Foster Justice (17 page)

 

In Riverside, Chad kept his mouth shut as Riley questioned the clerk.

“So you haven't noticed any of the eighteen-wheelers that have stopped here in the last eight hours?” Riley's voice was higher than normal with his skepticism.

The bored middle-aged female clerk, a victim of her own ennui, gave him a look universal among quick-stop gas station employees.
If you're not buying something, go away, don't bother me.
“You got any idea how many eighteen-wheelers stop here in a day?”

Riley flashed his badge a second time, but this display of authority had no more effect on her than the first time. “We need to see the surveillance footage, then. This is important, a man's life is in danger—”

“Then you got a warrant, right?”

Riley sighed. “Let me talk to the manager.”

“I am the manager.”

“Then let me talk to the owner.”

“Corporate store. Lunchtime. Besides, they take days to get back to me about this kind of thing. Come back this weekend.”

Finally, Riley's by-the-book temperament was fraying a bit at the edges. “If a crime is committed because you wouldn't help us, you could be held—”

Chad caught Riley's arm to shut him up before he got the word
obstruction
out. He tilted his hat back and turned on the Texas charm. “We're right sorry to bother you, ma'am, but the missing person is my brother, and I'm a Texas Ranger about to lose my badge if I don't find the little peckerwood and get him home so I can get back to my job.”

Now, she looked impressed. “A real Ranger? Like Tonto and everything?”

Barely, Chad managed not to roll his eyes. “Yes. I even have my horse with me. Would you like to see him?”

She nodded eagerly. Motioning to another clerk to cover the register, she followed them outside. Riley had parked the rig on a grassy sward beside the parking lot, and Chester, scenting the newly mowed grass, was pawing at the trailer bed in his eagerness to get outside. He stood patiently as Chad haltered him, backed out more patiently than usual, and immediately began cropping the grass, ignoring the woman who tentatively stroked his neck.

”He's beautiful. I've always wanted a horse.”

“Stand back and I'll show you how he rears on command.” Chad waited until she and Riley were at a safe distance, then raised his right hand high in the air, a command Chester had known since he was a foal. Whether he'd obey was another matter.

Chester took a last ripping tear at the grass, but when Chad patted his withers and raised his hand more authoritatively, the quarter horse obediently reared, his front legs pawing at the air. The clerk's eyes got wide, and when Chester came back down, he must have sensed her awe because he began prancing in place without command. The clerk clapped.

Chad whispered into a sensitive, flickering ear, “Show off. Good job.” He led Chester back into the trailer, used the tie-down, and then shut and locked the tailgate.

He went up to the woman and removed his hat, turning it in a circle in his hands as he talked. Less Texas twang this time, but even more sincere. “This is how it is. Our parents died when I was barely out of my teens, and I mostly raised my brother since he was a youngster. He and I haven't always seen eye to eye because he's the artistic type, and I'm, well . . .”

“My grandmother was from Texas. She used to talk funny, too. She told me my dad was a ring-tailed tooter when he was little.”

Chad nodded. “Yes, something like that. Anyway, we argued, and he came out here to be with a girl but disappeared before I could find him. I'm pretty sure if we don't find him in the next twenty-four hours, well . . .”

The clerk nodded. “You'll never forgive yourself.”

Even more adamantly, Chad nodded. “We promise not to tell anyone we saw the footage. We understand it's against company policy and if we had more time we'd bring a warrant.”

Chad waited. Behind the clerk, Riley gave Chad a thumbs-up. Chad just kept twirling his hat. Maybe there was something to this patience gig after all.

The clerk sighed. “Okay, come on in back, but if you tell anyone, I could lose my job.”

As it turned out, the convenience store had the latest surveillance equipment, which not only recorded each vehicle arriving and departing with a time stamp, it had a search function for an individual plate. Riley typed in the first of the two numbers they'd logged that night at the warehouse in South El Monte. Nothing. But the second one . . . The footage automatically flickered and stopped on a nondescript navy blue big rig, but they both recognized it.

The two men who jumped down from the cab didn't look familiar to either of them, but they were definitely of the right age, gender, and look to be part of the South Side gang. As they let the five-minute footage play, they watched closely. When the men came back, one rapped on the side of the trailer and laughed coarsely. Then they got back in and drove off—east.

Chad frowned. “Isn't that toward Palm Springs?”

“Yes. You record it?”

Chad had filmed the footage as best he could with his cell phone, holding it up to the small TV screen, but it had been dark when it was recorded. “Yes. Can we put out an APB?”

“With what probable cause? This is Riverside.”

“The Riverside cops—”

“Returned to duty when we struck out at the diner. They have their own cases.”

Chad stared at the frozen frame of the big rig. “Trey's in that truck. I know it . . .”

“We saw no sign of Trey, and this vehicle came up clean, registered to an LLC duly recorded by the State of California when we ran the plates.”

Chad pounded his fist down on the small table so hard the monitor jumped. “Goddammit, my brother is on that truck!”

Riley sighed. “Let me talk to the captain. Maybe he'll call the CHP.”

Immediately Chad sat down and looked at the footage again. He slowed the digital speed and watched everything in slow motion. Once, twice . . . what was that? He forwarded frame by frame as the truck drove out of the lot, lurching over the rough edge of the pavement. Chad squinted, pausing the footage. What was that? Something flying out of the cab area, nowhere near the tires. Wishing the parking lot light were brighter, Chad used the close-up function on the recorder to blow up the cab section as the truck drove out of the lot.

There it was, blurry but recognizable. The little wad of paper towels and the faintest glimmer of gold, falling from the cab section as the truck exited the station. The packet fell out of the frame, but when Chad panned back, he could see it must have landed roughly in the same area where the kid had said he'd found it.

Riley came back in. “CHP is shorthanded with all the budget cuts. Without something tangible, the captain said—”

Chad zoomed back on the packet, removing it from his pocket as he froze the frame. He held it up for Riley to compare, indicating the time stamp, about eight hours ago, as he moved forward frame by frame, showing Trey's tiny SOS gleaming for one precious second in the light. It was a spot-on match for the packet he held. “How about a piece of solid-gold proof?”

 

It was after lunch when Jasmine walked inside her apartment, happy with the papers secreted in her huge shoulder bag. She had the outline of a decent brief, too. Roger had seemed less upbeat when he came back with the takeout, but she'd been careful to leave things as she'd found them. He'd wandered his office, even opening the small closet door, as they talked through her legal argument, opening and closing his desk drawers only to give her a highlighter. He'd paused once at his copier, staring down at something.

Only then did she realize his copier had a page counter. Her heart sank as that hadn't occurred to her earlier, but surely he didn't track his copies that closely. His smile seemed a bit fixed when he turned toward her, but she circled one of the cases she was referencing in her notes and asked a question. He answered calmly and she dismissed her concern that he knew she'd been snooping.

Now, in her apartment, she pulled the organization papers from her bag and read them carefully. There it was in black-and-white: Thomas Kinnard, managing member through a chain of several LLCs. When she was sure she held the most incriminating evidence linking him to the Del Mar Corporation, she hesitated, wondering if she should leave the docs out or give them immediately to Chad. But since she didn't know where he was, it was probably smarter to show them to Riley first; she knew Riley would go through the proper evidence management.

She went to the map on her wall and lifted the edge. Behind it was a small safe where she kept her spare cash. Strippers dealt mainly in cash, and she hadn't trusted banks since she'd learned in law school all the shenanigans they used to siphon off other people's money. She put the incorporation papers inside and locked the safe, carefully smoothing the map back in place.

Now she only had to share the news with Chad. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face. But would he be strong enough and honest enough to admit it when he was wrong? And where was he, anyway?

 

Hours later after she'd bathed and decided to nap before her shift, Jasmine sat up in bed yawning, automatically reaching for Chad, hoping he'd returned, but his side was cold. She was alone. She was sure he was off working his leads after their dalliance. For a second, she had to battle back tears, knowing that despite the explosive sexual chemistry between them, she'd always be only a dalliance to him. But she couldn't think about that now. She tilted her head, listening.

What had awakened her? She rubbed her eyes and quickly stepped into a skirt and blouse, listening tensely. There, the sound of books being tossed to the floor. Her heart skipped a beat. She went to her closet to get the baseball bat she kept for self-defense and tiptoed to her door. She opened it a crack and peeked outside. Three men, efficiently searching her living room and not even trying to be quiet, which didn't bode well for her. Her car was outside; they had to know she was here. She'd glimpsed the broken lock in the front door.

She closed the door, desperately wondering what to do. Her cell phone was next to the bed, but she had a feeling it was far too late to call 911, and no telling where Chad was. She'd taken self-defense classes and thought she could handle maybe one man, perhaps two, but certainly not three.

Quietly, knowing it wouldn't deter them long, she latched the flimsy bedroom door lock and went to the second-story window. It dropped onto an awning that she hoped would take her weight. Slipping the cell phone and her small wallet into her skirt pocket, she was struggling with the stubborn window latch when her door crashed inward under one kick. She raised the bat for leverage and spread her feet for stability.

When Montoya entered behind the first man, she was glad she had the bat, but with a sinking feeling, she knew it probably wouldn't do her much good. This guy was bad news. “You. Did Thomas send you?”

“
Hola, chica
,” came the deep Latino voice she'd heard a few times before. “Where's your boyfriend?”

The other two guys approached, pinning her in from opposite sides. Jasmine swung the bat, connecting with an outstretched hand, but it was a glancing blow. As the man flinched away, howling, he held his hand against his chest and snicked open a switchblade with his free hand, but Montoya shook his head.

The other guy grabbed the bat with both hands and when she struggled to hold on, kicking and biting, he slapped her. Her head snapped around and her grip loosened. He snatched the bat away and flung it against her dresser. It broke the mirror. They pulled her, still struggling, into the living room. She looked around and saw they'd just begun to toss her place. She didn't have much of value outside the vault, which luckily they hadn't found, but then she saw Chad's clothes were scattered and his extra pair of boots had been flung on opposite sides of the room. The ringleader shook her slightly. “Where's the Ranger?”

“I don't know,” she answered honestly. “Why should I? He's not my boyfriend.”

“No?” That cold black stare appraised the rumpled sheets on the bed, which were visible through the open bedroom door. “How is it they say in Texas? All hat and no cattle.” The leader grabbed his crotch. “I've seen you dance. I'm a bull,
puta
. You will see.”

And just as she drew breath to scream, Jasmine felt her lips smashed into her teeth by a brutal hand. She was dragged, still kicking and her cries for help garbled against a tough palm, toward the door, where the third guy taped her mouth with duct tape.

C
had paced the parking lot, waiting for the APB to yield a sighting of the navy big rig. Their title search had revealed two locations owned by the same LLC that had registered the truck. Nothing under the name of the Del Mar Corporation, which didn't surprise Chad. Only problem was, the two warehouses were in opposite directions, one in a remote area farther out the I-10 near a town called Indio, and the other north toward Las Vegas.

Both were over an hour from their present location near Riverside, and since they had such a small force, Riley didn't want them to split up. Sound police prudence, but every minute dragged by like a year for Chad. He looked at his watch. Jasmine had to be wondering where he was by now, but her cell had gone straight to voice mail when he tried to call her. He didn't know why he felt obligated to give her an update as to his whereabouts, told himself it was plain old Texas courtesy since she'd put him up. He left her another message and hung up. Riley's knowing smile irritated the hell out of him, but he only turned away to check on Chester for the fourth time.

Finally the police radio crackled. “Indio police report navy 2005 GMC eighteen-wheeler sighted on Route 125 approaching the suspect warehouse.”

Chad and Riley were in his truck before the dispatch was finished. Riley responded using Chad's radio, which they'd tuned to the CHP frequency. “Advise Indio police to monitor possible hostile situation but wait for backup. We're on our way.”

 

Jasmine lay, her hands bound behind her, in the rear trunk of a black Land Rover she'd glimpsed before they stuck a black hood over her head. She'd quit struggling because that only made her bonds hurt more. Instead, with a few calming, deep breaths, she tried to reason through why she'd been taken. Why did Thomas suddenly view her as a threat?

He continued to lie about Trey and was likely involved in the car theft ring they'd stumbled on in South El Monte. And she'd seen him in close conversation with the very guy who'd kidnapped her. Plus Chad had warned her she'd been followed, and she had no stalkers that she knew of, which left one conclusion: Thomas had been a master tactician all along, finagling her and Mary into identical tattoos, probably leaving her card in Texas for Chad to find, having Mary seduce Trey into selling his land so he would return to California to be with her. All part of Thomas's plan to lure the brothers away from the Foster homestead so he could drill.

And somehow Trey had figured out what was going on, so Thomas had decided to get him out of the way. But his machinations couldn't account for the passion of two redheads who'd fallen for the Foster brothers . . .

Jasmine squeezed her eyes tightly shut to quell her tears. While she could trace the chain of events to a logical conclusion, Chad would never believe she'd been used just as he had. Even after the explosive sex between them, or more accurately, because of their volcanic chemistry, he still considered her damaged goods, someone who used her allure to manipulate men for money. He'd never believe she'd tried all along to help him find Trey, not unless he came face to face with Mary and realized there were two redheads.

As the car jounced over rough roads, Jasmine braced herself for the coming confrontation. Somehow she knew they were taking her to Thomas, no doubt miles away from Beverly Hills. And somehow she had to convince him she was still on his side so he'd let her go. If only she could help Chad find Trey, she'd go willingly back to Texas with him. Once he saw her standing beside Mary, everything would click into place. She could kick off her stilettos along with her stripper lifestyle. She'd saved a lot of money, enough, if she was careful, to transfer to SMU or UT law school and finish her degree, and Texas was a much cheaper place to live.

And Texas? She waited for the usual knee-jerk revulsion, but it didn't come. She thought of the endless prairies, the desolate deserts, the piney woods near Houston, and the sparkling sands of Port Aransas and South Padre. The men who still opened doors for women, the helpfulness of other drivers if she was stuck with a flat, and the soft cadence of the Texas drawl even in the best drawing rooms.

She was going home.

But first she had to escape. She began working her neck from side to side, trying to loosen the hood, but when the car stopped, she went still.

The trunk opened and she was dragged roughly out to uneven pavement.

Jasmine blinked in the bright light as the hood was jerked off her head. Her eyes took a while to adjust, but finally she made out rows of shelving packed with can after can of paint. Forklifts sat idle, several holding large boxes also marked
Paint
. She didn't know what she'd expected of Kinnard's base of operations, but something less prosaic than paint.

“Hello, Jasmine.”

She spun, and sure enough, there was the man himself. His Armani was a bit wrinkled and a five o'clock shadow shaded his face, but his smile was as smooth as ever.

“Why did you bring me here, Thomas? Let me loose.”

“Why couldn't you mind your own business? I want to know where you put the incorporation papers you copied.”

Jasmine pretended confusion. “What papers?”

“Larsen may be led by his dick, but I'm not. Approximately twenty copies were made on his machine while he was getting your requested takeout. Coincidentally enough, that's the count of the Del Mar organization papers.” When Jasmine opened her mouth again, he took an angry stride forward. “Don't bother lying. You're very bad at it.”

Jasmine leaned against a shelf, crossing one ankle over the other. “And you're very good at it.”

Kinnard shrugged. “Occupational hazard . . . now tell me where the copies are.”

Jasmine stayed still and carefully appraised her surroundings. The warehouse was long and low, and if there was another exit other than the roll-up door they'd shut behind them, she couldn't see it. Almost at the end, she saw the huge outline of a big rig parked deep inside the warehouse. The three men who'd brought her here had been joined by three others, all wearing the colors of the South Side gang. They fanned out on either side of her, and she couldn't escape the feeling that she was being hunted by a pack of wolves.

She looked back at the alpha male.
Keep him talking. Delay.
“Why are you doing this, Thomas? You have plenty of money.” She hesitated, then admitted, “I saw the articles about you and Gerald Foster. Your vendetta against the Fosters is flat wrong. Trey and Chad were just kids then—”

“I thought you were snooping around. That's why I had you followed. You searched my desk, didn't you? Did you tell Foster about the articles?”

“No.” At his look of disbelief she said more insistently, “No, not to protect you, to protect him. We needed more proof and I was afraid what he'd do. I only found fragments, anyway.”

“That's because your friend Trey took them. He was going to give them to his brother, so he forced my hand.”

Sighing heavily, Thomas looked at Montoya, and back at her. “You really are a lovely young woman. It would be a pity to . . . change that. For the last time, tell me where the copies are.”

Jasmine spread her arms wide against the shelf, as if bracing herself. All the while, her fingers were reaching for the paint scraper she'd spied. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. “Where is Trey? If you hurt him, or me for that matter, Chad will kill you.”

“He's a lawman, like his daddy. He won't dare move against me without evidence.” He nodded at a gang member. “And if you won't tell me where the copies are, there's only one way to keep the slate clean.”

With flicking switchblades, two gang members moved toward her. But with her supple dancer's grace, she dodged to the side as one reached for her, the knife bared. She stuck a booted foot behind his ankle as she half whirled away from him, striking at his hand with the V-shaped paint stripper. He howled and dropped the knife, stumbling over her outthrust boot, falling to the floor. The other grabbed her shoulder to hold her still. The knife moved so close to her throat it nicked her, but using the momentum of her lower body, she pulled her second assailant with her, backward into the shelf. It teetered, and several cans of paint fell on top of them. She lifted an arm to shield her head, feeling a glancing blow that numbed her shoulder, but the gang member took the full brunt of a can on the top of his head. He fell in a heap against the shelf, disturbing more cans that rocked in place but stayed put.

Jasmine danced away—to face four more angry gang members. She was poised on her toes to run for the entrance.

A police megaphone roared outside, “This is the Indio Police Department and the California Highway Patrol. Come out with your hands up. You're surrounded.”

Jasmine screamed at the top of her lungs, “Help! I'm being held by—” A manicured hand covered her mouth before she could get out the name. Jasmine bit Thomas, but for once he did his own dirty work. He wrapped a long arm about her midriff and viciously jerked upward, winding her. Duct tape went over her mouth and she was still struggling to breathe when she was tossed up into the rear trailer of the eighteen-wheeler. Two of the gang members went with her. She felt the rig start up, its engine roaring as it was gunned straight toward the rear of the warehouse. They left the gate partly open, so she could see a little bit.

She hadn't noticed a door there . . . With a crashing, high-pitched whine of metal, the eighteen-wheeler made its own door through the flimsy metal siding and jounced over rough terrain, up a dirt path, away from the police cars circling the front, lights flashing. It all happened too fast, but she'd bet the money in her safe that Thomas was not in this vehicle, that he'd get away.

Breathing deeply through her nose, Jasmine cleared her brain enough to see in the dim light inside the trailer. She held on for dear life to a shelf, auto parts rattling behind a tarp but securely lashed down, and looked toward the rear door. Did she dare try to jump out as the truck moved? She looked at the two gang members. They'd pulled pistols and seemed calm. One eyed her in a way that terrified her more than the gun.

She'd have to jump over him to make it to the door. They hadn't had time to tie her hands so she was able to pull the duct tape away from her mouth, not that anyone would hear her scream over all the racket. She wondered if Chad was part of the law enforcement encircling them. She suspected so. She hoped so.

She was debating moving toward the cab to see if she could get out that way when a moan to her left alerted her. She blinked, and saw what she'd thought was a pile of tarps moving slightly. She had to move toward them on her hands and knees as the truck was seesawing so violently. Tentatively, she pulled aside the tarps as another moan sounded, this one louder.

The tarps moved and formed into a man, sitting up and bracing himself against the truck. “Trey,” Jasmine whispered in a mix of despair and relief. At least he was still alive, though he'd been beaten mercilessly by the look of him.

She sank down next to him, pulling him into her arms. He groaned, wincing away from her, and she realized he'd been beaten about the ribs and stomach, too. “I think Chad's outside, trying to rescue us,” was all she could think to say to comfort him.

“How'd you end up on Kinnard's shit list?” His voice was so hoarse she had to strain to hear him over the roar of the engine.

“I've been helping Chad look for you. I . . . copied some important papers that link Thomas to the Del Mar Corporation. He was going to kill me, I think.”

“Yes.” He slumped against the side of the truck, his teeth now chattering, and Jasmine realized some of his wounds must have become infected, because some of the cuts on his arms were red and puffy, oozing pus.

“And Mary? Where is she?”

“I . . . think she's in Texas.

“Drilling on our land.”

It was a statement. She couldn't argue with him. She said again, “Chad will come.” As if it were a mantra. She had no illusions about how badly hurt Trey might be.

He looked at her through his swollen eyelids, a ghost of the old Trey twinkle shining even in the dimness. “You love him, don't you?”

Jasmine had been avoiding that truth, but faced with Trey's bruised, battered, but still kind, still caring countenance, she couldn't lie. She managed a nod.

Trey sighed. “Well, I'm glad one of us gets a redhead.”

The words had scarcely left his mouth before a pistol butt slammed him in the mouth. Blood spewed from his cracked lips as he sank sideways, unconscious. “
¡Basta!
” hissed one of the gang members. “The two of you, or I'll kill you both now.”

When Jasmine shrank away, the gang member scooted back to his post beside the door. Jasmine pulled Trey into her arms to support his limp head, knowing she wouldn't even try to escape now. She couldn't leave him behind. She ran a gentle hand over his head, feeling dried blood and lumps through the dirty blond strands. “Chad will be here soon,” she whispered to reassure both of them.

The words had scarcely left her lips when she heard a very distinctive sound even over the straining big-rig engine and jouncing tires. Hoofbeats. A horse. Approaching from the rear. Fast.

 

Outside, Chad bent low over Chester's neck, expecting bullets any minute now. The bad guys couldn't see him well in the dust trail the eighteen-wheeler stirred up on the unpaved track winding up into the mountains, but they'd still try.
Ping!
A shot ricocheted off a rock beside the road, wide right. Chad moved in more closely behind the rear of the truck.