texted her mom that she’d be home in half an hour. They were planning to take some of the orphans to Zilker Park. Years earlier, Ally’s father had established the Austin orphanage for Chinese children with disabilities. They would ride the Zilker Zephyr miniature train and enjoy a picnic on the grounds before dark. With her father back from Washington, maybe he’d go with them.
After reaching for her handbag in the desk drawer, Ally started for the door and opened it, only to collide with a tall, rock-hard, masculine body. “I’m sorry,” the man murmured, and grasped her upper arms to steady her, while securing a file folder under his arm.
After noting the badge on the pocket of his khaki shirt identifying him as a Texas Ranger, she lifted her head and let out a quiet gasp. The man was gorgeous. He had neatly trimmed dark blond hair and rugged features, but it was his brown eyes roving appreciatively over her face that infused her with warmth. She stepped back, forcing him to release her.
“I was looking for Dr. Duncan.” His deep voice resonated in the room. “I’m James Davis with the Texas Rangers.”
She swallowed hard, unable to remember the last time she’d met anyone so attractive. “You’ve found her. I was just leaving, obviously, but it’s apparent you’re here on official business.”
“You’re the Director of Asian Studies?” he blurted.
Ally took a quick breath. “I’m not what you expected?”
The hard line of his compelling mouth softened into a smile. “Frankly, no.”
She chuckled. “You don’t fit the type of student I normally see in my classes, either. Please, come in and sit down.”
He waited until she’d gone back to her chair behind the desk. “The secretary out front said that spring break has started and I might not find you in, but I took a chance, anyway.”
Ally’s cheeks were burning; she could feel it. She cursed herself for acting like a starstruck teenager instead of a twenty-eight-year-old woman meeting her first legendary Texas Ranger. “How can I help you?” she asked.
“First, may I ask you a question? Has anyone from the police department been here to talk to you yet?”
She looked surprised. “No. No one.”
He removed the file from under his arm and opened it to retrieve some pages, which he handed to her. “I’m just starting an investigation. These photos were taken by a forensics expert after the latest body of a young Chinese girl was brought into the morgue last week.”
Latest?
Just like that the conversation had turned to something hideous, something Ally was very familiar with. Women from the Hunan Province of China were noted for their beauty. Men from all over the world were willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to traffickers in order to enslave these poor young women. It was too sad and ghastly to dwell on. Her hands trembled a little as she lifted the first page and stared at the photocopy.
“Do you recognize this?”
Nothing could have surprised her more when she saw that the page contained writing rather than a woman’s picture. Not just any writing, though. The realization of what she was looking at caused Ally to break out in a cold sweat. Reading it, she felt her stomach muscles clench. She lifted the next page and the next, until she’d read the horrifying contents of all six, then she shot to her feet.
“Where did you come across this?”
“On the victim’s body. All this was done in her own blood on the underside of the dress she was wearing.”
Ally moaned.
“It’s apparent this writing has great significance for you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment before she sat back down. “This girl knew she was going to die. The writing is a desperate plea for help in the only way she could communicate in order to prevent her captors from knowing what she was doing.”
The Ranger seemed perplexed. “Is it in Chinese, then? The chief forensics expert said they couldn’t identify it as such.”
Ally took a deep breath before launching into an explanation of what he’d brought her. “This message has been written in Nüshu, a secret language that has evolved over a thousand years in the Hunan Province of China. Nüshu means ‘women’s language’ and comes from a remote area of Yongzhou City in Jiangyong County.”
“Why secret?”
“Since the traditional Chinese culture was male-centered, girls were forbidden from any kind of formal education. Nüshu was developed for the women to educate themselves. They were sequestered away from men, and males never learned their language. These sworn sisters took an oath never to reveal their secret language to anyone.” Ally picked up the first sheet and studied it again. “This victim was begging for help.”
The Ranger studied her intensely. “How do you know all this?”
“For one thing, my best friend, Soo-Lin, was born in Yongzhou and has lived there all her life, except to attend the university in Changsha.”
He cocked his attractive blond head. “Which means you’ve lived there, too?”
Ally sat back in her chair. “I’ll have to give you some background. My birth name is Allyson Forrester Duncan.”
The moment she said her full name, she saw a flicker of understanding in his eyes. “Duncan...as in former Senator Lawrence Duncan from Austin, then ambassador to China, who now resides here in Austin instead of Washington, DC? It’s been in the news.”
“He’s my father.”
“Incredible that you would be the expert I sought out first,” he murmured.
“My mother’s name is Beatrice Forrester Duncan.”
“Forrester,” he said aloud. “Her name came up among a few others at a conference I attended recently. The panel praised her work devoted to ending the trafficking of female victims from the Far East here in Texas.” He sat forward. “Your mother...”
“Yes. I have fabulous parents and am extremely proud of them.”
“How could you not be? Tell me more about your life in China.”
“We spent equal time in Beijing and Changsha, for fifteen years. Twice annually we flew home to Austin for two weeks, then went back. Being thirteen years old when we moved, I had tutors and was at the perfect age to pick up Mandarin and Xiang—a dialect of the Changsha region. As soon as I was old enough, I studied at the University of Changsha, under some brilliant teachers.
“Soo-Lin was also studying there and became my close friend. I spent time at her home in Yongzhou and came to love her family, as well. I loved it in China. I never wanted to come home and almost didn’t.”
“Why did you, then?”
The Ranger was direct, but then, that was his job.
“Last year my father was recalled to Washington. A new ambassador was named, but my dad now serves as a consultant to the president for Far Eastern
