Foster Justice Read online

  The rumbling sound of a loud engine caught Chad’s attention. Still acting casual, he sauntered to the side window, twitched the heavy curtain aside and looked out. A green lowrider leveled itself with hydraulics over the rough alley pavement and screeched out of view before Chad could read the rear plate. He frowned. He’d glimpsed that car before . . . Where was it?

  It came to him and his hand clenched so hard on the curtain he heard the stitching tear slightly. Oh, the green lowrider was familiar, all right, and with that flame decal flowing over the hood, probably one of a kind.

  The same car had hovered a half block away as the driver had watched him search Trey’s car. He’d only noticed it because of its loud engine, paint job, and flashy hubs, but he was certain it was the same car. A gangbanger’s car at the site of his brother’s abandoned vehicle in a rough area downtown, now showing up at the Beverly Hills gallery where Trey’s work was displayed? Coincidence my ass, Chad thought.

  Blindly, Chad let the curtain fall and turned. Despite the gallery owner’s protests to the contrary, Kinnard was connected to Trey’s disappearance, and Chad was pretty damn sure he’d just met the coconspirator. So angry he couldn’t meet the man’s eyes, Chad pulled his hat low over his face. So far evidence linking Kinnard to Trey’s disappearance was circumstantial at best; he still had to bide his time.

  He accepted the receipt, looked down at it, and gave it back. “You mind signing it? Just to make it official and all, from the owner of the gallery.”

  Kinnard’s eyes narrowed as they met Chad’s, but when Chad smiled blandly, Kinnard could hardly say no after a man had written him a five-thousand-dollar check. He signed it. This time, Chad folded it and put it in his other shirt pocket. “Pleasure doing business, Mr. Kinnard.”

  “Same here, Mr. Foster. My artist will be pleased at your recognition of his talent.”

  “Surely would enjoy meeting the feller.”

  “I’ll tell him when we talk that you asked about him.”

  “Any chance I can get his number?”

  “That’s against my contractual agreement with my artists. But again, I’ll ask his permission next time we speak.”

  “And when might that be?”

  “He’s up the coast painting, mostly in solitude, so I never know when he’ll call. He leaves his phone off, but I assure you when he comes back to town he’ll personalize his signature on the painting for you.”

  Convenient. And not like Trey, who hated solitude and didn’t much care if he left his name behind. Some of his best work had been produced in a painting class. But Chad only shrugged and exited the office. He lifted the wrapped, bulky painting under one arm, nodded his thanks, and moved to the front door.

  It opened before he reached it and in stepped Jasmine. She was dressed casually today in tight jeans and a long T-shirt over her hips, and never had she been more appealing to Chad. She was even wearing cowboy boots. His favorite color. Red.

  She arched her eyebrows at the painting in his arms, glanced at the bare window display, and smiled at him as she held the door. “You two were made for each other.”

  “That’s more like my line, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think you could use a line if your life depended on it.”

  The words were out before he could stop them because they came from deep in his gut, where he lived. “I bet you’ve heard every last line there is.”

  Her smile faded and she pointedly stepped aside so he didn’t brush against her as he exited. “Better an honest attempt to get me into bed than a hypocrite who thinks he’s too good for it.”

  Chad turned so fast the bulky painting caught his hip. “No one calls me a hypocrite!” The Fosters, even Trey, had always prided themselves on honesty.

  She hesitated, and then, as if goaded, snapped, “Well, there’s only one way to find out. I owe you a lap dance.” She gave him that north-south look. “I dare you. I double dog dare you. Show me you don’t want me right down to your big ol’ pointy-toed boots and I’ll believe you.” She closed the door so hard it brushed him in the butt, leaving him half in the doorway, half on the sidewalk.

  But then the little witch, or maybe she fit the other rhyming word better, always left him off balance.

  He stomped off in his big ol’ pointy-toed boots to his truck.

  Inside the gallery, Jasmine steadied her shaking hands by gripping her satchel purse more tightly. She didn’t want Thomas to see how much Chad Foster could rile her. However, Thomas came rushing out of his office, his hair a bit mussed, which was unusual for him, his expression grim.

  He lightened up a bit when he saw her. He gave her a distracted kiss on the cheek as she passed him. “You here for your check? I think I just sold the last painting that was in the show, but your bonus should be pretty good. I told Roger to leave it in my desk. I’ll get it for you, but then I’ve got to run—”

  “I can get it, Thomas. I know where you keep them.”

  He tossed her his keys. “Lock the door and my desk and leave the keys behind the counter in the gallery when you’re finished. Gotta go.” He bolted out.

  She stared after him. She didn’t recall ever seeing him so frazzled. And Chad hadn’t been exactly bubbly either, but then he never was. She suspected they’d had some type of confrontation.

  She unlocked his office door, closed it behind her, and appraised the dim, elegant room. When her schedule allowed, she’d even used his password and his computer to help him with his accounts, so he was comfortable giving her free rein in his private space.

  Clicking on the desk lamp, she sat down in his desk chair and powered up his computer. However, when she tried the password he’d given her, she got an error message. Well, she was only supposed to pick up a check, so he’d have no reason to give her a new password. Still, that he’d changed it without telling her was a bit worrisome. And while she was a bit squeamish about sneaking around like this in the office of a man who’d been kind to her, worry about Trey and concern for Mary overrode her scruples. This had nothing to do with Chad.

  Absolutely nothing. She didn’t care what he thought of her . . .

  Not at all.

  Did Thomas not trust her? Or was he hiding something? Or was it both?

  She stared into space for a minute, trying to think what password he might have used. None of the usual, kids, pets, of which he had neither. Despite all the warnings from Internet gurus, just about everyone she knew used the same password or variant of something easy to remember, and Thomas was not that computer literate. She thought of the things most important to him and a memory popped into her head of the time he’d told her of his first big oil discovery.

  His eyes had lit up as they shared wine in his office one night and she’d asked about his oil activities. “Everyone said that field was played out, but the geologicals showed substrata that broke off on a diagonal and angled downward. It was obvious to me they just drilled in the wrong place. It was called the Dorado field, West Texas.”

  Dorado. She typed it in the password box and the computer came to life. Feeling like an intruder, she went straight to his contacts list and scrolled through to the Fs. She must have missed it. She scrolled through more slowly, but sure enough, Trey wasn’t listed. She was there, here was Chad’s cell phone listing. Jasmine seriously thought about entering Chad’s number into her phone but felt that would violate his privacy since he hadn’t offered it. She looked once more, but found nothing for Trey . . . or a new number for Mary. That was very odd because she was sure Mary was working for Kinnard.

  She leaned back in the chair, her mind racing. What did this mean? How could Thomas be promoting Trey’s paintings and saying he was one of his top artists when he didn’t even have a cell number for him?

  The answer was obvious: He couldn’t. Trey was missing, at best, and quite possibly dead. And Thomas was involved.

  Alarmed and dismayed, Jasmine rose so abruptly she knocked over the heavy executive-style chair. As she bent to raise it
upright, the arm of the chair knocked into the side of the desk. She heard a strange, hollow clicking sound emanating from the bottom of the desk. She bent down and looked under the heavy piece of furniture. A hidden compartment built into the side of the panel supporting the file drawers on the right of the desk had popped open. It was the exact dimensions of the panel and so cleverly concealed, she’d never have seen it even if she’d been looking. She crawled all the way under the desk because she couldn’t see inside the drawer and realized it had a spring catch. She popped it and the long, deep sideways drawer came loose in her hands.

  Scooting out, she emptied the contents onto the top of the desk.

  Just some contracts, including the one for Trey’s land. She opened the document and scanned it, her nerves jangling when she read the legal plat description. Mineral rights, section so-and-so of the Dorado field. Next she fingered through yellowing old newspaper articles, one showing Thomas riding a pumpjack, a cowboy hat in his hand as if he rode a bucking bronco. She checked the date: 1995.

  There were torn bits from a couple other articles. The paper had yellowed about the same so she concluded they were from about the same era. She carefully spread the tiny scraps on the desk pad, wondering who had taken them and why. She saw only “Thomas Hopper . . . land fraud.” And the second one showed a caption but no picture: “Lead investigator Texas Ranger Gerald Foster testifies in Hopper trial.”

  Jasmine didn’t need a picture to complete the vivid one in her head. She knew Chad and Trey’s dad had been named Gerald. Everything snapped into place, and the image was not pretty.

  Why Mary was away, why she felt so guilty. She must be helping Thomas in whatever land scheme he was working on. Trey probably took these articles when he saw his father’s name mentioned. That also explained why Thomas had reacted so strongly to Chad. Perhaps even why he’d invited Trey out here. If Chad and Trey were sole owners of the last parcels of a big new claim in the Dorado field, Thomas would do anything to get them out of the way. Especially if they were the sons of the man he blamed for his prison sentence years ago. He’d told her about his time in jail, made light of it, saying it was the making of him and so on, but from this perspective it was obvious he was up to his old tricks and hadn’t learned a thing. Changing his name from Hopper to Kinnard didn’t change his stripes.

  The only question was—What did she do now? If she told Chad what she’d found, he’d go on a tear and haul Thomas back to Texas, procedure or not. She knew he was working without jurisdiction, that he’d quit the Rangers to find out what had happened to his brother. Besides, these scraps were not real evidence, not enough to convict Thomas of murder anyway. Thomas would hire the best criminal lawyer in the country and Chad would be the one under fire. No authority, wrong arrest, lack of jurisdiction, the string of infractions just kept scrolling across her mind’s eye.

  The only viable option, legally anyway, was to collect more evidence.

  Feeling very old and in need of a shower, she put everything back the way it was, carefully attached the drawer into its hiding place, grabbed her check out of the desk, turned off the lights and powered down the computer, being sure she closed out of all the menus she’d used. She also deleted her browsing history, and then she locked the office door. She put the keys behind the counter as Thomas had asked, threw the lock catch on the front door as she exited, and walked out.

  She was opening the door to her sporty little car when she sensed someone watching her. She looked up and saw a hooded Hispanic kid, tattoos on his arms, wearing a backward baseball cap, watching her from behind a light post.

  Thinking nothing of it because men of all ages stared at her, she got into her car and started it.

  So she didn’t see the kid pull out a cell phone and make a call. “She just left. Want me to follow her?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Chad waited for Corey to come on the line, looking down at the fax confirmation in his hand. He’d just come from a copy store where he sent the fax to Corey’s machine. His partner should have had time to see it by now.

  “Corey Cooper.”

  “Hey, Corey, it’s Chad. You get the fax I just sent?”

  “I figured that was you, with the CA area code. Why on earth did you send me the signature page of an invoice for some work of art?”

  “That work of art is by Trey, and I think the man who signed the receipt is involved in his disappearance. If you can access the Del Mar files, I want you to cross-check the signature and handwriting with any of the deeds we have copies of from the land grab task force. This Kinnard guy might not be using his real name if he’s head of the Del Mar corporation, but he can’t change his handwriting.”

  “Chad, I’d be pissing in the wind. I’m no handwriting expert. Besides, I’d have to sneak in after hours since I’m not on the case, and if Sinclair caught me . . .”

  Chad could see the shudder even across the miles. He whacked his hat against his thigh. “Then give the fax to the head of the division working the Del Mar case with the FBI, not sure who that is—”

  “Uh, Chad, guess you haven’t heard. Sinclair said he was getting stale, so he asked to head the case. Right after you left.”

  Crap! Chad smashed his hat back on his head, half wishing he’d punched his old boss and erstwhile friend. He was close, he could smell it, and this Kinnard was not only hiding what he knew about Trey, he was hip deep in the Del Mar muddy waters. There was Texas in his office, Texas in his attitude, and too many connections between him and Trey. His gut told him this asshole was head of the Del Mar Corporation that had signed the contract to buy Trey’s half of the land. Now all he had to do was prove it.

  Chad said wearily, “All right, well, just hang on to it for now. You got the name of that FBI fella leading the task force on the Feds side? Maybe I can’t go through official channels, but I still own a ranch acquired in a questionable land deal by our prime land fraud suspect. Just say I’m doing due diligence on this Del Mar Corporation.”

  While he waited, still standing under the exterior awning by the Beverly Hills copy store using his cell phone, Chad heard a distinctive roar. He looked up in time to see that suspicious green lowrider prowl around a corner—two car lengths behind Jasmine. He recognized her sporty little Acura exiting the alley behind the gallery. When she turned, the lowrider turned after her. He punched the End button on his phone, glaring up the long blocks to where he’d been forced to park his dually. They’d be gone by the time he reached it . . .

  He bit off a curse and scanned the street in time to see a cab disgorge a passenger directly across from him. He ran to the driver. “Follow that green car.”

  “Off duty. Sorry.”

  The two cars had already rounded the corner. Never had he wished more for his badge than now, but he did the next best thing—flashed one of his dwindling hundreds. “How about now?”

  The cabby grabbed the bill and opened the rear door. Chad climbed in. “Catch up to that green lowrider that made a left, but keep your distance. I don’t want him to know we’re following him.”

  Starting his meter, the cabby did as directed. He was a grizzled old pro with a graying ponytail. He knew how to trail a suspect, staying several cars back in the next lane over so he could always see his target.

  They wound up Wilshire slowly as rush hour was starting, and when they reached West Hollywood, snaked through less crowded side streets. The cabby dropped so far back they could barely see the bright green tail end, but then the car stopped. The cabby stopped, too, pulling to the side as if parking.

  Chad used the zoom feature on his cell phone to take a picture of the vehicle’s rear license plate. Inside the car he made out the driver, wearing a baseball cap. Using the zoom on his phone again he tried to get a picture of the driver but only caught the back of his head. “Drive forward,” he instructed the cabby. “Slowly. I’m going to duck down in the seat so he won’t see me. Stop at that stop sign two blocks up. I should be able to get a good shot of his f
ace from there.”

  While the cabby complied, Chad tossed his hat on the seat and ducked behind the rear seat. When the cabby stopped again, Chad inched above the rear windshield and snapped a pic. This time he got a clear shot of the driver’s face. He was on a cell phone and frowned as if he didn’t agree with what were obviously instructions, but he shrugged and tossed the phone down.

  “You want I should drive on?” the cabby asked.

  “Circle the block and come down that street he’s stopped on, but pull up before he sees us.”

  Sure enough, when they’d circled the block and he could see the street sign, Chad recognized the name. This was Jasmine’s street. He glanced up at the historic looking fourplex, old but still impressive, knowing Jasmine lived in a one-bedroom on the top floor. He’d run her sheet before he came out here and he recalled the address though it was nicer than it had sounded on paper.

  The outside stair landing was empty, the ornate wrought-iron gate closed, but her car was parked in a tiny slot next to the building. So this asshole was definitely following her. However, for now she seemed safe because the lowrider had rumbled back to life. “Can you cut behind this building up the alley and come in behind him again? I need to see where he goes next.”

  “Yes, but it’s gonna cost you.”

  “So what else is new in this damn place?”

  The cabby glared over his shoulder. “You don’t like it here, git. Just so’s you understand, cowboy. You don’t like us, we don’t like you.”

  “Well, lookee here, someone else speaks the lingo.” Chad waited until they were moving again, following the same gangbanger he’d seen in Kinnard’s office. The kid had driven south on La Cienega Boulevard to pick up the 10—toward downtown. He kept his tone conversational. “I thought you Californios were all the liberal, live-and-let live type. I can’t walk down the street without someone calling me a cowboy and I haven’t ridden a bronco in fifteen years. I love fine wines and expensive art. So who’s stereotyping?”