and the fluttering was back tenfold. He had a movie-star smile, all charm and white teeth, and while Alyssa had seen men like that in her life, she’d never, ever had that kind of smile directed at her.
“You must know Ranger Cooper, antithesis of all that is sneaky and underhanded. We aren’t all like that.”
Something about all that fluttering turned into a spiral, one that arrowed down her chest and into her belly. She felt oddly shaky, and Alyssa had long ago learned how to ward off shaky. She’d grown up in isolation as part of a criminal family. Then she’d been kidnapped for two years, locked away in little more than a bunker.
She was not a weakling. She was never scared. The scariest parts of her life were over, but something about this man sent her as off-kilter as she’d ever been.
It wasn’t fear for her life or the need to fight off an attacker, but she didn’t know what it was, and that was the scariest thing of all.
“Why are you here?” she asked, edging behind her cracked desk. She had a knife strapped to her ankle, but she’d prefer the Glock she’d shoved in the drawer when Gabby had stormed in an hour earlier.
She wouldn’t use either on him, but she didn’t want him to think she was going to do whatever he wanted either. He might be a Texas Ranger, but he couldn’t waltz in here and get whatever he wanted. Especially if what he wanted was information about Jimenez.
“I have some questions for you, Ms. Jimenez, that’s all.”
“Then why is everyone trying so hard to keep you from meeting me?” Alyssa returned, sliding her hand into the drawer.
The Ranger’s eyes flicked to the movement, and she didn’t miss the way his hand slowly rose to the holster of his weapon. She paused her movement completely, but she didn’t retract her hand.
“Maybe they’re afraid of what I’ll find out.”
She raised her gaze from his gun to those shocking blue eyes. His expression was flat and grim, so very police. Worst of all, it sent a shiver of fear through her.
There were so very many things he could find out.
Bennet didn’t know what to make out of Alyssa’s closed-down gas station of an office. Could anyone call this an office? It looked like nothing more than an abandoned building, except maybe she’d swept the floors a little. But the windows were grimy, the lights dim, and most of the debris of a convenience store were still scattered about.
Then there was this pretty force of a woman standing in the midst of all of it as though it were a sleek, modern office building in downtown Austin.
She wore jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt. The boots on her feet looked like they might weigh as much as her. Her dark hair was pulled back, and her dark eyes flashed with suspicion.
Something about her poked at him, deep in his gut. He tried to convince himself he must have dealt with her before, criminally, but he was too practical to convince himself of a lie. Whatever that poke was, it wasn’t work related.
But he was here to work. To finally do something worthwhile. With no help from any outside forces.
She didn’t take her hand off what he assumed to be a weapon in the drawer of her desk—though it was hidden from his view—so he kept his hand on his. Alyssa might be a friend of people he knew, but that didn’t mean he trusted her.
“I guess what you find out depends on what you’re looking for, Ranger...” She looked expectantly at him.
Though she was clearly suspicious, defensive even, she didn’t appear nervous or scared, so he went ahead and took his hand off the butt of his weapon. He held out his hand between them. “Bennet Stevens. And I don’t know why your friends are being so protective of you. All I’m after is a little information about a case I’m working on. If you have no connection to it, I’ll happily walk away and not bother you again.”
Nothing in her expression changed. She watched him and his outstretched hand warily. She was doing some sort of mental calculation, and Bennet figured he could wait that out and keep his hand outstretched for as long as it took.
“What kind of case?”
“A murder.”
She laughed, and something in his gut tightened, a completely unwelcome sensation. She had a sexy laugh, and it was the last thing he had any business noticing.
“I can assure you I have nothing to do with any murders,” Alyssa said, still ignoring his outstretched hand.
“Then what do you have to do with?” he asked, giving up on the handshake.
She cocked her head at him. “I’m pretty sure you said that if I didn’t have anything to do with your case, you’d leave me alone. Well, you know where the door is.”
He glanced at the door even though there was no way he was retreating anytime soon. His initial plan had been to come in here and be friendly and subtle, ease into things.
It was clear Alyssa wasn’t going to respond to subtle or friendly. Which meant he had to go with the straightforward tactic, even if it ended up offending his friends.
He held up his hands, palms toward her, a clear sign he wouldn’t be reaching for his weapon as he slowly withdrew two papers from his shirt’s front pocket.
He unfolded the papers and handed the top one to her. “Is that you?”
It was a picture of a young girl, surrounded by five dangerous-looking men. Men who were confirmed to be part of the Jimenez drug cartel.
Bennet had no doubt the girl in the picture was Alyssa. Though she did look different as an adult, there were too many similarities. Chief among them the stony expression on her face.
She looked at the picture for an abnormally long time in utter silence.
“Ms. Jimenez?”
She looked up at him, and there wasn’t just stony stoicism or cynicism in her expression anymore, there was something a lot closer to hatred. She dropped the picture on her ramshackle desk.
“I really doubt I need to answer that question since you’re here. You’ve decided it’s me whether I confirm it or not. You clearly know who those men are, decided I’m connected to them. I doubt you’ll believe me, but let me head you off at the pass. I have not contacted anyone with the last name Jimenez since I was kidnapped at the age of twenty.”
He wouldn’t let that soften him. “Then I guess it’s fitting that the case I’m looking into is sixteen years old.”
Confusion drew her eyebrows together. “You want to question me about a crime that happened when I was eight?”
“Yes.”
She made a scoffing noise disguised as a laugh. “All right, Ranger Hotshot. Hit me.”
“Sixteen years ago, a Jane Doe was found murdered.
