by Nicole Helm
Bennet used the word need. Repeatedly. It filled her with hope and fear and a million other things she didn’t know what to do with, but the possible only positive of living in basic captivity was that she’d learned to deal with just about anything.
All you could do was keep going.
She slid out of bed and went to pull on her jeans, but noticed that just inside the door was a stool with a pile of neatly folded clothes. She frowned, uncomfortable that she’d slept through someone putting something in her room.
She peered at the stack and noticed a note on top.
Amazing what staff can do. Should fit well enough.
She scowled at the note and then the stack of clothes. Arrogant man. Still, it would be nice to put on some clean clothes. Of course, it reminded her she still hadn’t visited Natalie in the hospital. They were probably going home today.
Alyssa shook her head as she got dressed. She had to do what she had to do, and with Oscar clearly knowing where she was and how to get inside without tipping any security off, Alyssa had to be careful. She couldn’t bring Natalie and Gabby into this.
So, she grabbed her phone and texted her most sincere apologies to both women. She’d make it up to them, explain everything, she just had to make sure she was out of danger first.
And if you’re never out of danger?
A question for another day. She headed for the kitchen, where she had no doubt she’d find Bennet hunched over his computer.
“You’re terribly predictable, Ranger Stevens,” she offered in greeting, heading for the coffee. She was going to get used to the stuff if it killed her. “How’s your back?”
“Sal Cochrane does not exist,” Bennet said, ignoring her question.
“What?”
“I have been through every lawful search I can make on that name, every spelling, everything. There is no Sal Cochrane in Austin, Texas. And expanding the search doesn’t give me any leads either.”
“Maybe he doesn’t live in Texas.”
“Maybe, but why would someone who doesn’t live in Texas donate anything to my mother’s campaign? She’s a state senator.”
“Well, that’s if we’re working under the assumption Sal Cochrane is on the up-and-up.” She felt bad bringing it up, because it implicated his icy mother, but still. It was true. “I could ask Jaime for help. He might have access to some different searches than you guys do, or maybe the name has been involved in an FBI investigation or two.”
His face blanked. “We’re not bringing in the FBI.”
“Not even just for information?”
“It’s never just information with the FBI, Alyssa.”
Which was maybe true, but it didn’t help them any. She wanted to argue with him, but she’d figured enough out about Bennet that arguing only made him dig his heels in deeper. She could always contact Jaime herself, ask for any information he could give without the FBI getting involved, but she didn’t think lying to Bennet would go over well. Especially after she’d kept the Oscar thing from him, no matter how briefly.
“I emailed my father’s assistant for a list of Mom’s campaign donors, along with the guest list of the ball. Maybe that’ll give us something to go on.”
“Why did you email your father’s assistant for information about your mother’s campaign donors?”
Bennet smiled wryly. “Because if my mother got wind of my asking her assistant for anything, the barrage of questions I would be piled under would make a criminal interrogation look like a walk in the park. Dad already knows I’m nosing around, so it made sense to go through his people.”
“And he won’t tell your mother?”
“I believe he’d also like to avoid the interrogation.” Something on his computer pinged. “There it is.” He gestured for her to come next to him where she could see the screen, too.
He opened one of the email attachments, and they both started scanning it.
“There,” Alyssa said, pointing at the name. “S. Cochrane.”
“S. Cochrane. SCD Enterprises LLC,” Bennet muttered. “That sounds like a front company if I ever heard one.”
“A front for what?”
“Anything. Money laundering. Drugs.”
“A cartel?”
He sucked in a breath, let it out. “It could be.”
Which meant his mother might be connected to cartel business. “Bennet—”
“I don’t suppose those names mean anything to you or what you know about your family’s business.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about actual business. I sometimes overheard names or connections, but nothing official like this.”
“All right, well, I’ll start doing some searching on this LLC and we’ll see what I find, but first...” He pulled up the other document, the guest list for the Stevens Christmas Gala.
“He’s on the guest list.” Bennet nodded firmly. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
Alyssa studied him. He was all tense muscles and clenched jaw and steely gaze today. No charming smiles, no little insinuations over how close they were standing. He wanted to pretend this was all business, but it wasn’t. It was family, too.
“If you did turn this over to the FBI, you wouldn’t have to be the one who—”
His cutting blue gaze stopped her dead.
“If my mother is knowingly involved in something illegal,” he began firmly and forcefully, “then it is my duty and my right to bring her to justice.”
“It isn’t always that easy.”
He stood abruptly from the table. “For me, it is.” He stalked over to the coffeepot and Alyssa glanced at the guest list. For a second, it felt as though her heart had stopped.
“Bennet?”
“Please don’t try to argue—”
“My father is on the guest list.”
Chapter Nine
Bennet stared at the name he hadn’t paid any attention to. Carlos Jimenez.
“My parents did not invite a known drug cartel kingpin to our Christmas gala. The press would crucify them both. This is insanity.” In no world would his parents invite Carlos Jimenez to their Christmas gala. Good lord.
“Bennet...”
“It’s a mistake of some kind. A different Carlos Jimenez. Some horrible prank by a political opponent.”
“Bennet.”
He glanced at her then instead of the completely insane name on his computer screen. She was pale, hugging herself, wide-eyed.
“What is it? You’re not going to have to see him. It can’t be true.”
“I know it isn’t true. Bennet, my father... He isn’t well. Mentally or physically. CJ runs everything now. He couldn’t possibly come even if he wanted to.”
Bennet tried to process that, understand it. The FBI, the Rangers and probably half of the Austin police department were trying to find Carlos Jimenez, and he wasn’t well.
“This is bad. This is wrong and bad and...” She looked up at him, looking as scared as he’d ever seen her. Which, per usual when it came to Alyssa, didn’t make any damn sense.
“It’s got to be some other Carlos Jimenez. That’s a common enough name. It’s just a coincidence.”
“It’s not a coincidence. It’s a warning. It’s... Something is very, very wrong here. There aren’t coincidences right now.”
“We’ll go to the gala and find out ourselves. Whatever’s wrong, whatever’s weird, we have the upper hand.”
“How?”
“We’re on the right side.”
She laughed bitterly. “Oh, you are Superman, without the invincibility. Right is not an upper hand. Nothing is an upper hand with all this. CJ is screwing with us, and maybe not just CJ. We don’t know who all is involved, and this... Something is very, very wrong, Bennet.”
“Yes, we have some question marks, but that’s the point. We have to find out, and if we do it right, we will. We’ll find out and we’ll bring them down.”
“Or they kill us, Bennet. Because they can.”
She was exhausting. Every time he thought he’d gotten through to her she backed away. Got scared.
“How do you ever track down a skip with this kind of attitude?”
“I’m not tracking down a skip. I’m trying to keep myself and the people I care about safe. I’d been safe for two whole years until you showed up.”
“So, you’re blaming me?”
She raked her hands through her hair. “No!”
“Do you want to stop?” he demanded.
“I...”
“Because we can stop. We can name the Jane Doe, call the case cold, leave it all alone. The end. There are plenty of other cold cases I can work on. Your brother and whoever else was involved in your mother’s murder and your kidnapping can go along doing whatever they’re doing. Justice can just die here, if that’s what you really want.”
“Oh, screw you,” she muttered, and stalked out of the kitchen.
Which he’d take as a no, that’s not what she wanted. She wanted justice just as much as he did. More, maybe. She was scared, clearly, though it surprised him. She’d described an awful childhood, a terrible ordeal being kidnapped for years, was an illegal bounty hunter for Pete’s sake, and yet she was running scared. Constantly.
Something didn’t add up, and he didn’t like that. She’d promised him she’d told him everything, and he needed to be able to trust her. How could he do that—
An odd noise broke through the silence. Bennet frowned and listened. Silence. Well, maybe Alyssa had just stomped or punched a wall or something. She was quite pissed.
Something else, a squeak or a groan or... The back of his neck prickled with foreboding, and maybe he was overreacting, but in the current state of things it didn’t hurt to check out a little overreaction.
He moved down the hall silently, listening for any more sounds. Silence, silence, then something that sounded like a bump. Alyssa was probably just stomping around her room, but...
Bennet curled his fingers around the butt of his gun in the holster on his hip as he approached Alyssa’s room. She’d probably laugh at him, but maybe she’d stop being so scared if she laughed at him.
He eased the door open, and Alyssa was standing by the window.
“Oh, good. I thought I—”
The distinct sound of a safety clicking off and the cold press of metal to his temple pissed him off. Not nearly as much as the drop of blood trailing down Alyssa’s cheek from her temple.
“Keep your head forward and drop any weapons and kick them behind you,” the man with the gun whispered. “You try anything, I kill you both.”
“Oh, come on now. You’re not going to hurt your sister.”
“You think I’m Jimenez? Insulting.”
The gun dug harder into Bennet’s temple, and he’d admit there was a little fear now. Was this really not one of her brothers? That couldn’t be good, but it did mean they were moving in the right direction.
“Drop the weapons.”
Bennet forced himself to remain calm, to carefully pull his weapon from its holster. Jumping out of the way or swinging the gun at this man was too dangerous. He would fire off a shot one way or another, and it could hit Alyssa.
So, Bennet had to worry about disarming him before he worried about weapons. He set the gun on the ground, gently nudged it behind him as he held up one finger at his side where the man couldn’t see him, then held up two, adding his best questioning eyebrow, hoping Alyssa understood his code.
She lifted her bound hands to the wound this man must have inflicted on her, and would pay for. Bloodily. But as she dropped her hand, she held up one single finger.
One he could take.
“On your knees,” the man demanded, jabbing the gun harder against his head again.
“Just don’t shoot,” Bennet said, trying to inflict his voice with some fear, even though the last thing he was was afraid. He was furious.
“No use fighting, idiot. I’m taking her, and if you try to stop me, you will die. Maybe not today, but soon, and painfully, and in a way no one will ever find your body. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly,” Bennet replied, and before he’d even gotten the word out he struck, landing a tight-fisted blow to the man’s throat.
The gun went off at almost the exact time Alyssa launched herself across the room and against her assailant. The man fell and Bennet flung himself on top of the assailant, who’d fallen to the ground at Alyssa’s attack, ignoring the pinpricks of pain in his back from yesterday’s wounds. The attacker fought viciously, kicking and nearly landing an unmanning blow before Bennet had him pinned to the ground. But pinning him meant he didn’t have any limbs left to inflict a blow.
He glanced up at Alyssa. “Break his nose.”
“Gladly.” And with perfect form, even with her hands bound together, Alyssa jabbed her elbow into the man’s nose with a sickening crack and a satisfying spurt of blood.
The man screamed in pain, and Bennet used the distraction to shift enough so he could roll the man onto his stomach, using his knee to hold him down while he jerked the man’s arms behind his back roughly.
“I think he has more zip ties in his pocket,” Alyssa said, nodding behind her back.
This man had broken into his home, restrained and hurt Alyssa, and he had more zip ties in his pocket. Bennet dug his knee harder into the man’s back. “Kneel on his hands.”
“Oh... I... Okay.” Alyssa shuffled one way and then the other before lowering into a kneeling position on the back of their assailant.
“Really dig your knees into his wrists so he can’t move, and I’ll grab the zip ties.”
The man groaned in agony, and Bennet flashed a grin. “Good girl.” With absolutely no finesse, he roughly searched the man’s pockets until he found the zip ties. He gave Alyssa a boost back to her feet then as roughly and tightly as he could, he connected the ties around the man’s wrists and ankles.
Bennet stood and watched as the man writhed and groaned. Bennet was tempted to kick him for good measure, but Alyssa still had her hands bound and he wanted to get her freed as soon as possible.
“Where’s your knife?”
She cleared her throat. “Well, it’s where it always is.”
“Which pocket?”
“Um... Well...”
“Where, Alyssa?”
She met his gaze, something indecipherable on her face. “My bra.” She bent her elbows, clearly trying to maneuver her fingers into her shirt, but she couldn’t bend her elbows or twist her fingers enough to fish it out.
Bennet forced himself to look away from her attempts. “I’ll just go get the, uh, kitchen scissors.”
Alyssa rolled her eyes. “And leave him here? Just pull it out of my bra, for heaven’s sake.”
Bennet laughed, couldn’t help himself. “And here I thought this job couldn’t surprise me any more.”
* * *
ALYSSA’S TEMPLE THROBBED from where it had hit the bed after the strange man had pushed her down after she’d stepped inside her room. She had no idea where he’d come from, since she’d kept the window locked ever since Oscar had snuck in that way.
She was furious, just righteously livid, that this man had caught her so off guard he’d managed to knock her down and tie her hands. When he’d heard Bennet’s approach, he’d jerked her to her feet and told her to stand by the window without saying a word.
She would have told him to take a flying leap, but she hadn’t wanted to risk Bennet’s life, and she’d trusted that Bennet could get them out of this, and he had. Not
just gotten them out of it, but let her break her attacker’s nose.
It felt good. It felt like teamwork.
Now Bennet Stevens, Texas Ranger, one hundred tons too charming for his own good, was retrieving the knife from her bra like he was afraid of a pair of breasts. Her breasts in particular.
“Don’t act like you’ve never gotten to know your way around a woman’s underwear before,” she muttered, irritated that no matter how nonchalant she tried to act, her skin felt prickly and tight and all too desperate to know what Bennet’s fingertips might feel like across her skin.
He let out a sigh, and then his hand was moving inside her shirt. He paused briefly and cleared his throat. “Um...right or left?”
It was her turn to laugh because, dear Lord this was the most ridiculous situation she’d ever found herself in. “Right.”
His fingers brushed the outline of her bra, tracing the seam, touching her skin with the rough, blunt tips of his finger. Oh, God. She was dizzy. Which was possibly the head injury, or the fact he was touching the wrong breast.
“I—I meant my r-right,” she managed to squeak out. “Not your right.”
“That would have been helpful to know before feeling up the other one.”
Cheeks on fire, Alyssa did her best to scowl. “You’ll live.” She knew without a shadow of a doubt she should keep her gaze on the floor, or look up at the ceiling, or even at the bad guy writhing around on the floor, but her gaze drifted to Bennet’s.
Who was smiling, all lazy, Texas charm. “Yes, I do believe I will live,” he murmured, pulling the Swiss Army knife out of her bra and shirt. “Now, hold out your wrists so I can cut those off.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
Bennet stared icily at their attacker. “We’re going to leave him here for the time being.”
“Here?”
Bennet carefully pulled the knife against the plastic of the zip ties until they snapped, freeing her hands. Then he bent over and retrieved the man’s gun and handed it to her. “Keep this on him. He so much as moves a muscle, you have my permission to shoot. I’ll be right back.”
