Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(18)
As he scarfed down the last of his sandwich, Ross glared at the towering pile of files leaning against his office wall. On the rare occasion when he got to send one to the dead files after it was marked, “Case Closed,” it seemed three sprang up to take its place.
In 2009, the TxDPS had established a special Ranger division known as the Ranger Reconnaissance Team. They had authority throughout Texas to conduct in-depth, military-style covert investigations designed to infiltrate and stop the drug cartels. Rumor had it they even had access to high surveillance aircraft. Most of their operations were on the Texas–Mexico border, and it was their intelligence gathering that offered the best hope of rescue for the kidnapped women. Not even Ross was privy to their detailed tactics or information unless he went straight to the head of their unit, a privilege because of his status as a Ranger captain, but one he seldom utilized, knowing from his own cases that the fewer eyes and ears on sensitive data, the better the chance of keeping it under wraps.
However, with the murder of the kidnapped girl in Lubbock, and now, just today, another case from another bar in downtown Baltimore, as well as the abductions of Emm’s family, it was time he used that privilege. He needed to see if they could collaborate to trace this part of the trafficking ring back to the East Coast source. So many cases in a year from the same area had to mean it was a conduit; somewhere at the top and the bottom of the route, someone, probably an upper echelon crime boss for the East Coast, had all the information to bust the entire chain.... Ross pulled two new files from the teetering stack on his desk and opened them to read as he nibbled on apple slices. He’d requested copies of all the files linked to Baltimore after Emm’s pleas last night, and he was still trying to absorb everything.
As he’d noted when Emm showed him their photos on her phone, Yancy and Jennifer looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. The vast majority of the kidnapped girls were in their teens, as the sleazebag johns tended to prefer younger women. But it wasn’t unheard of for one of the cartel members to take a shine to an older woman, especially if she came with a daughter who looked like her. Ross flipped through Yancy’s thick file. The Baltimore cops had been thorough: They had everything, including her application to the city of Baltimore, where she’d clerked in what appeared to be one of many odd jobs. Sure enough, she was listed as fluent in Spanish. He thumbed through Jennifer’s much smaller file, but there was nothing on her language proficiency. He made a mental note to ask Emm.
His apple slices forgotten, Ross stared into space. He’d worked human trafficking cases for years, though only in the last few had they become so pervasive and difficult to crack. These days, the cartels hired their own hackers and were increasingly creative in their money laundering. Usually, no matter the crime, if you tracked the money, it would eventually lead to the perps. But girls forced into prostitution barely left a trace, and they were usually shuffled around frequently under assumed names, making them even harder to track.
But if Yancy had been lucky enough—or unlucky enough—to catch the eye of a cartel honcho, there was a slim possibility she was still in cartel custody along with her daughter. That, allied with the expensive drug she was on, might trip their databases with a lead, but what he had in mind would require very sophisticated analysis. All his men were swamped, as was he, so Ross turned to his computer. He was looking for the introductory e-mail he recalled from a division meeting. A new consultant had been hired, a former MI6 operative who’d moved to the US, become a citizen, and opened her own consulting firm. She was said to be the best the department had ever worked with in data collection and forensic analysis.
Facts she’d doggedly traced had already led to the arrest of a new cartel boss and the seizure of a thousand pounds of marijuana and cocaine. Hiring her would put a big dent in his already battered budget, but his gut told him he was right and this was their best chance to trace the head of the cartel’s trafficking operations. Natural blondes were rare, especially in Mexico. . . . He had an opportunity to help Emm, as well as use her family’s cases and unusual profiles to crack the pipeline wide open.
Ross dialed the number on his screen.
Sitting across from Ms. Doyle at a cute diner several miles from downtown Amarillo, Emm swallowed the last of her sweet tea, wiped her mouth, and pushed her half-empty salad plate away. She’d spent most of the luncheon talking about Yancy and Jennifer; not just the facts of the case but who they were and why she was so worried about them. She knew Yancy, and possibly Jennifer, too, would resist captivity even if it meant extreme peril. “I . . . have a feeling if they’re not found soon, it will be too late,” she said, signaling for the check as Ms. Doyle’s phone rang.
Ms. Doyle rummaged in her briefcase and removed her cell phone. She glanced at the caller ID, then put the phone back in her briefcase without comment. “You do realize it may already be too late,” she said gently.
Emm nodded, a knot in her throat. Her fingers trembled a bit as she opened her wallet, but a large, gentle hand took the tab away from her.
Ms. Doyle nodded at the waitress, brandishing a credit card. “Allow me,” she said over Emm’s protests. “Your story has been most elucidating and this is a deductible expense for me.”
Emm couldn’t argue with that.
After she signed the bill, tipped and thanked the waitress, and pocketed her card, Ms. Doyle rose, sweeping a hand before her toward the exit. Their cars were parked next to each other. “You have my card,” Ms. Doyle said. “Call me if you think of anything else pertinent.” She gave what was, Emm suspected, a warm smile for her severe countenance. “Call even if you don’t. I don’t know anyone here either. I’m about to go to the DPS offices. They’ve hired my services to assist them with drug interdiction, but drug and human trafficking are most often committed by the same cartels, so there is much crossover data.”