Diana Palmer - The Texas Ranger

Jennings didn’t confess or protest. His public defender attorney entered a plea of not guilty, evidence was presented, and Josie had to admit that she hadn’t seen Dale during the time the murder was apparently committed. But she had been in Jennings’s car on the way to the party, and she hadn’t seen any blackjack, and she said so on the witness stand.

She also said that Bib Webb had a better motive for the old man’s death than Dale, and that he’d argued with Henry Garner that same evening. But Webb spoke to the prosecutor privately during the lunch break and gave him an ace in the hole. When she was fifteen, Josie had slipped out of her parents’ home to attend a wild party given by an older classmate. She’d ingested a drug and a senior at her school had tried to seduce her. She had been so frightened, she’d screamed and neighbors called the police. Her parents got an attorney and tried to have the boy prosecuted, but his attorney had the deposition of the emergency room physician on call the night of the incident—who testified that there had been no rape. The arresting officer, a former Jacobsville police officer named Marc Brannon, had been instrumental in getting the boy acquitted of the charges.

Brannon had told Bib Webb’s attorney this, and Webb had given it to the prosecution to use against Josette’s defense of Jennings. Josette Langley, it seemed, had once made up a story about being raped. Ergo, how could anybody believe her version of events at the party, especially when she’d been drinking, too?

The sensationalism of the story was such that reporters went to Jacobsville to review the old rape case, and they printed it right alongside the Garner murder trial as a sidebar. Jennings was convicted and sent to prison. Josette was publicly disgraced for the second time, thanks to Brannon. For a woman who’d made only one real mistake in her young life, she’d paid for a lot of sins she hadn’t committed. Consequently, she’d given up trying to live blamelessly, and these days she gave people hell. Her experience had made her strong.

But she still thought of Brannon with painful regret. He was the only man she’d ever loved. There had never been another man who could even come close to him in her mind. She sighed as she remembered the way they’d been together two years ago, inseparable, forever on the phone when they weren’t exploring the city. He’d helped her study for tests that last year in college, he’d taken her to Jacobsville to go riding on the ranch. When it all blew up in her face, she thought she might die of the pain. But she hadn’t. The only problem was that Brannon was back in her life, and she was going to have to face those memories every day.

Well, if it was going to be rough on her, she was going to make sure it was equally rough on him. She thought about giving Marc Brannon hell, and she smiled. If any man ever deserved a setback, that strutting Texas Ranger did. She was going to prove that Dale Jennings never killed Henry Garner, and she was going to rub Brannon’s nose in it so hard that he’d be smelling through his ears for the rest of his life!

Josette ran a gentle hand over Barnes’s silky fur. “You know, if men were more like cats, we’d never have wars,” she murmured. “All you guys do is eat and sleep and sleep some more. And you don’t drive trucks and wear muddy boots and cowboy hats.”

Barnes opened one green eye and meowed up at her.

She turned her attention back to the television set. “Too bad these writers never saw the inside of a courtroom,” she murmured as a defendant in the series grabbed a bailiff’s gun and started shooting jurors. “If a defendant ever tried to disarm our bailiff in superior court, he’d have his fingers bitten off on the way!”

Before he got on his plane back to San Antonio, Marc stopped by Bib Webb’s second home in Austin. The Webbs lived there except during holidays and weekends, when they were at Bib’s San Antonio home.

Silvia beamed when the butler showed Marc to the living room, where they were sharing cocktails with three other couples. Blond, beautiful and vivacious, she was a woman most men would covet. Marc liked her, but he found her a bit too aggressive and ruthless for his own taste. She was an asset to Bib, of course, who wasn’t at all pushy or aggressive by nature.

“Marc, I didn’t know you were in town!” she exclaimed.

“I’m doing some investigative work for Simon Hart,” he drawled with a grin. “You look prettier than ever,” he added, brushing his hard mouth against her blemishless cheek.

“And you always look like a male model, darling,” she purred. “What sort of investigative work?” she added coquettishly, hanging onto his arm with her free hand while she sipped a martini held in the other.

“A murder.”

She paused with her eyes on her glass. “Anyone we know? I hope not!”

“Dale Jennings.”

There was a tiny tremor in the liquid of the crystal glass she was holding. She looked disconcerted. Probably, Brannon thought, her memories of Jennings were as uncomfortable as his own.

She gazed up at him, then quickly composed herself. “Dale Jennings!” She put a hand on her low-cut bodice. “Jennings. That terrible man…! Bib!” she called to her husband, drawing his attention. “Someone has killed that Jennings man in prison!” she exclaimed, turning all eyes toward her.

“Not in prison, Silvia,” Marc said easily.

Her perfect eyebrows arched. “Excuse me?”

“He broke out. Or, someone broke him out,” he replied carelessly as Silvia let go of his arm and moved to sit on the arm of the chair Bib was occupying.

“He killed Henry,” Bib recalled with cold eyes. “I’m not sorry he’s dead!”

“How did he get out of prison?” Silvia persisted.

“I have no idea.” Marc refused the offer of a drink and was introduced to the people Bib was entertaining. He didn’t know them, but he recognized the names. They were very wealthy people from Austin.

“Can you spend the night?” Bib asked Marc.

Marc shook his head. “I have to be in San Antonio tomorrow morning. I’m going to be working the Jennings case along with the detectives in San Antonio. Simon’s sending a liaison investigator from his office out to help.”

“Why?” Silvia asked suddenly, wide-eyed. “Jennings was a nobody! Why should the Texas Rangers and the attorney general be involved?”

“He wasn’t a nobody,” Bib reminded her quietly. “He killed Henry. And Henry Garner was a very prominent man.” He studied Marc. “There’s something else about this, isn’t there?”

Brannon nodded. “There may be some mob involvement. Specifically, Jake Marsh.”

“Marsh.” Bib ground his teeth together. “Well, that tears it. If he’s implicated, it will really make headlines all over again, right?” he asked his friend with a grimace of distaste.

“It’s already doing that,” Marc agreed, reading the undisguised worry in his friend’s handsome face. Beside him, Silvia looked as if she’d been frozen in place. He knew she hated bad publicity. “Don’t worry, Bib. It’ll be a nine-day wonder. Nothing more,” he assured his friend.

“I hope so,” Bib said heavily. His eyes lowered and he toyed with a tiny piece of thread on a jacket button. “It brings back so many terrible memories.”

“Oh, that’s all behind us now,” Silvia said at once, and smiled, but not with her eyes. She got to her feet abruptly, and a little clumsily. “Marc, you have a good trip back to San Antonio. And, you will let us know how it goes?”

“Certainly.” He was curious about why Silvia seemed so eager to get rid of him. “Bib, how about walking me out?”

“I’ll come, too,” Silvia said at once, apologizing to their guests.