Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(4)
She took her foot off the brake and put the vehicle in Park. “It’s not fair that you can drive as fast as you want, but even though I’ve never had an accident and I’ve driven on racetracks, I can’t go over eighty.” She bit her lip when an eyebrow arched above his sunglasses. “Seventy-five, I mean.” Slowly, sullenly, she put the car keys in his outstretched hand.
He finished scribbling a ticket and handed her a small board so she could sign. Reluctantly, she did so, stuffing the ticket into her purse without looking at it. “What have I done that’s so awful? I was only trying out my new car and no one’s even passed us since we’ve been sitting here.” She got out of the car. She didn’t like the way he towered over her, so when he moved to put the cuffs on her, she stuck her hands behind her back. “Let me go. Please? I promise not to exceed the limit again.” Until I make it out of this Podunk state . . .
“Lady, I have a feeling you exceed every limit there is, but that’s the judge’s problem. You’ve already made me write my first speeding ticket in at least ten years.” He pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth, chewing on it as if he badly wanted to light it.
“We all have our temptations,” she said pointedly, eyeing the vivid label, which she recognized as a very expensive brand because her Rothschild grandfather, Edgar, smoked the same one. When she tilted her head curiously, eyeing him with bright blue intelligence, he took the unlighted cigar out of his mouth, put it back in his pocket, and continued calmly, “Your hands, please.” The next thing she knew, he’d latched cuffs around her hands, put her in the backseat of his SUV, and started up his car.
“You can’t just leave it there! Someone might steal it.”
“You might be better off if someone did. What kind of idiot gives a speed demon a car like that?”
“My father gave it to me as a graduation present.” She thought she heard a scornful, “That figures,” but when she glared into his rearview mirror, where she could see his face, his lips were still and set into a very stern scowl.
She hated using this card, but it seemed the last one left. “Didn’t you see the name on my driver’s license? A Rothschild is many things, but an idiot isn’t one of them. I can’t believe you’re actually arresting me. I don’t have so much as an unpaid parking ticket!”
“Ma’am, I don’t care what your name is, why you’re here, or even that you’re going to Amarillo. You’re a menace to public safety and your own, and in Texas if I clock you at twenty-five over the legal speed limit, I have the right to arrest you on the spot and confiscate your driver’s license. I clocked you at one twenty-five, fifty over the legal limit. Be thankful I’ve left you your license. For now . . .”
The implication wasn’t lost on her. Her temper, always owing more to her Irish mother than her Jewish father, got the best of her. “So sorry I forgot my palm branch and grapes, but if I admit you’re the boss, will you let me go?”
The SUV swerved slightly as those shades stared a hole in her. She swallowed the rest of her sarcasm, grudgingly impressed that he got the insult, glad when he finally looked back at the road. Great; no telling how much time and money it would take to get her license back after this escapade. She had to bite her tongue a few times, but she managed to keep quiet after that. Typically she could insult people without their being aware of it, but this cop was obviously well read. She was beginning to suspect he was more than a cop. And she couldn’t afford to piss off the chief of police or some other hodunk honcho.
When they finally reached Amarillo, it was bigger and more modern than she’d expected. She looked around eagerly, but their route didn’t take them downtown, where she glimpsed a surprising number of tall buildings in the distance. She sank back against the seat, reality hitting home with a vengeance. Her arrival was less than auspicious considering she was cuffed in the back of an unmarked police car. She looked up at the obviously institutional building looming outside the window as he parked in front of it. Typical bureaucratic block construction.
She’d only been to Texas once. When she was a child she’d been dragged by her Catholic grandmother, who had Texas roots, to see the Alamo in San Antonio. She vaguely recalled a very unimpressive cream adobe structure in the middle of a large city. The only hint of its glorious role in Texas independence had been bullet holes in the walls. Lots of them.
Still, when they’d returned to their brownstone flat in Brooklyn, Emm had checked out books on old missions from her school library. As she grew older, her fascination with old buildings increased to a passion. Now here she was, the ink on her PhD diploma in historic preservation barely dry, driving halfway across the country to investigate the misuse of historic resources in Amarillo, Texas, under the auspices of her new employer, the National Parks Service in Washington, DC. They seemed to have a lot of faith in her because the family trust controlling this particular historic block in downtown Amarillo had both money and clout. Sinclair, she’d learned from her research. She was supposed to see the head of the family, the managing member of the trust, someone named Ross Sinclair. The negotiations to stop the demolition of two old office buildings would be tricky at best in a state notorious for its strong property laws.
Especially now that she’d have to hire a driver to get around and hope this indignity didn’t get back to her employers.