24 Karat Ammunition

“We’re not signing anything tonight,” Langston said.

“Your signature isn’t needed,” Nigel said as he started to pass out copies of the document from which he’d been reading. “Only Lenora’s signature is required.”

The front doorbell rang. Jaime jumped up to run for the door. “I’ll get it,” Langston said, needing an escape. A double shot of scotch wouldn’t hurt, either.

He opened the door and felt a blast of hot air and a rush of memories that almost knocked him off his feet. The teenage girl staring up at him had dark, curly hair and sweeping thick eyelashes over soft doelike eyes. The same hair. The same eyes as…

He loosed his necktie in a futile attempt to make breathing easier.

The girl shoved her hands into the front pockets of her denim cutoffs. “I’m looking for Langston Collingsworth.”

“I’m Langston. Who are you?”

“My name’s Gina Cantrell.”

“Do I know you?”

“I think you know my mom. Trish Cantrell.”

Trish’s daughter. No wonder she looked so much like her, though the last name was different. But then it would be if she’d married and had a daughter.

“Do you know my mom or not?”

“Yeah, I know her.” He looked around for an unfamiliar car. There was none, and he doubted she was old enough to have a license. “How did you get here?”

“On a Greyhound bus. The driver let me off at your gate.”

Which was a good half mile from the house, and the temperature and humidity were both in the nineties. “Come in and cool off,” he said. “I’ll get you a cold soft drink and you can tell me what you’re doing here.”

She stepped past him. “I need your help.”

“If you’re running away from home, I can tell you right now that you’ve come to the wrong man.”

“I’m not running away. It’s my mother. She’s…” Gina shuddered.

“What about your mother?”

“She’s been abducted.”

Trish. Abducted. His mind closed down for an agonizing second then darted recklessly to a thousand places he’d forbidden it to revisit.

“At least, she may have been kidnapped.” Gina pulled away. She’d quit shaking, but she was staring at him, her eyes riveting and pleading. “I have to find her. Will you help me?”

The question bucked around inside him though the answer was a given. He could never turn his back on a woman in danger.

Chapter Two

Unwilling to involve the whole family in this until he had a better idea what he was dealing with, Langston had taken Gina to the screened back porch that served as the most popular gathering spot of the big house. Gina was perched in a wooden rocker, sipping from the tall glass of lemonade Lenora had pushed into her hand the second she saw how hot and sweaty the girl was. Langston took a seat opposite her on the wicker sofa, moving a few of the pillows so he could lean back.

Gina stared at him, and he sensed that it was not only fear but suspicion that shadowed her dark eyes. “How do you and my mother know each other?”

“We both worked for the same company when we were in college.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you haven’t seen her since then?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t get it,” Gina said. “If you haven’t seen my mother in years, why would she tell me to come to you now?”

“I don’t know, but if you tell me everything, maybe we can figure this out together. Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”

“I don’t know much. That’s the problem—or at least one of the problems.”

“What makes you think she’s been abducted?”

Gina’s hands shook, tinkling the ice in her glass. “Mom called me this morning.”

“What time was that?”

“Eight minutes after ten, according to the record on my cell phone.

“Did it record the number she called from?”

“It was her cell phone, but when I tried to call her back, there was no answer.”

Langston leaned in closer. “What did Trish say when she called?”

Gina shook her head. “I don’t remember exactly, but she said I should not try to get in touch with her—or to call the police. She said that she’d call me again as soon as she could, but she didn’t know when that would be.”

Langston noticed the teenager’s eyes were red-rimmed.

“Are you sure she said not to call the police?”

“I’m sure. I wanted to call 9-1-1, but then I was afraid to. I didn’t know what to do except come here.”

“Did Trish mention anyone’s name?”

Gina shook her head again. “But she also talked to the camp supervisor and told her there was a family emergency, and that she needed someone to drive me to the nearest bus station so that I could go to a relative’s home. When I got back on the phone, she told me to buy a ticket to Colts Run Cross and tell the driver to let me out at Jack’s Bluff Ranch. She said he’d pass right by here on his route and that once I got here, I should stay until she could get in touch with me.”

“But she didn’t say she was in danger or that she’d been abducted?”

“No, but she hasn’t called back. She knows I’m upset…but I can’t reach her. That’s not something my mom would do.”

“Who’s this camp supervisor you mentioned?”

“Ms. Bulligia. I’m working as a junior counselor in a summer camp south of Dallas. That’s where we live—Dallas.”

So Trish had moved back to Texas. He wondered when that had happened, not that it mattered. Their lives had gone different ways long ago—which made this all the more bizarre. “Is there a husband, other siblings?”