husband.”
“What is his connection to Mr. Sanchez?” Ben asked. This he had to know.
She released a tired sigh. “Carlos has something very important that belongs to us.”
“What is that?”
“Our granddaughter.”
“The sick granddaughter?” he demanded.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod and moisture appeared in her eyes. “Our son and his wife died in a car accident when she was four. We have raised her this last eleven years. She is the world to us.”
A Mack truck of memory struck and propelled Ben a month into the past to the day he found two dead girls on the El Paso/Juarez border. His heart thudded. He headed the Ranger Reconnaissance Team that had tracked their kidnappers into the desert. The blood that had pooled beneath the young women on the hard ground had turned thick and sticky inside of two hours. Now, the man ultimately responsible for their deaths stood twenty feet away chatting with some of El Paso’s most upstanding and influential citizens.
Fury fermented into rage and Ben saw himself walking up to Sanchez and arresting him. The twenty-two strapped to Ben’s ankle would keep the human traffics dealer in check—despite the gun Sanchez hid beneath his coat. Ben stuffed a hand into his trousers pocket and unclenched the fist he hadn’t realized he’d made.
He couldn’t arrest Sanchez without the half dozen South American bodyguards who roamed the ballroom slaughtering every guest in the room in order to save their boss. And arresting Sanchez wouldn’t save the Remmey’s granddaughter. Ben had to stop her from becoming another of the thousands of girls who ended up in a rich sheik’s harem or as a rich businessman’s sex slave—or worse, a prostitute in one of the brothels that served hundreds of men daily.
“Is there someplace we can go where you can fill me in?” Ben asked Larissa.
“Smile, darling,” she said.
For an instant Ben wasn’t sure what she’d said, then the rough edge that had leeched into his voice registered. Dammit. He had to maintain control.
“Mr. Sanchez is watching us,” she whispered.
Ben flashed a smile and leaned close as if in intimate conversation. “Why would he be watching us?”
“Because my husband is talking to him about a meeting with you.”
Anticipation ramped up like a live electrical wire. “I suppose you’d better give me the rundown now, then.” Something occurred to Ben. “Why is Sanchez escorting Tanya?”
“That came as a surprise to me,” Larissa replied.
Ben didn’t like that. “All right. What does Sanchez want from you?”
“He wants my husband to smuggle women across the border when he buys textiles.”
Suddenly the missing pieces all clicked into place.
When the FBI showed up on the Rangers' doorstep three days ago, they demanded information on Sanchez’s contacts in Texas. Millionaire Francis Remmey had just appeared on the Rangers’ radar. No one knew why an upstanding citizen was suddenly in bed with a human traffics dealer. The Feds planned a sting operation intended to uncover the connection, but the whole thing came to a screeching halt twelve hours later.
The high-brow world of fashion didn’t welcome outsiders. They needed someone who would be accepted at a moment’s notice—and they needed that someone fast. Ben’s good looks put him at the top of the list. The pressure the governor applied to the Feds to catch the girls' killers forced them to partner with the Rangers.
In the space of an hour, Ben had Sanchez in his sights and discovered the connection between the slaver and Remmey. The FBI would take Sanchez into custody once the Rangers arrested him. But first, the Rangers could extract some important information in the process. And that’s exactly what Ben planned on doing tonight .
* * *
“I’ll be back in London next Monday,” Martin told Liz. “Have your assistant call me to set up a conference.”
“I’ll do that,” Liz replied.
“I will let Brenda know to