t wish I could,” Garcia confessed ruefully.

“Well, there’s no time like the present to get started. I’m only in the way here as it is. I’ll go back to my office and fill Simon Hart in on what we know.” He pursed his lips. “He’s going to be madder than a teased rattlesnake.”

Garcia chuckled. “That he is.” He looked toward the body. “Did the guy have any family?”

“A mother, I think. Did they find the slug?”

“They found a slug. Ballistics will have to tell us if it’s the right one. I’d bet on a nine millimeter handgun myself, but that’s why we have the Bexar County Forensic Science Center.”

“And the department of public safety’s own lab,” Brannon felt obliged to mention.

“Which is a very good one,” Garcia agreed, smiling. “Say, wasn’t Jennings convicted of murder a couple of years ago?” he added suddenly.

“Yes. In a trial that almost implicated our brand-new lieutenant governor, too,” Brannon told him. “It almost cost him the election. Both contenders were first-time state office seekers. But the other guy dropped out a week before the election, and Bib won. He’s a good man.”

“Yes. So he is.”

“I had a nice, easy month all planned,” Brannon sighed. “Now here I am up to my armpits in a dead body and a two-year-old murder case that the press will resurrect and use to embarrass Bib Webb. It couldn’t be worse timing. He’s just won his party’s nomination for that senate seat that the incumbent resigned from because of a heart attack. The publicity could kill Bib’s chances.”

“Life, they say, is what happens when you have other plans,” Garcia said with a grim smile.

“Amen,” Brannon agreed heavily.

He went back to his office and phoned Simon Hart with the news. An hour later, he was on a plane to Austin.

Simon Hart listened to Brannon’s report in his spacious office in Austin. He’d requested the Ranger’s help on the case as soon as he knew who the victim was. Brannon had a good track record with homicides and the Texas Ranger post in San Antonio was where he was stationed, anyway. Brannon had legal authority to investigate in multiple jurisdictions, and that complication existed. Jennings was killed in Bexar County, but he’d been in a correctional facility in Wilson County. Simon was certain that the murder was going to make national headlines. There was a sad lack of sensational news lately and the media had to fill those twenty-four-hour news channels with something. Sure enough, the murder had led the noon news on local channels. The body was barely in the morgue before the wire services and national television broadcast the story that the victim was tied to a murder case two years ago in Austin, Texas, that had involved the state’s lieutenant governor, Bib Webb. God knew, the media loved political scandal. But with luck, they just might get Jake Marsh for murder at last.

Simon had asked Brannon to fly to Austin and fill him in on the preliminaries. “I had Bib Webb on the line early this morning,” Simon told Brannon while he sipped coffee. “Not only is he running for the U.S. Senate, but his construction company is involved in a major project outside San Antonio, a prototype agricultural complex with self-contained irrigation and warehousing. He’s invested millions of his own money in an effort to help the drought-ridden ranchers. This case is already affecting him, and this is a bad time. Wally’s worried,” he added, mentioning the governor, who was a close friend. “Campaigning is seriously underway for the November election. Wally’s been stumping for Bib.”

“Yes, I know. I had lunch with Bib last week.” His gray eyes narrowed. “Could this rehash of the case be engineered to hurt him in the polls?”

“Of course it could,” Simon said with a grin. “You know how dirty politics is. But I don’t think sane people commit murder to cause a scandal.”

“There are a lot of insane people running loose in the world,” Brannon reminded him amusedly.

Simon shifted, moving the prosthesis he wore in place of his left arm onto the desk while he lifted his coffee cup with the right. He and Brannon were distantly related, both with ties in Jacobsville. Simon’s four brothers lived there. Brannon had grown up there, and he still had a ranch in Jacobsville where his sister, Gretchen, had lived until her marriage to the ruling Sheikh of Qawi in the Middle East. She and the sheikh had a son now, and they were becoming well-known in international circles.

“Have you heard from your sister, Gretchen, lately?”

Brannon nodded. “She phones me every month to make sure I’m eating properly. She doesn’t think much of my cooking,” he added with a fond smile at the thought of his baby sister.

“Does she miss Texas?” Simon asked.

“Not visibly. She’s too crazy about her little boy and Philippe,” he murmured, naming her husband. “I have to admit, he’s unique.”

“Why did you leave the FBI?” Simon asked abruptly, something that had bothered him lately.

“I got tired of living out of a suitcase,” Brannon said evasively. “Two years was enough.”

“I never could understand why you left the Rangers to begin with,” Simon replied, sipping black coffee. “You had seniority, you were in line for promotion. You tossed all that to go haring off to Washington. And then you only stayed there for two years.”

Brannon averted his eyes. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And it didn’t have anything to do with the Jennings murder trial or Josette Langley?”

Brannon’s jaw clenched so hard that his teeth ached. “Nothing.”

“You work out of San Antonio, and she works here in Austin.” Simon persisted. “Under ordinary circumstances, you won’t have to see her, if you don’t want to. At least, not after she investigates this murder for me.”

The odd wording of the remark went right by him. “I’ll do my job, regardless of the people I have to do it with,” Brannon said finally, and his pale eyes dared his cousin to pursue the conversation.

“Okay, I give up. But you’d better know that I’m sending Josette to San Antonio tomorrow.”

Brannon’s eyes glittered. “What?”

“She’s the only freelance investigator I have who’s cognizant of all the facts. Wayne Correctional Institute is near there, where Jennings was located before he managed to get released…”

“She was involved in the case!” Brannon burst out, rising to his feet. “Two years ago, she did her best to get Bib arrested for old Garner’s murder!”

“Sit down.” Simon stared at him with steady, cold silver eyes.

Brannon sat, but angrily.

“There are other people who maintain to this day that Jennings was nothing more than the fall guy in that murder,” Simon told Brannon. He held up a hand when Brannon started to speak. “Jennings and Josette had been invited to a party on Garner Lake with Bib Webb and Silvia and Henry Garner the night Garner died. Jennings was a nobody, but he had ties to the local San Antonio mob headed by Jake Marsh, and he’d threatened Garner over money. Recreational drugs were ingested at the party, the punch was spiked—even Bib admitted that—and I know Webb’s your friend. It might have passed off as a simple drowning except for Josette’s accusations and the knot on Garner’s head that was first thought to have occurred when he fell. Josette was the one who insisted that Garner hadn’t been drinking and didn’t accidentally fall off the pier.”

“She accused Bib because she didn’t like him or his wife,” Brannon insisted. “She was angry at me, to boot. Accusing Bib was one way of getting back at me.”

“Marc,” Simon said quietly, “you know what sort of upbringing she had. Her father was the youth minister of their church and her mother taught Sunday school. They were devout. She was raised strictly. She doesn’t tell lies.”

“Plenty of girls go wild when they get away from home,” Brannon pointed out stubbornly. “And I’ll remind you that she slipped out of her house to go to that wild party when she was fifteen, and accused a boy of trying to rape her. The emergency room physician testified that there was no rape,” he added, and was visibly uncomfortable talking about it. “She was almost completely intact.”

“Yes, I know,” Simon said with a sigh. “Presumably her assailant was too drunk to force her.” He glanced at Brannon, whose face was strained. “We have to solve this murder as quickly and efficiently as possible, for Webb’s own sake.”

“Bib is a good man with a bright political future ahead of him,” Brannon said, relieved at the change of subject. “He’s already ahead in the polls in the senate race, and it’s just September.”

“You mean, Silvia has a bright political future ahead,” Simon murmured dryly. “She tells him what to wear and how to stand, for God’s sake. She’s the real power behind his success and you know it. Amazing insight, for a woman so young, with no real education.”

Brannon shrugged. “Bib’s not a self-starter,” he admitted. “Silvia’s been his guardian angel from the beginning.”

“I suppose so, even if he did rob the cradle when he married her.” He leaned back. “As I said earlier, I want this case solved quickly,” he added. “We’ve already been in the public eye too often because we have a Texan in the White House. We don’t need to be the focus of any more media investigations of our justice system.”

“I agree. I’ll do what I can.”

“You’ll work with Josette,” Simon added firmly. “Whether or not you have to grit your teeth. You both know this case inside out. You can solve it.” If you don’t kill each other first, Simon thought.

Brannon waited for the elevator in the hall, leaning against the wall to observe a silk plant. There was a fine film of dust on it, and one petal was missing from the artificial rose. He wondered why the artificial flowers and plants in government office buildings never seemed to get dusted.

The sound of the elevator arriving diverted his attention. He straightened up just as the doors slid open to admit a single occupant to the floor.

Big dark brown eyes met his and went even darker with accusation and resentment in an oval face that had not even a touch of makeup. Her long blond hair was in a tight braided bun atop her head. She wore no jewelry except for a simple silver-and-turquoise cross suspended from a silver chain. Her shoes were gray, to match the neat, if outdated, suit she wore with a simple pink blouse. She was only twenty-four, but there were lines in that ordinary face, visible even through the big, gold-framed glasses she wore. His heart ached just at the sight of her.

Her full mouth parted on a shocked breath, as if she hadn’t expected to see him. Certainly he’d hoped to get out of the building without running into her. Her gaze dropped to the badge on his shirt pocket.

“I heard you were back working for the Rangers, in San Antonio,” Josette Langley said. Her face lifted as if with some effort and he noticed that her slender hands were clenched on the stack of files she was carrying. They were working hands; her short fingernails showed no polish, no professional manicure.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and clenched them as he looked down at her. She was only medium height. Her head came up to his nose. He remembered her dark eyes twinkling, her full lips parted and gasping with joy as they danced together at one of her college parties so long ago. He remembered the softness of her eyes when she smiled at him, the feel of her sweet, bare body warm and close in his arms, the innocence of her mouth when he kissed it for the first time, the feverish response of her body to his ardent caresses…

“Simon says he’s assigned you to this case,” he said curtly, refusing to permit his mind to look back in time.

She nodded. “That’s right. I usually do liaison work, but I know more about Dale Jennings than most of the other investigators.”

“Of course you do,” he drawled with venomous sarcasm.

“Here we go again,” she said with resignation. “Well, don’t stand on ceremony, Brannon, get it off your chest. I tell lies, I damage careers…maybe I cause computer crashes, but the jury’s still out on that one.”

He felt disoriented. He’d expected her to bite her lip and look tormented, as she had two years ago when he’d glared at her in court during Jennings’s trial. He reminded himself that she should be tormented. She’d led him on without a qualm, when she knew she couldn’t be intimate with a man. And her public accusations could have landed Bib Webb in jail. But this was a different Josette, a strong and cool woman who didn’t back down.

“I’ll need whatever information you have on Jennings,” he said abruptly.

“No problem. I’ll send it to the San Antonio office by overnight delivery before I leave the office today,” she said. She indicated the stack of files. “In fact, I’ve just been downstairs copying the information so that I could do that.” She smiled with forced pleasantry. “Unless you’d rather lug it back on the plane?”

“I wouldn’t. How very efficient you’ve become, Miss Langley.”

“Haven’t I, though?” she replied pertly. “Look out, Brannon. One of these days I may be state attorney general myself, and wouldn’t that tie a knot in your ego? Now, if you’ll excuse me?”

Josette turned and started to walk away. The elevator had departed while they were talking. It was on the tenth floor. He pushed the down button viciously.

“Did Jennings have any family?” he asked abruptly.

She turned to look at him. “He has a mother who’s a semi-invalid. She’s on disability and she has a bad heart. Just recently she lost her home because of some scam she fell for. She was supposed to be evicted this week.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Her husband is long dead and she has no other children. She and Dale were very close. It goes without saying that her son served two years in prison for a crime he never committed while the real culprit escaped justice and inherited the fortune he needed to finance a senate campaign…!”

“Not another word,” Brannon said in a soft, deep tone that made chills run down her spine.

“Or else what?” Josette challenged with uplifted eyebrows and a cool smile. When he didn’t reply, she shrugged. “I hope someone had the decency to inform Mrs. Jennings of her son’s death. Just so that she won’t have to find out on the six o’clock news with footage of the coroner’s office carrying him off in a body bag.”

Brannon’s heart jumped. He hadn’t asked if anyone was going to call Jennings’s next of kin. Damn it, he should have been more efficient. Whatever Jennings had done, his mother wasn’t a criminal.

“I’ll make sure of it,” he said abruptly.

Her eyes softened, just a little, as she matched the memory of that lean, formidable face against the man she’d first known so many years ago. It made her sad to realize what his opinion of her must have been, even at the beginning. He wouldn’t have walked off without a goodbye if there had been any feeling in him for her. He’d hated her the night they’d broken up. He’d hated her more when she accused his friend Webb of being behind Garner’s murder. Probably he still hated her. She didn’t care.

“Thanks,” she said and turned away.

“Have you come across any clue in those files that would point to a potential execution?” he asked deliberately.

Josette came back to face him at once. “You think somebody put out a contract on him,” she said confidently, her voice deliberately lowered.

Brannon nodded. “It was a professional job, not some drive-by shooting or a gang-related conflict. He was on work detail and escaped, apparently with help from some unknown accomplice, made his way to San Antonio, and ended up with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head at point-blank range, just around the corner from our most notorious mobster’s nightclub.”

“But what would be the motive?” she asked curiously. “He was in prison, out of the way. Why would somebody break him out just to kill him? They could have done that at the prison.”

“I don’t know,” he had to admit. “That’s what I have to find out.”

“Poor Dale,” she said heavily. “And his poor mother…!”

“What’s in those files?” he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“Background checks on all the people who called and wrote to him before his escape, and dossiers on mob figures he was rumored to be connected with,” she said. “We’ll speak to these people, of course, and the police are going to canvas the area where he was found to see if they can turn up any witnesses.”

“Which they won’t find, if it was professional.”

“I know.”

“Why did you choose law enforcement for a career?” he asked unexpectedly.

Her dark eyes narrowed on his face. “Because there are so many innocent people convicted of crimes,” Josette said deliberately. “And so many guilty people go free.”

Brannon stiffened at the innuendo. “Jennings was a mobster and he had a record,” he reminded her.

“He had a felony battery conviction, and first offender status,” she corrected. “He was just a teenager at the time. He got drunk, got into a fight and got arrested. He didn’t even go to jail. After a year’s probation, he was turned loose. But that, and his connection with Jake Marsh, went against him when he was arrested for Garner’s murder.”

“He was cold sober when Garner drowned,” he countered. “They did a breath-analyzer test on him and it registered zilch. Jennings had opportunity and the means—Garner was elderly and couldn’t swim. Being knocked over the head and pushed in the lake in that condition would have been instantly fatal, especially where he went off the pier. It’s twenty-feet deep there.”

“Where’s the motive?” she persisted.

“Garner owed him money, he said, and he couldn’t get his check,” Brannon replied with a cold smile. “Garner had fired him, and they’d already had one argument. They may have argued on the pier. Your memory of the events was questioned. You were drunk, I believe?” he chided.

Josette was still ashamed to admit that she’d been stupid enough to drink spiked punch. Not being used to hard liquor, the vodka had made her disoriented and weak. When she was fifteen, she’d unknowingly been given LSD in her soft drink and almost ended up raped. These days she never took a drink unless she was completely confident of where it had come from. “I wasn’t totally sober,” she admitted in a guilt-ridden tone. “But, then, neither were most of the people at that party. Silvia said she saw Mr. Garner at his car before she took me home and even waved at him. I didn’t see that. She said it was because I was drunk.”

“You didn’t say that at the trial,” he reminded her.

“I didn’t have time to say much at the trial,” she replied. “I was immediately suppoenaed as a prosecution witness because I hadn’t seen Dale or Mrs. Webb at the time Garner was allegedly murdered, which was before she took me home, not after! And I didn’t see Henry Garner at his car as we left. I tried to point out that Dale hadn’t had a blackjack in his car when we arrived. But the prosecuting attorney took me apart, with your helpful suggestions about bringing up my testimony at the rape trial when I was fifteen,” she added pointedly and saw his eyelids flinch. “He destroyed me on the witness stand. I heard later that you and Bib Webb told him about the rape trial. I thought you wanted to help me.” She managed a bitter smile. “You taught me how to dance. You were friends with my father. When I went to college in San Antonio, you were always around. We went out for months together, before Mr. Garner…died.” She drew in a long breath. It hurt to remember how Marc had been with her. She’d thought they were in love. She certainly had been. What a joke! “But none of that mattered, did it? You believed that I lied to implicate Bib Webb. You never doubted it.”

“Bib Webb is one of the most decent human beings I know,” Brannon said icily, refusing to face a truth that he knew for certain now about her credibility.

“Even decent people can get into a circumstance where they’ll do something crazy. Especially if they’re desperate, or drunk. You of all people should know that people on drugs or alcohol frequently forget everything that happened until they sober up,” she added, pleading her case fervently. It was the first time he’d really spoken to her alone about what happened. He seemed to be listening, too, even if he didn’t believe a word she said.

“Silvia wasn’t drunk enough to forget what she saw,” he told her. “She’d only had one drink. And she said she saw Garner by his car when she left the party to take you home.”

“That’s right. She said she saw him there.”

“What’s the difference?” he asked, out of patience. “You won’t change my mind.”

“I know that,” Josette agreed finally. “I don’t know why I try.” She added, “I’ll overnight the information in these files to your San Antonio office before I leave today, so neither of us will have to lug it to San Antonio.” She turned away. “If you have any questions, I’ll be here tomorrow morning and in San Antonio tomorrow night, at the Madison Hotel. You can reach me there.”

He was still stinging from the encounter. “If I have any questions, you’re the last person I’d ask,” he said coolly. “I wouldn’t trust you as far as the street.”

“That never changes, does it?” She laughed. “But your low opinion of me doesn’t affect anything anymore. Basically,” she added with a pointed glance, “I don’t give a damn what you think of me. Go stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Brannon.”

Josette walked down the hall and he watched her go, infuriated that she wouldn’t admit the truth. Maybe her pride wouldn’t let her. He thought about her father, who was disgraced because of her rape trial, and her mother’s fatal stroke after the Jennings trial. He felt sorry for her parents, but there had been nothing he could do for them. He thought of their last date, and her ardent response until he was out of his head with desire, until he found her so intact that he had to stop. He’d really hated her for that, although the time that passed had made it harder to believe that she’d set him up. She’d been as involved as he was. Maybe even more. But no matter how hard he worked at it, he simply couldn’t forget that she’d tried to have his best friend arrested for Henry Garner’s murder. He turned back to the elevator and reluctantly pressed the down button again. He didn’t like leaving with unanswered questions between them. He wanted…He sighed. Maybe he just wanted to sit and look at her for a while. The sight of her opened old wounds, but it also made a warm place in his heart.

He turned from the elevator and went back down the hall.

Chapter Three

Simon Hart studied Josette quietly as she walked into his office and put the file folders down on his desk. She explained the information she’d gathered for the investigation.

“I know this may be painful for you,” he told her quietly. “Since you were dating Jennings two years ago.”

“We were friends, that’s all,” she assured him. “I’m sorry he was killed, and in such a way. I never thought he murdered Henry Garner in the first place.”

“You paid a high price trying to defend him,” Simon said solemnly.

“Yes, but I’d do it again. He was innocent. Someone framed him. The only thing that puzzles me is why he didn’t try harder to fight the conviction. It was as if he just gave up the minute he got in the courtroom,” she recalled pensively.

“Did you see Marc Brannon on your way in here?” he said abruptly.

Her heart jumped. “I saw him.” She forced herself to smile carelessly. “He still can’t believe that his best friend Bib Webb would be involved in anything underhanded. That was what put us on opposite sides of Dale’s trial. Marc’s loyal, I’ll give him that.”

“Too loyal. He can’t be objective.”

“It doesn’t matter. Everyone who could be hurt already has been,” she said philosophically. “Now there’s a new murder to solve.”

He motioned her into a chair. “I want to know what you think.”

She leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs, frowning thoughtfully. She was still shaken by Marc’s unexpected appearance, but her mind was sharp and she focused on the matter at hand. “According to my research, Dale Jennings has a mother, a widow. She’s practically an invalid. Just recently she fell for some sort of financial scam. She lost her life savings and her home. She was going to be evicted this week. Dale knew. I can’t help but think his murder has something to do with that. Maybe he was trying to get money for her in some way.”

“You think he was blackmailing somebody, and his victim hired a killer to stop him?”

Josette nodded slowly. “It’s conjecture, of course. But what if he had information that would hurt somebody? Bib Webb, for example. And what if he demanded money for his silence? Webb stands to lose everything if he’s involved in another scandal. Nobody would believe that he was an innocent bystander if he was connected with a second murder. Besides, he’s ahead in the polls in the senate race. Being proven guilty of murder would sure sour his chances of election.”

“He’s the lieutenant governor, and a successful businessman,” Simon reminded her.

“Only successful because his partner, Garner, died,” she reminded him right back.

“Yes, and Garner was a widower with no children. Webb was named sole beneficiary.”

“He inherited those millions and used his inheritance to buy into a successful agricultural concern and the balance went into the coffers for his political campaign. He won the lieutenant governor race two years ago, although a lot of people said he won it by default, by having his staff dig up dirt on his opponent and forcing him out of the race with it.”

“That was never proved,” Simon reminded her.

“I know. But Jake Marsh’s name was mentioned, and not only in connection with Dale. Now, Webb is well on his way to the nomination for the United States Senate. He’s a rising star.”

“There’s one little hole in your theory, Josette. Murderers don’t usually stop at one murder, unless they’re crimes of passion,” Simon remarked, thinking out loud.

“Nobody stood in Webb’s way until now. If Dale Jennings had something on him, some sort of proof, what would a man in Webb’s position do?”

“First, he’d make sure proof existed.”

“I don’t know how there could have been any tangible proof since nobody saw Mr. Garner’s murder. The only real evidence was the blackjack they found in the passenger seat of Dale’s car. I never saw it, but he didn’t deny that it was his. He never pointed his finger at anybody else. I don’t see what could have spooked anybody into killing him. No, if there was blackmail, there had to be something else, something that would prove Webb guilty of something besides Garner’s death. But the burden of proof will be on us. Otherwise Dale’s death will be another senseless, unsolved homicide.”

“Okay. Take the ball and run with it. But you have to work with Brannon.” He held up a hand when she started to protest. “I know, he’s a pain in the neck and he’s prejudiced against you. But he’ll balance your prejudice against Webb. Besides, he’s one of the best investigators I’ve ever known. I got involved in this to put Jake Marsh away. That’s still my primary goal. I think he’s involved. If he is, the investigation is going to get dangerous. Brannon,” he mused, “is good protection. He’s a master quick-draw artist, and he can even outshoot my brother Rey.”

“Rey won medals in national skeet-shooting competition,” Josette recalled.

“He’s still winning them, national and international ones, too, these days.” He stood up. “Keep this conversation to yourself,” he added sternly. “The governor and Webb are good friends. Webb has powerful allies. I don’t want to get anyone in San Antonio in trouble. We’re investigating a murder that we hope we can link to a notorious mobster who’s probably paid off a lot of people. Period.”

“I’ll be discreet.”

“I hope you and Brannon and the San Antonio CID can turn up something on Marsh. And the sooner the better,” Simon added with a wry smile. “Because I’ll go loopy if Phil Douglas has to take over your job as well as his own.”

“Phil’s a nice boy, and a good cybercrime investigator,” she defended her colleague.

“He’s a computer expert with a superhero complex. He’ll drive me batty.”

“You’re the attorney general,” Josette reminded him. “Send him on a fact-finding trip.”

“There’s a thought. I’ve always wanted to know what the police department’s computer system looks like in Mala Suerte.”

“Mala Suerte is a border town with a population of sixteen, most of whom don’t speak English. Phil isn’t bilingual,” she pointed out.

Simon smiled.

Josette held up a hand. “I’m history. I’ll report in regularly, to keep you posted.”

“You do that.”

She nodded, picked up her files and left.

But once she was outside in the hall, the pleasant expression left her face and she felt as if her knees wouldn’t even support her. Running into Marc unexpectedly like that had shattered her. It had been two years since she’d set eyes on him, since the trial that had made him her worst enemy. She felt drained from the conflict. She only wanted to go home, kick off her shoes, and curl up on the sofa and watch a good black-and-white movie with her cat Barnes. But she’d have to pack instead. Tomorrow, she had to go back to San Antonio and face not only a murder investigation, but the pain of her own past.

Josette walked back into her office and stopped dead. Marc Brannon was still around and he was now occupying her desk chair. His Stetson was sitting on one of the chairs in front of her desk. Marc was sitting behind her desk, in her swivel chair, with his size thirteen highly polished brown boots propped insolently on her desk. Her heart jumped up into her throat for the second time in less than an hour. Despite the years in between, she still reacted to his presence like a starstruck fan. It made her angry that she had so little resistance to a man who’d helped ruin her life. His angry words from two years ago still blistered her pride, in memory.

“I thought you left,” she said shortly. “And I don’t remember inviting you into my office,” she added, slamming the door behind her.

“I didn’t think I needed an invitation. We’re partners,” Brannon drawled, watching her with those glittery gray eyes that didn’t even seem to blink.

“Not my idea,” she replied promptly. She put the files down beside his boots and stood staring at him. He didn’t look a day older than he had when she’d first met him. But he was. There were silver threads just visible at his temples where his thick blond-streaked brown hair waved just a little over his jutting brow. His long legs were muscular. She knew how fast he could run, because she’d seen him chase down horses. She’d seen him ride them, too. He was a champion bronc buster.

“You think Bib Webb hired a hit man to kill Jennings,” he said at once.

“I think somebody did,” Josette corrected. “I don’t rush to judgment.”

“Insinuating that I do?” he asked with an arrogant slide of his eyes down her body. He frowned suddenly as it occurred to him that she was dressed like an aging spinster. Every inch of her was covered. The blouse had a high collar and the jacket was loose enough to barely hint at the curves beneath it. The skirt was slightly flared at the hips, so that it didn’t pull tight when she walked. Her hair was in a tight bun, despite the faint wisps of blond curls that tumbled down over her exquisite complexion. She wasn’t even wearing makeup, unless he missed his guess. Her lips, he recalled, were naturally pink, like the unblemished skin over her high cheekbones.

“No need to check out my assets. I haven’t gone on sale,” she pointed out.

Brannon raised both thick eyebrows. That sounded like banked-down humor, but her face was deadpan.

Josette moved closer to the desk. “I’ve just explained my theory to Simon.”

“Would you care to share it with me?” he invited.

“Sure,” she said. “The minute you get your dirty boots off my desk and behave with some semblance of professional respect.” She didn’t smile as she said it, either.

Brannon pursed his lips, laughed softly and threw his feet to the floor. He’d only done it to get a rise out of her.

He got up and offered her the swivel chair with a flourish. He sank down gracefully into the chair next to the one his hat was resting on and crossed his long legs.

She sat down in her own chair with a long sigh. It had been a hard day and she only wanted to go home. Fat chance of that happening now, she thought.

“Anytime,” he invited.

“Dale Jennings’s mother was in serious trouble,” Josette said without preamble. “She’s sick and living on a small disability check. She’s only in her mid-fifties, not old enough to draw other benefits.” She leaned back in the chair, frowning as she considered the evidence. “She’d lost her small savings by listening to a fast-talking scam artist who convinced her that he was with a federal agency and she had to turn over her savings account to him in repayment for back taxes she owed.”

“Of all the damned outrages,” he said, angered in spite of himself.

That comment moved her. Brannon, despite his rough edges, was compassionate for the weaker or less fortunate. She’d seen him go out of his way to help street people, even to help young men he’d arrested himself. She had to force her eyes away from the powerful, lean contours of his body. She was still fighting a hopeless attraction to him.

“By the time she found out that no federal agency was asking for her savings,” Josette continued, “it was too late. Some people believe anything they’re told, even from people who don’t prove their credentials. She didn’t even ask for any identification, I understand.”

He grimaced. “Did she own her home?”

“She was barely a year away from paying it off. When she couldn’t make the next two payments, the bank foreclosed. She’s staying at a homeless shelter temporarily.” She studied him. “Now put yourself in Dale’s shoes,” she said unexpectedly, “and think how you’d feel if you were in prison and you couldn’t do anything to help her.”

Brannon remembered his own frail, little mother, who’d died an invalid. His thin lips made a straight line across his formidable face.

Josette nodded, realizing that he understood. She remembered his mother, too. “I’m not pointing fingers at anybody right now,” she said before he spoke. “I’m telling you that, first, somebody helped him escape prison detail. Second, somebody had proof or was keeping proof hidden of a crime that involved a person of means. Dale must have thought his chances of blackmailing the guilty party were pretty good. That doesn’t explain what he hoped to do on the outside. But he was killed, and in a very efficient manner. Whoever killed him had to know that he’d escaped from that work detail, and exactly where they could find him. I’m assuming that the person who had him killed was satisfied that he had concrete proof of something illegal, and that Dale was helped to escape so that he could present whatever proof he had and be dealt with efficiently.”

“Any prison has inmates who’ll kill for a price, guards and wardens notwithstanding,” he reminded her. “They didn’t have to get him out of prison to have him killed.”

“True, but maybe he was lured out to present his proof in person, to make sure that he really had it.” Josette leaned forward and clasped her hands on the desk. “Then, what if they thought he had the proof on him, and he didn’t?”

“We don’t know that. We didn’t find anything on the body, no ID of any sort, not even a pocketknife. If it hadn’t been for the information about the Wayne escapee fitting Jennings’s description exactly, and that raven tattoo on his arm to clinch it, we might have spent weeks trying to identify the body.”

She nodded. “So either the perpetrator took the evidence with him, or he didn’t get it and there’s still somebody out there, who was helping Jennings,” she emphasized, “and who now has the evidence and may still use it. Money is a powerful motive for murder. What if Marsh had him killed, for some reason?”

Brannon frowned. “He’s had people killed before. There could be a hit man on the loose, and whoever he’s working for may dig deep enough to find Jennings’s source.”

“That means we have another potential murder waiting to happen unless we solve the crime in time,” she agreed.

He studied her quietly. “You’ve learned a lot in the past few years.”

“Simon taught me,” she said simply. “He started out as an investigator while he was in law school. He’s very good.”

“You haven’t said anything about Bib Webb,” Brannon said.

“I said I don’t have a potential perpetrator,” she replied quietly. “And that’s true. I’m approaching the case with a completely open mind. But there’s a lot of investigative work to do. I’ll give my information to the local district attorney’s office in San Antonio, and we can do interviews with the most prominent people in the case. But I want to talk to Dale’s mother in San Antonio, the evidence technicians and police in San Antonio, and the prison warden at the Wayne Correctional Institute near Floresville. And to any cell mates Dale may have had or anyone who corresponded with him. Especially somebody who knows computers.”

He watched her, brooding, with one eye narrowed. “Why do you dress like a woman out of the fifties?” he asked unexpectedly.

“I dress like a professional on the state attorney general’s staff,” Josette said, refusing to be baited.

“What’s your next move?” she asked.

“I’m going to see Mrs. Jennings, and then I’m going to try to get a line on the hit man.”

Josette raised an eyebrow. “Have a good relationship with Jake Marsh and his local stable of bad boys, do you?” she drawled in a good imitation of his own sarcastic tone.

Brannon stood up. “I have informants, which is probably about the same thing.”

“Did anybody question Marsh about the body being found near his nightclub?” she asked.

“The very day we found the body. He’s out of town. But his assistant manager seemed shocked!” He said that with a disbelieving expression. He studied her quietly. An impulse had brought him back into her office, when he’d meant to go straight to the airport. Two years, and she still haunted him. Did she hate him? Gretchen said she didn’t. But Josette had learned to hide her feelings very well. He’d thought to surprise her into a reaction. The one he got wasn’t what he was expecting. Or the one he was hoping for.

Brannon watched her rise from her chair with that same easy grace he’d admired so much when she was still in her teens. She wasn’t pretty, not in a conventional way, but she had a sharp intelligence and a sweet nature…. Sweet nature. Sure she did. He recalled the vicious things she’d sworn to about Bib and his expression closed up.

Josette came around the desk and right up to him, unafraid. “I’m not prejudging. That means you can’t, either,” she said deliberately. “I know what that—” she indicated his Ranger badge “—means to you. My job means just as much to me. If we’re going to work together, we have to start now. No acid comments about the past. We’re solving a murder, not rehashing an incident that was concluded two years ago. What’s over is over. Period.”

His gray eyes narrowed so that they were hidden under his jutting brow and the cream-colored Stetson he slanted at an angle over them. Until he’d seen her again, he hadn’t realized how lonely his life had been for the past two years. He’d made a mess of things. In fact, he was still doing it. She held grudges, too, and he couldn’t blame her.

“All right,” Brannon said finally.

She nodded. “I’ll keep you posted about anything I find, if you’ll return the courtesy.”

“Courtesy.” He turned the word over on his tongue. “There’s a new concept.”

“For you, certainly,” Josette agreed with an unexpected twinkle in her eyes. “I understand the Secret Service tried to arrest you when your sister came home to your ranch in Jacobsville the last time, and they threatened to charge you with obstruction of justice for assaulting two of them in the yard.”

He straightened. “A simple misunderstanding,” he pointed out. “I merely had to mention that I was related to the state attorney general to clear it all up.”

That sounded like the dry humor she’d loved in him so many years ago. “Simon uses his new cousin-in-law, the Sheikh of Qawi, to threaten people.”

He leaned down. “So do I,” he confided with a grin.

That grin was so like the old Brannon, the one she’d loved with all her heart. She let the smile she’d been suppressing come out. It changed her face, made it radiant. His breath caught at the warmth of that smile.

“If I run into any uncooperative officials, I’ll use it myself. He’s my cousin-in-law, too,” Josette recalled.

Brannon cocked his head and smiled quizzically. “I forget that we’re related.”

“By an old marriage way back in our family tree,” she agreed. “And it’s a very thin connection with no blood ties.” She turned away and walked ahead of him to her office door. “I’ll make arrangements to see Mrs. Jennings day after tomorrow.”

He gave her a long scrutiny, remembering her at fifteen, shivering in a blanket—at twenty-two, passionate and breathless in his arms. Then he remembered what he’d said to her, afterward. He hated his memories.

She glanced at him and saw the resentment and bitterness on his face. “I don’t like you, either, Brannon, in case you wondered,” she drawled.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me,” he lied.

“Not much does.”

He nodded curtly, closed the door behind him and she stood in the middle of the room listening to his footsteps die away down the hall. She hadn’t realized until then that her heart was doing a rhumba in her chest. She moved back to her desk and stared blankly at the stack of file folders. When her heart threatened to break, there was always work waiting to divert her attention. At least, there was that.

That evening, she curled up with her cat, Barnes, on the sofa and tried to get interested in a popular detective show, but her mind wouldn’t cooperate. She stroked the big cat’s fur lazily while he nestled against her and purred. She’d have to board him at the vet’s while she was in San Antonio. She didn’t like the idea, but she didn’t have anyone she could ask to keep him for her.

As she stared blankly at the screen, she remembered the fateful party that had cost Dale Jennings his freedom.

She’d met Dale at a coffee shop around the corner from the college she’d attended. Dale drove a fancy late-model sports car, and he was personable and charming. He also knew Bib Webb, and was helping him with his campaign for the lieutenant governor’s race in his home district, which was San Antonio. Webb was in partnership with Henry Garner, a wealthy local man who’d made a fortune selling farm equipment. Webb and his wife, Silvia, shared a palatial mansion on a private lake with Henry Garner in San Antonio, in fact. Garner was a lonely old man and welcomed the companionship of Webb and his wife.

A number of influential voters and members of high society were invited to the Garner home for a party on the lake two months before the election. Dale, who was keeping Josette company since Marc had quit the Rangers and left town, invited her to attend the party with him.

It didn’t occur to her at first that it was odd for someone like Dale, with rough edges and only a high school education, to be invited to a high society party. In fact, she asked him bluntly how he’d been invited. He’d laughed and told her that he was old Henry’s chauffeur and bodyguard, and he’d been invited by nobody less than Silvia Webb to the party. Henry wouldn’t mind. Silvia didn’t care if he brought a friend, either. Josette had a passing acquaintance with Silvia Webb, whom she saw infrequently at the same coffee shop where she’d met Dale. There was a tall, shady-looking man who came there to meet Dale occasionally, too. She’d never known his name.

Josette was grateful for an opportunity to go to the party, expecting that Brannon would be there, and she could parade in front of him with Dale. It would have helped her shattered ego, because Brannon had dropped her flat after their last, tempestuous date. But when she and Dale arrived at the palatial lake house, Brannon hadn’t been there.

Silvia Webb’s reaction to Dale’s date had been less than flattering. Her beautiful face had undergone a flurry of emotions, from amusement to calculation and then to polite formality.

Silvia had pulled them over to introduce Josie to her husband, Bib, who gave Josette a look that made her want to strangle him and then he asked amusedly if she was a missionary. Her single party dress was high-necked and very concealing, and she’d been insulted by the remark. Webb had been drinking. A mousy little brunette was standing nearby, watching him adoringly. Silvia ignored her.

Dale had laughed with Bib Webb, which didn’t endear him to Josette, before Silvia herded them toward a dusty-looking old man in a dark suit holding a can of ginger ale. He had receding white hair and gentle eyes. This, Silvia had muttered, was Henry Garner. While Josie was returning his greeting, Silvia drew Dale away with her into the crowd.

Henry Garner was a kind, sweet man with a dry wit. Josie had liked him at once, when she saw that he was drinking ginger ale and not alcohol. She explained about her strict upbringing, and he grinned. They found a quiet place to stand and talk while the party went on around them and guests got less inhibited.

Bib Webb was dancing with the little brunette, his face quiet and intent as he stared down at her. He was saying something, and she looked worried. He glanced around covertly and then pulled her closer. She looked as if she were in heaven. When he turned her, as they danced, Josie could see that his eyes were closed and his eyebrows drawn down as if in pain.

Henry Garner noticed Josie watching them and distracted her, talking about the lieutenant governor’s race and asking about her party affiliation, successfully drawing her attention away from Bib Webb. When Garner asked her gently if she wasn’t thirsty, she agreed that she was. She couldn’t see Dale Jennings anywhere. She asked Garner if he wanted some punch, but he chuckled and said no at once. She didn’t question why. She was still disappointed that Brannon hadn’t shown up. She’d wanted him to see that her heart wasn’t breaking. Even if it was.

Josie went to the punch bowl, and Henry Garner made a beeline for Webb and the brunette. He said something to them. Bib Webb smiled sheepishly and the brunette moved away from him to where the band was playing. Odd, Josie thought, and then dismissed the little byplay from her mind. She thought she heard Garner’s voice raise just a note, but she didn’t think much about it. She got a cup of the pretty red punch with ice floating in it and took several long swallows before she realized that it wasn’t just punch.

Unused to alcohol, it hit her hard. She felt disoriented. She looked around for Dale, but she still didn’t see him anywhere. One or two of the older men started giving her pert figure speaking looks, and she felt uncomfortable. Looking for a port in a storm, she made her way back to where Henry Garner had been, only to find him gone.

Bib Webb was sitting down in a chair, looking worried and a lot more sober than he’d been acting before. He was sitting beside the little brunette, who had a small hand on his, and was talking to him earnestly. He looked as if the world was sitting on him. But when he saw Josie, he smiled politely and nodded. She shrugged, smiled and moved back into the crowd.

She was feeling sicker by the minute and she couldn’t find Dale. All she wanted was to go home. Mr. Garner hadn’t been drinking, so perhaps, she thought, she could ask him to drive her home. She made her way to the front door and walked out onto the porch. Down a double row of steps, past a deck and a garden path was the pier that led out onto the lake. She couldn’t see all the way to the edge of it, but she knew Mr. Garner wouldn’t be out there. She turned and went down the side of the house. On the way, she ran into Silvia.

The beautiful woman was a little disheveled and the hand that pushed back her windblown hair was trembling. But she forced a smile and asked how long Josie had been stumbling around outside in the dark.

It was an odd question. Josie admitted that she’d had some spiked punch and was sick. She wanted Dale or Mr. Garner to drive her home.

Silvia had immediately volunteered. She’d only had one wine spritzer, she assured Josie and herded her toward a new silver Mercedes. She put the young woman in the car and pointedly remarked that Henry Garner’s car was still sitting there, but he’d told Bib he was going out for some cigars. She waved, but Josette couldn’t see anybody to be waved at.

She drove Josette home. Late that night, the local news channel was full of the breaking story of the apparent drowning of philanthropist Henry Garner, whose body had been found by a guest—floating in the lake. A news helicopter hovering over the Garner and Webb estate fed grainy film to the studio for broadcast. Police cars and ambulances were visible below. It was an apparent accidental drowning, the newswoman added, because the gentleman was drunk.

Still unsteady on her feet, but certain of her facts, Josette had immediately phoned the police to tell them that she’d just been at that party. Henry Garner had been drinking ginger ale, he wasn’t drunk, and he and Bib Webb had apparently been arguing before Garner vanished from the party. The tip was enough for the local district attorney’s office to immediately step into the investigation.

A blackjack with blood on it was discovered in the passenger seat of Dale Jennings’s car at the scene, where police were holding guests until they could all be interrogated. Against the wishes of Bib Webb, an autopsy was ordered, which was routine in any case of sudden, unexplained violent death. The medical examiner didn’t find a drop of liquor in Garner’s body, but he found a blunt force trauma wound on the back of the old man’s head.

The “accidental” drowning became a sensational homicide overnight.

The best defense attorney in San Antonio was at Bib Webb’s side during a hastily called press conference, and Marc Brannon got emergency leave from the FBI, with Webb’s help, to come back to San Antonio and help investigate the murder. In no time at all, Dale Jennings was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The blackjack in Jennings’s possession was said to be the instrument used to stun Garner; it had traces of Garner’s hair and blood on it, despite obvious efforts to wipe them off. Silvia Webb added that she’d seen Jennings near the lake, and the blackjack in Jennings’s car, just before she’d come back to the house and had taken Josette Langley home.

Jennings didn’t confess or protest. His public defender attorney entered a plea of not guilty, evidence was presented, and Josie had to admit that she hadn’t seen Dale during the time the murder was apparently committed. But she had been in Jennings’s car on the way to the party, and she hadn’t seen any blackjack, and she said so on the witness stand.

She also said that Bib Webb had a better motive for the old man’s death than Dale, and that he’d argued with Henry Garner that same evening. But Webb spoke to the prosecutor privately during the lunch break and gave him an ace in the hole. When she was fifteen, Josie had slipped out of her parents’ home to attend a wild party given by an older classmate. She’d ingested a drug and a senior at her school had tried to seduce her. She had been so frightened, she’d screamed and neighbors called the police. Her parents got an attorney and tried to have the boy prosecuted, but his attorney had the deposition of the emergency room physician on call the night of the incident—who testified that there had been no rape. The arresting officer, a former Jacobsville police officer named Marc Brannon, had been instrumental in getting the boy acquitted of the charges.

Brannon had told Bib Webb’s attorney this, and Webb had given it to the prosecution to use against Josette’s defense of Jennings. Josette Langley, it seemed, had once made up a story about being raped. Ergo, how could anybody believe her version of events at the party, especially when she’d been drinking, too?

The sensationalism of the story was such that reporters went to Jacobsville to review the old rape case, and they printed it right alongside the Garner murder trial as a sidebar. Jennings was convicted and sent to prison. Josette was publicly disgraced for the second time, thanks to Brannon. For a woman who’d made only one real mistake in her young life, she’d paid for a lot of sins she hadn’t committed. Consequently, she’d given up trying to live blamelessly, and these days she gave people hell. Her experience had made her strong.

But she still thought of Brannon with painful regret. He was the only man she’d ever loved. There had never been another man who could even come close to him in her mind. She sighed as she remembered the way they’d been together two years ago, inseparable, forever on the phone when they weren’t exploring the city. He’d helped her study for tests that last year in college, he’d taken her to Jacobsville to go riding on the ranch. When it all blew up in her face, she thought she might die of the pain. But she hadn’t. The only problem was that Brannon was back in her life, and she was going to have to face those memories every day.

Well, if it was going to be rough on her, she was going to make sure it was equally rough on him. She thought about giving Marc Brannon hell, and she smiled. If any man ever deserved a setback, that strutting Texas Ranger did. She was going to prove that Dale Jennings never killed Henry Garner, and she was going to rub Brannon’s nose in it so hard that he’d be smelling through his ears for the rest of his life!

Josette ran a gentle hand over Barnes’s silky fur. “You know, if men were more like cats, we’d never have wars,” she murmured. “All you guys do is eat and sleep and sleep some more. And you don’t drive trucks and wear muddy boots and cowboy hats.”

Barnes opened one green eye and meowed up at her.

She turned her attention back to the television set. “Too bad these writers never saw the inside of a courtroom,” she murmured as a defendant in the series grabbed a bailiff’s gun and started shooting jurors. “If a defendant ever tried to disarm our bailiff in superior court, he’d have his fingers bitten off on the way!”

Chapter Four

Before he got on his plane back to San Antonio, Marc stopped by Bib Webb’s second home in Austin. The Webbs lived there except during holidays and weekends, when they were at Bib’s San Antonio home.

Silvia beamed when the butler showed Marc to the living room, where they were sharing cocktails with three other couples. Blond, beautiful and vivacious, she was a woman most men would covet. Marc liked her, but he found her a bit too aggressive and ruthless for his own taste. She was an asset to Bib, of course, who wasn’t at all pushy or aggressive by nature.

“Marc, I didn’t know you were in town!” she exclaimed.

“I’m doing some investigative work for Simon Hart,” he drawled with a grin. “You look prettier than ever,” he added, brushing his hard mouth against her blemishless cheek.

“And you always look like a male model, darling,” she purred. “What sort of investigative work?” she added coquettishly, hanging onto his arm with her free hand while she sipped a martini held in the other.

“A murder.”

She paused with her eyes on her glass. “Anyone we know? I hope not!”

“Dale Jennings.”

There was a tiny tremor in the liquid of the crystal glass she was holding. She looked disconcerted. Probably, Brannon thought, her memories of Jennings were as uncomfortable as his own.

She gazed up at him, then quickly composed herself. “Dale Jennings!” She put a hand on her low-cut bodice. “Jennings. That terrible man…! Bib!” she called to her husband, drawing his attention. “Someone has killed that Jennings man in prison!” she exclaimed, turning all eyes toward her.

“Not in prison, Silvia,” Marc said easily.

Her perfect eyebrows arched. “Excuse me?”

“He broke out. Or, someone broke him out,” he replied carelessly as Silvia let go of his arm and moved to sit on the arm of the chair Bib was occupying.

“He killed Henry,” Bib recalled with cold eyes. “I’m not sorry he’s dead!”

“How did he get out of prison?” Silvia persisted.

“I have no idea.” Marc refused the offer of a drink and was introduced to the people Bib was entertaining. He didn’t know them, but he recognized the names. They were very wealthy people from Austin.

“Can you spend the night?” Bib asked Marc.

Marc shook his head. “I have to be in San Antonio tomorrow morning. I’m going to be working the Jennings case along with the detectives in San Antonio. Simon’s sending a liaison investigator from his office out to help.”

“Why?” Silvia asked suddenly, wide-eyed. “Jennings was a nobody! Why should the Texas Rangers and the attorney general be involved?”

“He wasn’t a nobody,” Bib reminded her quietly. “He killed Henry. And Henry Garner was a very prominent man.” He studied Marc. “There’s something else about this, isn’t there?”

Brannon nodded. “There may be some mob involvement. Specifically, Jake Marsh.”

“Marsh.” Bib ground his teeth together. “Well, that tears it. If he’s implicated, it will really make headlines all over again, right?” he asked his friend with a grimace of distaste.

“It’s already doing that,” Marc agreed, reading the undisguised worry in his friend’s handsome face. Beside him, Silvia looked as if she’d been frozen in place. He knew she hated bad publicity. “Don’t worry, Bib. It’ll be a nine-day wonder. Nothing more,” he assured his friend.

“I hope so,” Bib said heavily. His eyes lowered and he toyed with a tiny piece of thread on a jacket button. “It brings back so many terrible memories.”

“Oh, that’s all behind us now,” Silvia said at once, and smiled, but not with her eyes. She got to her feet abruptly, and a little clumsily. “Marc, you have a good trip back to San Antonio. And, you will let us know how it goes?”

“Certainly.” He was curious about why Silvia seemed so eager to get rid of him. “Bib, how about walking me out?”

“I’ll come, too,” Silvia said at once, apologizing to their guests.

That was one of many things about Silvia that Marc didn’t like: She hung onto Bib like ivy. The man couldn’t get out of her sight. It had been like that since she was sixteen and seduced Bib into marriage, so that she could escape the unbearable poverty of her childhood. She never talked about it. Her father had fallen down a well and died just after the unexpected accidental death of her younger brother. Neither death had seemed to bother her much, although Marc was apparently the only one who’d noticed that, despite Silvia’s tragic past, she was curiously impervious to grief.

“You haven’t told us all of it,” Bib said when they were out on the porch. His pale blue eyes narrowed. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Marc stuck his hands deep into his pockets. “The investigator Simon’s sending out to coordinate efforts with the Bexar County District Attorney,” he began reluctantly. “You might remember her. Josette Langley.”

Silvia’s face flushed. “That bitch!”

Bib looked weary. “Sil, it was a long time ago…”

“That woman accused you of being the murderer! Do you think I could ever forget? She’ll stir up trouble, she’ll make false accusations, she’ll go to the media…!” Her voice rose, becoming shrill.

“Calm down,” Bib said quietly, looking her straight in the eyes. He put a gentle hand on her nape and smoothed it up and down. “Calm down. Take deep breaths. Come on, Sil.”

She did what Bib told her to. She still looked glassy-eyed, but she was quiet. Bib reached into a crystal bowl on the side table next to the open front door and produced a mint in a fancy wrapper. He placed it in her hands and waited while she unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth. Candy calmed her in these odd outbursts. Once he’d thought she might be diabetic, but bloodwork disproved that theory. She refused to see a psychologist, despite his best efforts. She was violent in these rages, dangerously so. Once, she’d killed a favorite dog in one of them. In a way, Bib was glad they couldn’t have children. She was too unpredictable.

Bib turned back to Marc, who was scowling worriedly. “Miss Langley was talking to Henry, before he was killed. She was a quiet woman, not the sort to enjoy a party. I couldn’t understand why she was dating Dale in the first place. He did work for Henry, against my advice. He was in close with Jake Marsh in San Antonio. I had problems with a campaign worker who was in Marsh’s pocket during the lieutenant governor’s race. I’m sure Marsh put Dale up to what he did,” he added bitterly.

“That was never proven,” Silvia said sweetly. “I always thought the man was working on his own. I’m sure he had no real connection to Marsh.”

“Then why was his body found near Marsh’s nightclub?” Marc wondered aloud.

“Those sort of people can get killed anywhere,” Silvia said carelessly. “I wouldn’t waste state money on an investigation like that. He was a nobody.”

Bib ignored her. “That campaign worker,” he told Brannon, persisting. “Jennings had recommended him, to work on my campaign for lieutenant governor. The man went behind my back and apparently dug up a scandal to force my opponent out of the race. I’m almost positive it was why he pulled out of the race at the last minute, but I never could prove it. I didn’t like Jennings around Henry, and I said so that night at the party when Henry was killed. We argued.” He grimaced. “I hated parting from him on an argument. You know how Henry was,” he added with a wan smile. “He trusted people.”

“That’s how you get killed in the modern world,” Silvia said with a high-pitched laugh. “You can’t trust anybody these days.”

Bib continued to ignore her and stared at Marc. “How did Jennings die?”

“Single gunshot wound to the back of the skull.”

Bib’s intake of breath was audible. “Dear God!”

“Oh, what does it matter how he died? He was a murderer,” Silvia said with regal nonchalance. “I don’t feel sorry for him. Is that why the state attorney general’s sticking his nose in, because it was execution-style?”

Marc didn’t reply for an instant. “That, and because Marsh is involved in a lot of illegal activities. He’s been trying to shut him down for years. Now we’re involved in a high-profile murder. Everyone wants to make sure the investigation is done properly.”

“And Simon’s letting that Langley woman mess it up. How stupid!” Silvia said.

“She has a degree in criminal justice, and she’s worked for Simon for two years,” Marc said, defending her against his will.

“She’s personally involved in this case. So are you. Neither of you should get involved.” She turned to Bib. “Call someone important and tell him to pull Marc and that woman off the case!”

That went right through Marc. “Do it,” he invited, silver eyes glaring at her, “and I’ll call a press conference myself and tell the world why I’m off the case.”

Silvia gasped. “Well! And I thought you were our friend!”

“I am your friend,” he returned curtly, looking at Bib, not at her. “But the law is the law. I won’t have interference in a case this sensitive.”

Silvia glared at him. Her hand, holding the glass, shook. She slammed it down on the porch, shattering it. “You stupid idiot!” she raged at Bib. “You’re such a wimp! You never do anything right!” She whirled and went back into the house with her eyes flashing. She muttered curses as she slammed the door furiously.

She wasn’t quite normal, Marc thought, and not for the first time.

Bib just shook his head. “Seven years of that,” he murmured heavily. “She’s a good politician’s wife, and she loves television appearances and society bashes. But there are times when I wish I’d married someone less explosive. I’m afraid I fall far short of Silvia’s expectations. She’d have left me long ago if I’d been poor or had a dull social life.”

“She loves you,” Marc said, although he wasn’t convinced.

“She owns me,” Bib laughed hollowly. “Well, I’d better go back inside and kiss a little more butt. They’re potential contributors to my senate campaign.” He lifted both eyebrows. “Going to vote for me?”

“No,” Marc said, deadpan. “You’re corrupt.”

Bib laughed with pure delight. “We’re all corrupt,” he agreed. He studied the other man curiously. “This must be painful for you,” he added perceptively. “You and the Langley girl were an item back then.”

Marc didn’t say a word.

Bib shrugged. “Okay. I’ll let it drop. We’ll be heading up to our place in San Antonio this weekend. Drop by for a drink if you have time.” He leaned closer. “Sil’s going to Dallas to shop on Saturday morning. We can sneak down to the corner coffee shop and eat doughnuts while she’s gone!”

“Won’t she let you have them?” Marc asked, surprised.

Bib patted his flat stomach. “I have to have a nice, lean figure for the publicity shots,” he confided. “I can’t have anything sweet if she’s within smelling distance.” He shook his head. “Dear, dear, the things we give up for public office.”

“You’re a good politician,” Marc replied. “You have a conscience. And a heart.”

“Liabilities, old friend, nothing but liabilities. I lack the killer instinct in campaigns. Fortunately, Silvia has it. You have a safe trip back to San Antonio.”

“Sure. You take care, yourself,” he added quietly. “There may be more to this case than meets the eye. Do you have a bodyguard?”

He nodded. “T. M. Smith. He was army intelligence in Operation Desert Storm. He can deck most men in hand-to-hand, and he’s a crack shot.”

“Keep him close. Just in case,” Marc added, and smiled to soften what sounded like an order.

Bib shook hands with him. “Do you ever miss the old days, when we hung around the record shop hoping to meet women?”

“I miss sleeping a whole night,” Marc said enigmatically, and grinned. “See you.”

He got into his black sports utility vehicle and drove away, the smile fading from his lips as he pulled out onto the highway. Silvia’s attitude bothered him. She was a strong-willed woman, and most of the time she was an asset to Bib. But he couldn’t help recalling her violent outburst when he mentioned that he was investigating Dale Jennings’s murder—or that it had been Silvia’s testimony that had resulted in Dale’s conviction for Henry Garner’s murder.

Marc had been so upset over Josette’s accusation about Webb and the revelation about the truth of her rape charges at the age of fifteen, that much of the murder trial had escaped his notice. He’d misjudged her and caused her untold misery and shame about that long-ago rape trial. Despite his anger at her allegations against Bib Webb, he’d been devastated at having misjudged her so badly. But any idea he’d had about apologizing had gone by the board. She’d looked at him in that courtroom at Jennings’s trial as if she hated him. Probably she did. He’d just walked out on her, with no explanation at all.

Worse, he’d been more than a little in love with her just before the Jennings trial got underway. He hadn’t been as angry about her allegations as he had been angry at himself, for being such a poor judge of character. He’d gone through the trial in a fog and, afterward, he’d quit his job and left town, to spend two miserable years with the FBI.

Now he was home again and the whole damned mess was being resurrected. Josette had no time for him. He could see the contempt in her eyes when she looked at him, feel her anger. He didn’t blame her. She had every right to consider him the enemy. She would do her best to put Bib Webb under investigation, and he would do his best to stop her. After all that time, they were still on opposite sides.

He stopped at a traffic light and a passing glance at a young girl in a long, flowered dress reminded him of his last date with Josette. She’d just graduated from college and he’d been there, along with her parents, for the ceremony. That night, he’d taken her out to a very fancy restaurant. She’d worn a long black silk dress with exotic flowers hand-painted on the fabric. Her long blond hair had been in a neat chignon at the nape of her neck. She’d looked absolutely exquisite.

After dinner, he’d taken her back to his apartment. Up until then, there had been brief, clinging kisses and love play that neither of them carried to the inevitable conclusion. He still hadn’t believed her rape story, although the woman he was getting to know didn’t seem the sort to tell lies. He’d reminded himself that plenty of women who looked innocent, weren’t.

His suspicions increased when she went with him to his apartment. She hadn’t protested being alone with him. He’d put on some slow dance music and shed his dinner jacket, moving her close to his crisp, white cotton shirt. Against it, he could feel the soft press of her breasts under the thin fabric. He hadn’t felt a bra, and that had aroused him, quickly and uncomfortably.

But instead of backing away, to keep her ignorant of the effect she had on him, he’d let her feel it. He could still remember being surprised at the faint shock in her wide, dark eyes, the tremor that ran through her. She’d started to speak, but he bent and took the husky words right inside his hungry mouth.

He was slow, and deliberate, and thorough in his ardor. Her innocence was no match for his years of experience with women. He had her on his couch in no time, bare to the waist. While his mouth fed hungrily on her small, firm breasts, his hand had been under that silky fabric and the soft cotton briefs she wore under them.

She’d been fascinated by what he was doing to her. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in the nervous hands that clung to him as he undressed her. His shirt had been off, drawing her fingers to his broad, hair-roughened chest while he suckled her.

He’d wanted her for months. During that time, he hadn’t seen any other woman. He was aching, and he’d abstained while they were dating. It was inevitable that he was going to lose control.

She’d protested, once, weakly, when his hand went between them to the fastening of his slacks and undid it, so that he could push them away. But his knee had edged between her soft thighs and his mouth had moved back to cover hers, tenderly. When she felt him at the veil of her innocence, she stiffened a little, but her body was hot with desire, her hands were biting into his back, her mouth was moaning under the devouring pressure of his hard lips.

“Oh God, I need you,” he ground out as his lean hips began to push down. “I need you so much. Don’t…fight me, honey. Don’t fight!”

But his huskily whispered plea fell on deaf ears when he pushed again. She cried out, frightened and in pain.

“Too fast? I’ll be careful,” he said at her lips. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Marc…I haven’t ever been with anyone!” she sobbed.

He only laughed softly. She’d been with the boy she accused of raping her when she was fifteen. She was no innocent. But he was careful with her just the same. He didn’t want to turn her off, not when his own body was racked with desire.

He wrenched off the trousers and his boots while his mouth worked on her soft belly. He aroused her all over again, determined to make her want him as much as he wanted her, to stop her feeble protests, her lies.

She was shivering, begging him, when he finally slid between her long, trembling legs and positioned himself against her. He looked into her wide, dazed eyes.

“I’m going inside you,” he whispered blatantly. “I’m going deep inside you, Josie. Now. Now…now!”

His body was shuddering with each quick, hard motion of his hips, and he felt the pleasure rising in him. But he couldn’t penetrate her. She was sobbing, shivering, her voice at his ear whispering ardent encouragement, her hands on his buttocks, pulling, pleading.

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