“I know this is difficult, but keep handing out flyers, ask everyone your sister knew if she had any Texas connections, maybe try to find out why she was in that part of Baltimore. We’ll let you know if we get any more leads. Let us know immediately if you get any new information, no matter how insignificant.” Both men gave her sympathetic smiles and left.
And that had been that, at least for the last three months. As she finished her demanding doctorate, in her spare time Emm had talked to everyone she could think of: classmates, friends, acquaintances, tenants in her sister’s apartment building, old bosses, old boyfriends. No one knew why Yancy had been in downtown Baltimore or of anyone who drove a big black Texas truck. The trail ran cold for the detectives too, until finally they were off to another big case and they quit contacting her. Just another missing woman, and since she was Emm’s half sister, Yancy wasn’t even a Rothschild.
Now, three months later, back on the long lonely road to nowhere, Emm glared around at the sere landscape too tough to yield more than mesquite and cactus. Maybe Yancy was already dead, maybe Emm was on another foolish crusade, as her father had scolded her. Maybe her sister was buried in this wasteland . . .
Emm removed her sunglasses to dash angrily at her eyes, pressing harder on the accelerator.
So far, despite all the pressures she was under, she’d been good, exceeding the speed limit only when she could see for miles or she had another speeder to follow. She looked around, even over her shoulder, and the landscape was so open she could see horizon to horizon. Nothing. She was dying to try this new baby out. She knew the effort her father had expended to give his only natural daughter this hundred thousand plus vehicle, partly his way of voicing his regret that his wife was a self-absorbed alcoholic who had long ago lost interest in her older daughter’s fate. As sales manager for a BMW dealer, her father made good money and had been able to get a screaming deal on this car, but the only Rothschild inheritance he had was a silver dollar collection given to him by a remote relative. And the name, all too often, had been more of a burden to Emm than a boon. People assumed she had money and that she was cold and snooty because of her unusual grasp of the English language. Wrong on both counts.
Yancy had even less money since her own father had passed when she was a child, and their social climbing mother was not happy about her willful older daughter, who refused to get a steady job or go to college. But Yancy and Emm had always been close. And Jennifer. . . the tears threatened again as she remembered her beautiful, blond, green-eyed niece. She tried to picture her as she likely was now, a dead look in her eyes, forced into short, tight dresses and hooker make up.
Emm’s foot twitched at her unhappy thoughts, pushing down until the speedometer passed the conservative eighty, only five over the limit, the speed she’d tried very hard to maintain since she hit the Texas state line. She knew the expensive red sports car and her New York plates made her a delectable morsel to the typical Texas highway patrolman’s ravenous appetite for revenue.
She looked around again. Clear. Emm would never admit it, but her mouth was dry and she couldn’t attribute the slight shaking of her hands to the long trip because she’d deliberately scheduled the last leg at a leisurely pace so she’d be fresh for her meeting. She was properly dressed in a sensible gray suit, sensible shoes, with her hair sensibly tied back, her usual camouflage for field work. She was a woman in a world of men, and she’d learned long ago to downplay her considerable good looks. Especially in a place as conservative as Texas, west Texas, to boot. The most conservative part of Texas, and the last bastion in the increasingly progressive state of the rugged individualist.
Badly needing her usual stress reliever, Emm gave up her battle, What was the big deal, anyway? Speed was her only vice. Not the oral stimulant, never, but the automotive version was almost as addictive. She had the twelve speeding tickets to prove it. Her insurance was astronomical, but nothing invigorated her as much as the wind howling through her hair and the roar of a powerful exhaust cheering her on. This car was meant for speed and she only had about thirty miles left to her destination, so it was now or never. She’d earned her favorite high and the thoughts about Yancy made every nerve in her body jangle with the need for action.
The needle hovered at a mere eighty-five now, ten over the limit. She took a last careful look around but this section of road was too open for a speed trap. The needle on her M5 convertible didn’t bobble when she pressed on the gas—in one gentle arc it went from eighty to one hundred in about two seconds. The engine was so smooth, the throaty growl was entirely too civilized. The sleek German machine wasn’t even challenged. Feeling one of her hair pins fly free and not caring, Emm pressed harder on the accelerator.
Finally the engine roared back as if to say, “That all you got?”
Laughing, having the best time she’d had since graduation, Emm pressed harder still—110, 120, man this baby could fly.
The wail of the siren was faint at first. She’d glimpsed something black and big and shiny out of the corner of her eye as she streaked past a gate in a long row of white fencing, but she’d discounted it as a rancher’s truck. She looked in her rearview mirror and stifled a groan, immediately taking her foot off the gas pedal. A siren wailed and she saw a blue and white light flash from a side of the SUV’s roof. The light had obviously been attached only when the driver saw her zip past, so this cop was not a typical highway patrolman.
The neat little speech about how big Texas was, and no, she really didn’t know she was going that fast, her Beamer was a new graduation present, went out the window with her deep breath. “Good going, Emm,” she said to herself. “No one’s more hard nosed than an undercover cop.” She pulled to the side of the road, got the registration from the glove box, and took her insurance card and her New York driver’s license from her purse.
In her side mirror, she watched the man approach. He was tall, over six feet, with iron gray hair she could just glimpse under his expensive Stetson. Black, of course, to match his black jeans. His shirt was white, a dress shirt crisp with starch, sort of like his spine. His eyes were covered in mirrored shades but there was no mistaking his glacial tone. “If you want to race that fancy little import, I can give you the address of a race track in Lubbock. Do you have any idea how fast you were going and all the lives you endangered, including mine, as I was about to pull out of my driveway, by driving like that?”
“I’m sorry, officer, I was just in a hurry to get to Amarillo. You know, I’m like that bumper sticker: ‘I’m not from Texas but I got here as fast as I could.’” He’d stopped at her open window now and perused her documents, glancing between her driver’s license photo and her flushed face. Her hair pins had long ago lost the battle, and her brown mane shot through with blond and red highlights was tangled. She took off her sunshades so he could see her eyes. She blinked. “See, blue? Just like it says. I promise I’m not here to commit murder or fraud . . .” So far her attempt at charm was an abysmal failure. His mouth was beautifully shaped, meant for laughing, but she couldn’t get it to even twitch. She’d been out of the dating scene too long.
With a curt, “Don’t move,” he stalked back to his SUV, to run her I.D. She stifled another groan. It had almost taken an act of Congress to get her license back last time, not to mention thousands in fees and a good traffic attorney. Once he saw how many tickets she had.... Nevertheless, she was stunned when he returned to her side of the car with a pair of handcuffs.
“Get out of the car, please.” He stepped back slightly, appraising her with eyes she knew were arctic behind the shades.
She looked at the start button on her dashboard. She had one of the new ignitions, the kind that started only when the key was in the car. Her foot was on the brake, so she only had to punch the start button and she suspected she could quite literally leave him in the dust.
“Be sensible, Mercy Magdalena,” she could hear her Irish grandmother pleading from the grave. This was not a goo
d beginning to her first field investigation, and fleeing an officer of the law would not endear her to her federal employers. She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Besides, she might need some help from the local constabulary in looking for Yancy.
He’d stiffened alertly as if he’d read her mind. His icy politeness softened to a Texas drawl that was somehow more menacing. “Please, do it. Resisting arrest carries a much longer sentence than speeding and I’d purely love to buy your car at the police auction.”
Colleen Shannon grew up in West Texas where the skies are as limitless as the tales told by its many colorful residents. Surrounded by oil men, lawyers, and drillers in a community that has produced two presidents and many national leaders and businessmen, Colleen grew up reading and writing stories of every kind. After college when she married and was expecting her first child, she used a scrap computer to write her first romance. She sold it herself in less than a year, and at the age of twenty-six began a new career and never looked back. The strength of her first book led to her nomination by Romantic Times as Best New Historical Author. She went on to win or be nominated for many other awards, and her fifteen single title releases have appeared on numerous bestseller lists. She has well over a million books in print.
Her newest release is from Kensington, a romantic suspense, her first published contemporary. It is planned as the first in a series about modern Texas Rangers, another interest of Colleen’s because her ancestor, a Texas Ranger, was one of the first people buried in Brown County cemetery. Another of her ancestors was a signatory to the Texas Declaration of Independence.
eKENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Colleen Shannon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
eKensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: December 2014
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3293-1
First Print Edition: December 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-294-8
ISBN-10: 1-60183-294-X
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