“Can I see the body now?”
“Right this way.”
Luckey was taken to the morgue and shown the deceased. She’d been a lovely young woman with refined features and long black hair. He returned to the coroner’s office and gathered information from the files of the four bodies, photocopying everything for his own records. The reports revealed three of the deceased were of Chinese origin and one was Indonesian, as he’d been told. They were all short—between five-one and five-two—and most likely sixteen or seventeen years old.
“The clothing is different on each one,” he muttered thoughtfully.
The doctor nodded. “I performed the autopsies. The Indonesian victim was strangled. Hers was the first body found. The second victim was stabbed in the chest. The third girl was wearing only a slip, had bloodshot eyes and died from suffocation. As you know, this latest one was shot in the back.
“These women appear to have been innocent victims. They were attacked and murdered before being transported to another spot to be dumped. But this latest victim was different from the others. She had broad shoulders and powerfully muscular legs. This suggests that she was into sports—or perhaps she was a ballet dancer or gymnast.
“And there’s something else you’ll see in the forensics report. I found a substance on the sleeves of her dress. Whoever dragged her body had DMSO cream on his or her hands.”
“What’s that, exactly?” Luckey asked.
“Some kind of topical painkiller.”
“You didn’t find traces of it on the other three bodies?”
“No.”
“Details like that are going to help me build this case,” he murmured as he examined the writing on the fabric again. “I’ve never seen anything so strange before. Did you find out if there was something special about this dress?”
“It’s silk, well made. There’s no label to tell us where it might have been bought or what manufacturer made it.”
After thanking Dr. Wolff, Luckey tossed his gloves, picked up the files and photocopies and drove back to headquarters. He was happy to find his boss still in his office. Luckey knocked on the door and was told to come in. He put the information from Dr. Wolff on TJ’s desk.
“Take a look at all this. What we’ve got here is evidence that these four young Asians were violently murdered. When you asked me to attend that trafficking conference a month ago, I was impressed by the panel. It included everyone from Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Postal Inspection and the US Attorney General for the eastern US.
“The deaths of these four women fall in line with the latest statistics from the National Human Trafficking Hotline. To date, it has received more calls from Texas than any other state in the union.”
“That makes sense, considering our extremely diverse population,” TJ mused.
Luckey nodded. “Our close proximity to Mexico makes this the most crossed international border. But I never realized that Texas contains a quarter of all American trafficking victims, and that almost a third of the calls to the hotline come from our state.”
“That many?”
“I know. I was surprised, too. Twenty percent of the 50,000 people annually trafficked from foreign countries into the United States come through Texas.”
TJ shook his head.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t yet pinpointed the source of the female trafficking activity coming out of China. But today the coroner showed me two things that might have given us our first lead.” Luckey explained about the cream and then he got to the writing. “Check this out.”
He opened the file and showed his boss pictures of the mysterious characters written in blood on the underside of the latest victim’s dress. “I’m not sure what this means, but it could open up this case once I get some answers. No one in forensics can read it or translate it. I’m thinking I need to find an expert in Chinese as a place to start. I’ll call the language department at the UT Austin and go from there.”
“Excellent start, Luckey. Keep me posted.”
* * *
ALLY DUNCAN CHECKED her watch. Ten after three in the afternoon. Her graduate students had turned in their theses. Now that it was spring break, she could spend her time studying them before setting up appointments for her students to come in and defend them, once classes started again.
She 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