Travis Justice

by Colleen Shannon

  John’s blue eyes, the exact azure shade of Zach’s, sparkled for an instant as he goaded, “Want me to erase this part?”

  “Yes, especially if you plan to show it to anyone,” Zach growled.

  “Might be a bit tricky to edit,” John said smoothly. “I could take it to the lab—”

  “No!”

  John relented when Zach moved to eject the DVD. He waved him back down. “Never mind . . . I guess we can let it slide for now. But if she tries again. . . .”

  Zach was a bit worried about that too. The long, straight dark hair, her exotic black eyes—she was at least part Japanese. And he’d been stationed in Japan for one tour, even spoke a smattering of Japanese. Their culture was very foreign to Americans, but one attribute was clear: the most valued family heirloom in Japan was weaponry. Specifically swords. Especially samurai swords.

  John nodded at his expression. “Yes, I think there’s a very good chance she was after the Masamune katana. Good thing we had it sent out for verification.”

  Zach had been with his father when he flew to New York City to purchase the famous blade. It had recently come up for auction at Christie’s, part of the collection of a billionaire recluse obsessed with World War II arms. It was rumored that he got the blade from a renegade Marine guard at a Japanese internment camp set up during World War II in California. It was one of many blades confiscated when the Japanese were imprisoned during the height of war hysteria. They were supposed to be smelted, but even then Masamune blades were legendary.

  It was commonly known now that some of the finest blades were kept by American servicemen while their superiors looked the other way. However it came into American hands, Christie’s listed the blade’s provenance as in the style of Masamune, early 1300s, perhaps by one of his students, but would not stake its reputation on full authentication. Nevertheless, the mere possibility it was a Masamune, who was perhaps the finest swordsmith the world had ever known, drove the auction price well over a million. The blade was not just a sword; it was a work of art. Even a Travis heir to oil and gas prudently formed an LLC with several other oilmen to buy it.

  They were all collectors, and the idea was to endow a wing at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas with war memorabilia going back as far as they had items to donate. The sword they believed had been forged by Masamune in the early 1300s would be the key display and the earliest artifact. But first they had to prove he’d forged it. Masamune had a unique style of firing the steel, then folding and cooling it, firing and cooling to make many different tempered layers, the steel composition changing between the tip of the blade, along the length of it, to the haft, all varying compositions to accommodate the warrior’s moving battle stance from thrust to parry to blow. The blade would bend, but not break. However, it was also well known that Masamune usually didn’t sign his blades, so proving this undoubtedly ancient and rare sword one of his was a challenge in itself.

  Zach asked, “When will they be finished with it?”

  “You know the Japanese. They will not be rushed. Even on American soil.” A Japanese-born samurai weaponry expert at a California Asian museum had agreed to try to track the blade’s origin for the LLC, but only at a princely sum and with no time deadline, John explained to his son. “He’s had it now over six months. Our lawyer told us the expert’s billed for the final payment, so I’m hopeful he’ll get it back to us soon.”

  Zach said grimly, “So if she is after the blade, she’s risking herself for nothing.”

  John smiled, his teeth wolfish in the bright sunlight. “Yep.”

  * * *

  While Zach was trying to keep his father from making her his latest investigation, Hana was vetting all her contacts again to try to figure out why the sword had not been in the study after all. Finally, the maid admitted under close questioning that she’d been fired for pilfering and the information she’d given Hana was more than six months old.

  Hana gave her that dead-black stare Kai had taught her many years ago when she’d been a wild, homeless teenager recruited by him as a drug mule. No condemnation, no promises of retribution, just intellect and assessment, much as a forensic scientist would appraise his subject at an autopsy, one dissected organ at a time.

  The maid backed a step. “I’m s—sorry, madre de Dios, I’ll pay you back, I promise, I needed the money for my niños—”

  “Get out,” Hana said flatly.

  The maid got.

  After the maid left her day hotel, Hana paced the small open space, up and down, until she could see her own tracks in the thin carpet. No matter if she paced a million miles, she’d end at the same destination: She was at a dead end in seeking the sword without more inside information. She stopped at the window overlooking a dumpster and an uneven parking lot badly in need of new asphalt. But she didn’t see the ugly scene. Her visions were far more horrific. How long had it been now? Hana put her hands flat against the grungy glass. It became literally a dirty window into her past as the memories she seldom allowed subsumed her.

  For a weak instant, the strength of her mind was helpless against a rush of emotions. She pretended she could feel those warm little hands pressing back in the patty-cake she’d taught him. She didn’t need to look at her watch or her phone to know the date. He’d been missing for exactly three months and five hours because it was ten a.m. on a Saturday three months ago. Kai had snatched him from day care while she worked an extra shift as a waitress at a popular breakfast spot in south Austin because she needed the money to help save her grandfather’s house from foreclosure.

  Another useless exercise.... Resting her head against the grimy windowpane, Hana asked herself yet again how she had ever been stupid enough, even at a rebellious, impressionable seventeen, to get involved with Kai?

  Her practical, stable father had just died in a car wreck, and her Japanese mother, a high-strung traditionalist, was trying to groom her only child for marriage into the small Japanese community then in Austin. Hana’s dream of winning the world women’s karate championships was just that, a foolish dream. Years later, she could recite her mother’s nostrums now almost verbatim: How could such a strange ambition for a respectable female prepare her for a prosperous future? Even karate masters who opened their own dojos usually went broke in a few years. Since she had no interest in business or engineering or medicine, what else was she to do but marry well?

  Then, after Hana got involved with Kai and even became an illegal drug courier, Hana’s aggrieved mother took her scanty life-insurance proceeds with her back to Japan, leaving seventeen-year-old Hana with her grandfather. Hana had refused to admit—then at least—how much she missed her mother, even when she was relieved of her nagging about character and appearance. Jiji never nagged her; he only loved. And it was his sole, loving support that drew Hana back to the straight and narrow after she was arrested for intent to deliver illegal substances. The fact that she’d been pregnant at the time had no doubt contributed to the judge’s decision to be lenient, especially since it was her first offense and she was barely seventeen. But he’d forced her into hours of community service and rehab even though she’d never used any of the drugs she carried, including marijuana. Not because she had any moral scruples—but because they affected her karate abilities . . . and because she knew the use would harm her unborn child.

  Hana kept her condition secret as long as she could. She’d broken all ties with Kai while she sat in jail awaiting her hearing where he’d left her to rot instead of paying her bail.

  The windowpane grew tangible again as a much wiser Hana now quashed the unhappy memories. They only made her feel lost and alone and hopeless, especially now that Jiji was dying. She washed her face at the sink, drying herself off thoroughly and methodically. Very well, then. If the sword was not where it was supposed to be, it was only logical to make a list of possibilities of where it could be. And in that case, it was best to start with where the Travis family acquired the weapon.

 
; Hana opened her browser and went straight to Google, reminding herself of one of the most important guiding principles of Shotokan karate: The art of mind is more important than the art of technique.

  * * *

  As he approached the bed-and-breakfast stuck into the hills outside Austin, Zach slowed down. From here, the quaint Victorian looked like a country-girl wallflower at a debutante ball, surrounded by sleek, modern mansions. Leave it to Ross and Emm to pick the nicest boutique hotel in town to stay in. Zach didn’t much care for modern monstrosities like the JW Marriott, either. He parked his bike under a tree and kicked down the stand, leaving his helmet locked in a special tiedown attached to his tiny rear saddlebags.

  As he approached the antique glass door up several flights of steps, Zach knew his father would not be happy with him if he knew whom he was visiting, but his father was never happy with him these days, full stop. Zach had three weeks before he was supposed to join his army buddy Jeff on the coast. He had the contract in a drawer in his room and while he hadn’t signed it yet, he intended to.

  But first he had a mission to accomplish, the first mission he’d felt obligated to complete since his last tour in Afghanistan. He couldn’t explain it, but he’d felt in that slim, athletic girl a kindred spirit. He’d felt her ambivalence and desperation. As if her mission were onerous. As if she didn’t want to invade their home, more as if she had to—which was why he’d advocated she not be pursued. Before he could work himself to exhaustion, he had to find her and ask her point-blank why she needed the sword. And if there was anything he could do short of giving it up—because it wasn’t his to give—how could he help?

  Zach told the desk clerk, a matronly woman with an apron and streak of flour on her cheek, that he was there to see the Sinclairs. She picked up a desk phone. The bed-and-breakfast was so tiny he could hear a phone ringing at the top of the stairs. The next thing he knew, Ross was halfway down the wide staircase. At the bottom, they shook hands. After the pleasantries, in which Ross explained Emm was too busy renovating the second historic building they owned in downtown Amarillo to tag along on his business trip, they got down to brass tacks, the way both liked it.

  Wordlessly, Zach handed over a tiny Ziploc evidence bag. Inside was one long, black hair. Ross held it up to the light and set it on the small table between them with no comment other than a long, appraising look at the young man he’d known since his diaper days.

  Zach hurried into speech. “Look, I know I’m putting you in a difficult position, but this is not official Texas Ranger business, Ross. This is me looking for a girl who’s in trouble before she gets herself in even more trouble. Dad agreed not to pursue the case this morning as long as she doesn’t try again. So he wasn’t going to do anything with this sample, anyway.”

  “Does he know you brought it to me?”

  Zach shook his head.

  Ross sighed heavily. “He’s my boss, Zach. Why don’t you give this to your dad instead of me? Then it’s officially in the chain of evidence if it ever becomes pertinent.”

  “You know what a huge backlog there is at the state labs. Even if we pursue the case, it will be low priority. Why add to the workload? Nothing stolen, no one hurt.”

  Ross’s mouth curled into a smile and Zach knew his dad must have spilled the beans about his towel incident, so he admitted, “Except maybe my pride. But this girl is in trouble, and I want to help her. It’s that simple.”

  “Doesn’t sound simple to me. It sounds quite complicated. You’ve never been the kind of guy to tilt at windmills. If you were, you’d have joined the Rangers years ago.”

  Zach ignored that remark and barreled on: “I put out some feelers, but I don’t trust most of the private labs. And they don’t have the latest databases to cross-reference, anyway. This needs a pro to handle it.” Zach took a deep breath. “I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet, but I’m due on an oil rig off the Gulf in three weeks so I have limited time to get the results.”

  Ross picked up the sample and held it to the light, eyeing the long black hair that even behind the thin plastic glowed with blue-black health in the sunshine coming through the casement windows. “If I do this, your father will not be happy with me.”

  “I know. But strictly speaking, this is personal. Dad knows how persuasive I can be.”

  Ross’s lips quirked wider this time. “Yes, so Yancy is always telling me. She likes you. So does Emm, though your lukewarm reaction to her matchmaking has put her off a bit.”

  “I like them too.”

  To Zach’s relief, Ross finally put the baggie inside his jacket pocket. “I’ll talk to a consulting forensic scientist I know. She’s the best. But she’s not cheap.”

  Zach pulled out his checkbook, but Ross waved him away.

  “I don’t know what she’ll charge, but she’ll bill you when she gives you the results. She’s based in Austin, so that part is easy, anyway. Her name is Abigail Doyle.”

  Zach whistled. “I’ve heard Dad speak of her, and how the conviction rates in district C skyrocketed after y’all engaged her services. Wasn’t she involved in that business down in Mexico with you and Emm?”

  “Yes. I trust her implicitly.” Ross glanced at his watch and stood. “I have to get ready for a dinner party tonight. I hate this political BS, but your dad wanted me here to talk to the legislature reps, so I came. We’re asking for an increase in funding for the Ranger Reconnaissance Team. With these new Asian gangs muscling in on the drug trade all over central Texas, we need the additional funds. Most of our resources have been deployed near the border.”

  Zach nodded. “Yeah, I heard that. Hope you get it.”

  When they reached the lobby, Ross shook Zach’s hand. “I only have one request—two, actually.”

  “Name them.”

  “Please tell your dad you asked me to do this. That I agreed only because the case is no longer official business. I don’t need him any more pissed at me than he usually is over my ‘confounded propensity for not keeping him in the loop,’ ” Ross quoted.

  Zach grimaced but nodded.

  “And secondly, give some serious second thoughts to whether to take the oil rig job or apply with the Rangers. You’re perfect Ranger material, whether you realize it or not—”

  Zach was shaking his head before Ross even finished. “I don’t know why y’all keep saying that. I’m not going to be the butt of every daddy joke on the Internet, and I’m sick of having to toe the line on rules I didn’t write. Plus I’m getting soft staying in Austin—”

  “We have a new position opening up at the state level. It’s security for state officials, including DPS execs and director-level Texas Rangers. Your special forces background makes you perfect for the job.”

  Zach frowned. “Why didn’t Dad tell me about it?”

  “Because he wants you to make your own right choices.”

  “Yeah, his.”

  Ross sighed at the bitterness in Zach’s tone. He’d opened his mouth to retort when his cell phone rang with an “Eyes of Texas” ring tone. “Sorry, official business.” He pulled two phones out of his pocket and put the iPhone back, holding the BlackBerry to his ear. He moved aside and Zach went over to a display rack of gaudy tourist brochures to give him privacy.

  The call was short, but when Zach turned back toward Ross, he saw that Ross was pale beneath his tan, almost ashen. “What’s wrong?”

  Ross replied, “That was dispatch. The cocktail party is on hold but I’m called into a meeting at headquarters. Sam Taylor and his wife were found dead in their beds this morning by their maid. Not ten miles from here. They were . . . eviscerated. By the looks of the cuts, the examiner thinks it might have been done with a samurai sword.”

  Chapter 3

  Zach was shocked. He’d been to that lovely home in Buckhorn Estates more than once and he liked Sam Taylor, who was a director-level Ranger, reporting to John Travis. “In his bed? How can that be? Theft?”

  “It doesn’t look like anything wa
s taken. It looked like a hit. With extreme prejudice. We don’t know many details yet, except they’re pretty sure the weapon was a sword. A very sharp sword. It’s almost like . . . the Taylors were—that is, the coroner thinks . . .” Ross took a deep breath and finished rapidly, “The coroner thinks the Taylors were used as target practice, but he’s still verifying.”

  Zach went totally still as Ross added grimly, “The stab marks showed a pattern in multiple strikes on both bodies of a long, thin blade with one sharp side—like a katana.”

  “Oh my God . . .” Zach was so stunned his stomach roiled. He groped for a lobby chair to sit down.

  Ross handed over the hair sample. “I can’t help you with this now. You have to take it through official channels. How many experts with samurai swords can there be in Austin?”

  Zach swallowed back his gall. Their eyes locked, but neither voiced the same conclusions they’d reluctantly drawn—was John Travis next? And was the mysterious female intruder involved?

  * * *

  Two days later, Hana hung up the phone, excited that she was, after many hours of digging, close to tracking down the blade. She knew the date when the katana had changed ownership at Christie’s auction house because the announcement of the offering was still on the internet. The maid had also told her that the sword was in a joint-ownership interest, the paperwork for which she’d come across one time while dusting the study desk. That had led Hana to the Texas Secretary of State web site and a search for John Travis as a managing member of an LLC formed around the time of the auction. She hit on the tenth try.

  The name they’d chosen for the LLC was hardly surprising or original: Masamune Limited Liability Company. The formation papers listed the attorney of record. Hana found his Austin office easy to break into, and there, neatly in the file, was a budget with a recent disbursement to a well-known samurai sword expert in California marked final payment.

  Gloved the entire time, Hana put everything back as she found it, right down to arranging the paperweight in the exact spot, and ducked out the second-floor window she’d used to enter, closing it securely.