Foster Justice (21 page)

In Burbank, Chad barely took time to toss his things, willy-nilly, into the back of his truck, though he was more careful with Chester. He had to be because the stallion was sharing his trailer with a long wooden box. His entire packing took about fifteen minutes, and then he was on his way. Because he was in a hurry and it was rush hour, he took a few side streets to avoid a freeway, unaware an unmarked car, lights flashing, pulled into the equestrian center lot five minutes after he departed. Riley jumped out.

But when Chad wound his way past the blockage and reached the intersection with I-10 that split between east and west, he hesitated. He'd wanted to go east and keep going east since he got here, but somehow the dually stopped all on its own, engine rumbling. It wasn't that far to Jasmine's. The primitive urge to take her with him was overwhelming. He tried to picture Kinnard before a Texas jury, but the images of her laughing, making love to him on soft prairie grass, were stronger. She was a Texas girl, and he'd sensed her longing for the land of her birth, no matter what she said.

No matter the right or wrong of it, no matter how he'd met her, no matter if she'd been Kinnard's patsy or his accomplice, he wanted her. No, beyond that, he needed her. She made him laugh, she made him cry, but most of all, she colored his gray days with a brilliant palette of possibility. Trey had recognized it immediately and given his blessing.

If he left her now, they might never see one another again.

That disembodied hand appeared in his vision again. It turned the truck west, toward Beverly Hills.

I
n Amarillo, Sinclair eyed Mary's calm face, wondering how to tell her about Trey. He hated this part of the job. Delaying, he said, “So you think Kinnard will go out to the drilling rig?”

“Yes, and he'll be angry with me for ending the drilling.”

“Angry enough to let something slip?”

“Maybe. He's always talked to both me and Jasmine about his deals, but why are you asking me this now? I told you, we need to contact the California Highway Patrol and get them to look for Trey!”

Sinclair sighed and moved in front of her to take her hands and pull her to her feet.

She started to jerk away, shocked at his unexpected move, but then she went very still as her big blue eyes fixed on his sorrowful expression. “It's Trey, isn't it?”

“I'm so sorry, I just found out. He passed a couple days ago. Chad's bringing him home.”

“Oh God, no . . . This is all my fault.” Mary covered her face with her hands, her slim shoulders shaking as she wept.

Sinclair patted her shoulder, feeling helpless, but he didn't know her well enough to pull her into his arms. Anyway, nothing he could say or do could possibly make up for the loss. If he'd doubted the depth of her feelings for Trey, he didn't any longer.

When her sobs subsided to sniffles, he offered her a Kleenex from the box on his credenza.

She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. When she looked at him again, her mellow blue eyes were igneous rocks. “I'll give you any information you want, sign any confession. I want to help catch Thomas. Just tell me what to do.”

 

In Beverly Hills, Chad had to park his rig in front of Jasmine's place, blocking the small lot. He was relieved her car was still there. He pulled the handcuffs from his pocket. He'd gotten them at a security supply store when he'd first arrived, hoping to use them on the men who took Trey, but so far the local police had taken care of the niceties. He certainly didn't want to have to use them on Jasmine, but she was a stubborn woman. She'd already refused to accompany him, but for both professional and personal reasons, his mind was made up.

He walked up the steps and saw the boxes he'd moved earlier, still on her stoop. Thinking he'd help her make the right choice, he carried them down to his truck and put them in the truck bed, wondering what he'd say to coax her into the truck with him.

 

A short time earlier, inside her place, Jasmine had sat in the chair where they'd made love, wishing she felt some residual warmth. What did she do now? She'd given notice at the club, the gallery had been closed, supposedly for renovations, and her best friend was in Texas already. She'd picked up the latest copy of her transcripts and canceled the few classes she'd begun this semester, intending to transfer her credits when she got back home.

Home
. . . That was a word she hadn't used in a long time. Maybe because she always associated home with family, and since she and her father were estranged, she hadn't had one of those in years. Until she'd met Chad. That one day with him at her place had proved Trey's instincts were right. They were good for one another. Compatible in so many ways that mattered. If only Chad could see Mary, he'd realize how wrong he'd been. He'd forgive Jasmine for whatever misguided actions she'd unknowingly taken that might have helped Thomas in his scam. And she'd forgive him for being so judgmental when she'd actually risked her life to collect evidence against her former benefactor.

There was nothing keeping her here. She'd packed everything, hoping, no, determined, to go back to Texas with him. She'd been so sure that after the passion they'd shared, all the evidence he knew she'd collected on Thomas, even paying his bail, Chad would finally soften toward her. He'd realize she deserved at least a fair hearing while they worked on establishing some kind of relationship.

Instead, by his own admission, Chad intended to stick her in a hotel and keep things strictly business. That passionate coupling that had been so meaningful to her had meant no more to him than a lap dance with a happy ending. She'd always be damaged goods to him, even when he realized the truth about Mary. Tears flooded her eyes again, but she angrily wiped them away. She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone. At the age of sixteen, she'd run away from all she knew to a future she was determined to forge herself. And so she had, and so she would, again.

At least the roller coaster ride with Chad had made her see the mistakes she was making in her life.

She'd been increasingly dissatisfied with LA's shallow, frantic lifestyle for a long time. After the way Trey had been brutalized, she truly did want to help catch Thomas, and Chad was right about one thing: She could best do that from Texas. Riley knew how to reach her and had promised to keep her posted on the investigations from both jurisdictions.

Which left only one destination, the same choice she'd made years ago, but in reverse. Jasmine stood, wrapping the long strap of her satchel over her shoulder, and reached for her cell phone to call the airline. She debated calling her father first, but instinctively she knew it would be best to surprise him. She had to see the look on his face when he saw her again, with no time for artifice. Only then would she know if he still loved her.

When the reservation agent came on, she asked, “Can you tell me when your next direct flight to Houston is scheduled?”

After she booked her flight, she went into her room and moved the rest of her luggage into the tiny entry. She'd have to come back for her car, or hire someone to drive it to her because she had to get out of here in case Thomas sent someone else after her. She didn't want to make that long, lonely drive by herself.

When she heard steps outside on the front stairs, she froze. The bat. Where was the bat? She'd turned toward her bedroom when a firm knock came, along with a voice she recognized. “It's Chad, Jasmine. Can we talk? I don't have much time. Chester gets restless if I stop too long.”

Just hearing his voice took some of the starch out of her spine. She debated not answering, as it would be even harder to tell him good-bye again, but reluctantly she opened the door, keeping the chain on as she worked to stay expressionless. “What do you want?”

In that endearing way she'd noticed when they first met, he took his hat off and twisted it in his hands, as he did when he was searching for exactly the right thing to say.

“Where are you going, Jasmine?”

“None of your business. Why have you come back?”

“I left something. Can I come in?”

Refusing to unhook the chain, Jasmine looked around at the boxes and empty shelves, stepping back from the door to skeptically peer over her shoulder. “What did you leave?”

The splintering of the door frame as he kicked the door open, unseating the chain, brought her surging forward, but she wasn't quick enough. By the time she tried to press her weight on the door to hold it closed, his strong hands pushed it open, forcing her to stumble backward. At that point she had two choices, the same choices he'd given her almost from the beginning: fight or flight.

She darted behind the couch. “You have no right to do that, especially after I put you up. I would've gotten all my deposit back and now—”

“I'll reimburse you. I don't like leaving things behind.”

“You're lying, you didn't leave anything!”

“Yes, I did.” He circled the couch. “You.”

They played the circle-the-couch dodge game, their tempers soaring with each blocked move. “I'm not going with you!” Jasmine finally screeched, so angry she scratched his reaching hand. “All I am to you is a witness for the prosecution, even after I risked my life to help you find Trey, even after I paid your bail, even after—” She broke off, but when she looked at the leisure chair and back at him, his eyes darkened.

He responded, “How do you think it made me feel to have Trey bless us? That's all the proof I needed of how much he loved you—”

“You idiot, doesn't it occur to you he didn't want you to be alone and thought I might be good for you?” She wanted to tell him,
Please, you don't even have to love me; just admit you were wrong about me. Give me some hope and I'll follow you home where I belong
. But she didn't like his tone or the look on his face. In fact, she so didn't like it, she glanced at the door, wondering if she should run. But she was too late.

He dove over the couch and tackled her, his hand red but not bleeding from the scratches she'd inflicted, knocking both of them to the floor behind the couch. For a moment, his weight pressed her into the carpet and they matched, torso to torso, hips to hips. She felt the immediate reaction at his loins. Everything in her wanted to respond, but she'd lived her life by feeling, and had little to show for it.

It was time to think. She'd done all she knew to make him see her as more than a stripper, with little success. He wasn't ripping her guts apart anymore.

“I'm not going,” she said dully, turning her face aside from his smoldering gray eyes, so she didn't see steely resolve melding in the coals.

He pulled a tie-back off one of the curtains. In an incongruous, very gentlemanly way, he gently lifted her head, fanning out her hair—and tied the scrap of material around her head, muffling her mouth.

Then, pulling handcuffs from his back pocket, he cuffed her hands behind her back, latching her in a sitting position to the old-fashioned built-in gas stove. She was so stunned that at first she didn't struggle, but when he began collecting her things to carry them down the stairs, she roused herself enough to kick at the heavy stove. She only hurt her booted toe.

Livid
didn't cover the way Jasmine felt. How dare he do this to her? Tears of rage blinded her, but she was buffaloed, as they said in Texas, as helpless as a hobbled heifer. Oh, but wait until she got loose . . .

It didn't take him long to take all her boxes and suitcases downstairs. The satchel, she noted, he'd left for last. He'd seen all the cash on top, so she supposed she should be glad when he uncuffed her and slung the purse around her shoulder. At least he wasn't taking her money, not that she thought he ever would.

Hardly mollified, when he hauled her to her feet, she took a swing at him with her fist. He jerked his head to the side so her fist barely scraped his cheekbone. Even that contact with his bones hurt her enough to make her gasp behind the gag, but he only lifted her over his shoulder as if she were a bag of feed and turned for the stairs.

“You want it the hard way? You got it, babe.” He latched one arm around her knees like a vise to hold her still so she couldn't kick. When she pounded on his broad back, he smacked her upturned rear end hard enough to sting. “Be still, or we'll both fall down the steps.”

“I don't give a damn as long as it breaks your neck,” she mumbled through the gag, but he ignored that, too.

Jasmine heard the horse trailer door open, and the next thing she knew she was inside the trailer, standing on her feet two tie-downs away from Chester. Chad was cuffing her to the railing closest to the door, but she was still too far away to reach the door latch. He tossed her satchel against the side wall.

Breathing as evenly as if he'd taken a stroll, he paused. “You gonna be good? Promise not to scream? I'd prefer not to be arrested when I'm finally dusting this place off my spurs.”

Her incandescent green eyes, damp with rage, were all the answer he needed. Using the same rope he used on Chester and his cattle, Chad tied her waist loosely to the tie-down above her head, giving her support for the lurching of the trailer. ”I'll let you inside the truck once you've calmed down, but I want to get outside town first.”

He briefly checked on Chester. The stallion whuffed at him in a way that seemed to question Chad's behavior, and one mellow brown eye fixed on Jasmine. Chad patted him awkwardly. “I know what I'm doing.”

Chester whickered a soft, mocking response to that.

Pausing only to tape fly paper over the rear window, hiding his hog-tied prisoner from any curious eyes, Chad jumped down and closed the gate.

A minute later, they were rumbling away and the only home Jasmine had known for the last six years was receding into the distance. Then they turned the corner, and it was gone. Through the side slits in the trailer, Jasmine saw a lowering afternoon sun burnishing the tall buildings with a promising glow. Jasmine was in no mood to be optimistic. The truck lurched over bad pavement, and Jasmine had to brace her feet. Her boot knocked against something, making a wooden
thunk!

She looked down for the first time. She choked back a scream. A wooden casket occupied the space she and Chester weren't using. Trey . . .

Tears came then, tears that should have relieved her choked emotions but didn't. She'd made up her mind to go home to Texas, but Chad didn't know that. He had absolutely no right to haul her around literally like cattle. She wasn't sure which was worse, being treated like a harlot or baggage . . . While she fumed, inside the satchel her cell phone buzzed with a new voice mail, but she didn't hear it.

 

As Chad navigated rush-hour traffic to put as much distance as he could between himself and LA, Riley gave up trying to reach either Jasmine or Chad on their phones. Instead, as they left the equestrian center he'd told the patrolman who was driving to go to Jasmine's place. Riley eyed the door as he hurried up the steps; it looked half open.

When he reached the landing he realized why—the jamb was splintered and at the bottom of the door panel was the imprint of a booted foot. Not exactly gangbanger footwear. Riley's heart sank as he pushed open the door to find a vacant apartment and a door chain on the floor. The by-the-book cop actually used an expletive Captain Barnes would have exhorted against. “Fuck me.” He looked around guiltily, wondering if someone had overheard him using the
F
word while he was on duty.