Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(31)
While she couldn’t trace his bank accounts, she might be able to trace his movements. His car was very distinctive, and the last time she’d seen him in Baltimore he’d driven it up from Texas. She could call the Baltimore cops and ask them to run his plate through all the surveillance databases to see if there were any hits near downtown Baltimore at the time Jennifer and, later, Yancy, disappeared, or the other two girls from Baltimore, for that matter.
Feeling better now she finally had a plan, Emm dozed off after snapping off the TV. Dreams came to her, as they usually did, and they were troubled ones, vividly depicting Yancy and Jennifer chained to beds with faceless men laboring over them, and more standing in line. In her nightmare, a scream pierced their cries of despair, and her viewpoint shifted to another bed, where another woman was held down by a heavy Latino man. At first she couldn’t tell who it was, but he finally moved aside and she saw the victim’s face . . . The scream reverberated in her dream, and only when she knocked her head against the headboard did she hear her own scream as she started awake.
Shaking, she got out of bed and went into the bathroom to bathe her flushed face, telling herself over and over that it was just a nightmare. Must be that late cup of coffee she’d had.
But the water didn’t help much. Nightmare or not, the victim’s face was all too familiar: her own. Trying to shake the visceral fear, telling herself she didn’t believe in omens, Emm snapped the lights off and got back into bed. It was a long time before she slept.
At about the same time, Yancy gave her sexiest smile to the men outside Jennifer’s door, but they were unmoved. They were among the cartel’s oldest and most loyal soldiers and stared at her blankly when she lifted a bag filled with toiletries, letting them look inside. “I’m just bringing her some cosmetics she asked for. Just a minute?” It wasn’t time for her usual visit, but Arturo was gone again on appointments, and she’d managed to filch a few pills from the woman who supplied the drugs to the brothels. Jennifer needed them, and she needed them now. Arturo’s son Tomás had just returned from a long business trip to the States and they’d not seen much of him in the last few days as he stayed in his room with Jennifer, but he’d finally surfaced to go into the city.
The guards fingered through the female pots and tubes. She’d slipped the three pills into one of the compacts and hid a sign of relief when they didn’t open it. “We will give them to her.”
“Uh, yes, but I need to ask her about something. She wanted a new pair of shoes for the fiesta, but I need to see her dress to match it properly.”
The two men shared a look, eyeing her up and down. The upcoming fiesta was a very big deal to the entire household, with many of the far-flung cartel members in attendance, and Arturo had told his staff to be sure the two Yanqui women were dressed for the occasion.
One guard spun his finger in a circle, and she obediently did a 360-degree turn. The other patted her down, lingering a little too long near her breasts, but she pretended indifference as she’d become so adept at doing, when she really wanted to kick his balls up so high he’d have a most unsightly new Adam’s apple.
The older man, obviously the shift leader, gave her a last warning look and took a set of keys from his pocket to unlock not one, not two, but three locks. Yancy’s heart sank as she realized they’d added a new dead bolt since her last visit five days ago. That meant only one thing—Jennifer had tried to escape again. Dammit, didn’t she realize she only made them watch her more closely?
“Cinco minutos,” the leader said, opening the door and shoving her inside with the bag.
The room was so dark Yancy had to stand there and blink before her eyes adjusted. “Jenn?” she said softly.
She heard a stirring of the covers, and then even in the dark room she caught the shine of her daughter’s beautiful golden hair. She crossed quickly to the bed and snapped on the bedside lamp.
Jennifer’s mascara had run and she rubbed her eyes, smearing it further. “What time is it? How’d you get in?”
“I told them I needed to see your dress for the fiesta so I could figure out the best shoes to buy you next time I go into town. Always use as much truth as possible. . . .” Yancy quickly dumped the cosmetics out and opened the compact, showing the three small pills. “Here, let me get you some water—” She hurried to the bathroom, but by the time she returned a few seconds later, Jennifer had downed not one but two of the pills, so desperate that she’d swallowed them dry. “Jennifer, you shouldn’t overdose on these damn things. You might spot, and Tomás would know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t care, I hope he kills me,” she said dully, lying back on the pillows. “All I want to do is sleep.”
Yancy saw that Jennifer’s dinner tray was untouched. She sat down on the side of the bed and took her daughter’s hands, squeezing them tightly. “Jenn, you have to hold on. I think we might both be able to slip out during the fiesta. There’s no way they can watch us as closely with so many guests. We just have to be smart about it. We can hide in someone’s trunk as they’re leaving. I’m working on it now.”
“Then where do we go? With no money and no friends?”
Yancy bit her lip. “Once we make it to the city, we can go to the US Embassy. I have a couple of jewels I can barter, and so do you.”