Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(33)
Emm slid the bar across her phone, disconnecting the call. She stared into her sleep-puffy face in the mirror, her heartbeat accelerating at the knowledge she’d soon be seeing him again, and this time in an entirely social setting. What happened to his maxim, “Just business?”
Idiot, why didn’t you tell him no? And why the heck was he even asking her to such an intimate luncheon with what were obviously some of his best friends?
That entire day crawled for Ross, but in between administrative tasks such as disciplining one of his men, assigning two others to new cases, and adding new DEA-sourced evidence to the human trafficking case file, he couldn’t stop thinking about Emm. He’d invited her to join him for lunch on impulse, partly because he knew Jasmine and Chad would finagle a meeting if he didn’t, but also partly for a far more basic reason: He had to see how she was around little Trey.
Despite what he’d told Jasmine, Ross badly wanted kids. His father was still sharp as a tack well into his seventies, but Ross knew he needed to start a family soon if he wanted one at all. And he still did...
Most women were instinctively nurturing, but Elaine had been sadly lacking in that area, even going so far as to inform him she wasn’t sure she wanted kids. That had accelerated the knock-down, drag-out fight that led to their breakup, but as devastating as it had been at the time, now he was glad he’d not been caught in a doomed relationship; plus his unhappiness had partly led to his first trip to Texas.
Now, over twenty years later, another pampered rich girl had quite literally roared into his life in a 100k sports car driving 125 miles an hour. Since she’d revealed her sensual side in her hotel room, he’d started wondering—could she be the only woman since Elaine he could contemplate spending his life with? The thought scared him, but something drove him to find out anyway. She came from an even richer, more influential family, but her sincere concern for her niece indicated she must have a close relationship to the girl. Yet bearing and raising an infant and being an aunt to a teenager were two different things, so he’d decided to go through with this little test.
She’d be livid if she found out why he’d invited her, but he certainly wouldn’t tell her. He only hoped Jasmine didn’t figure it out and let it slip. . . .
He was packing up his desk a number of hours later when his assistant buzzed and told him Abigail Doyle had arrived and asked for a brief meeting.
“Send her in.” He rose and offered a warm hand as she entered. As usual, she was dressed conservatively, this time in a brown pant suit with a white blouse. Her thick brown hair was pulled back from her severe face, but he wondered if she realized the hairstyle only emphasized her penetrating gray eyes and aquiline nose.
After they shook, she moved forward to the edge of her chair, hovering there, and his curiosity increased. Hesitation was unlike her, but whatever she had to say obviously wasn’t easy for her. He smiled slightly as encouragement. “I’ve been getting your updates in my secure in-box. I can see you’re being very systematic and thorough, but if there’s a smoking gun to lead us to the end of the pipeline, I haven’t seen it.”
“That’s why I asked for this meeting.” Abby took a deep breath. “There is no way to sugarcoat this, and I didn’t want to put it in an e-mail. How long have you known Curt Tupperman?”
What an odd way to open the conversation, but he played along. “Over ten years. With his national connections as an investigative reporter on various dailies, he’s one of our best sources when we need to leak news, though he can be a bit overzealous at times. . . .” He trailed off as the implication of her question hit home. “Are you telling me you think he’s somehow involved in the cartel’s human trafficking?”
She nodded. “He lives a very rich lifestyle for a reporter. Ms. Rothschild actually is the one who flagged him and asked me to investigate.”
“I thought they were friends. That they’d even dated.”
“Apparently, he dated her older sister Yancy for over a year, and their breakup was . . . difficult.”
Ross’s mouth dropped open. “Are you telling me you think he was instrumental in Yancy being kidnapped?”
She pulled a red file from her capacious bag and shoved it across the desk. It was stamped “Private and Confidential.” “I had to call a federal judge I know to subpoena his bank account and phone records because they cross international lines. I didn’t scan this. You’re holding the only copy. I found no calls to Mexico—he’s far too smart for that—but there are very large sums being transferred to his US account from one in Belize about every two months. All the records are here. I want another set of eyes on this before I dig deeper, as I understand he’s very well connected, and this could cause problems for your office if we move forward without substantial proof.”
Ross was still struggling with disbelief, but he pulled the folder forward and reviewed the bank account record. He saw that as much as one hundred thousand dollars was indeed being deposited into Curt’s San Antonio bank about every two months. Unless Curt had won the lottery and didn’t tell anyone, Ross had no idea where he’d be getting those kinds of funds. Book royalties, which were supposedly quite substantial on his latest expose of the finance industry, would come from New York City, not Belize. “And we can’t access the Belize account?”