Tara Holloway 01 - Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure (25 page)

Quick thinking. How could he refuse?

Gryder paused a moment, then acquiesced.

A stream of people flowed out of the room, their murmurs traveling across the open foyer. Christina was the last to leave. She and Gryder stood in the doorway. I downed the last of my third latte and watched through the ficus leaves.

“This sounds like a great opportunity,” Christina said, handing over a check she’d already instructed her bank to stop payment on. “I can’t wait until the money starts rolling in.”

“Remember,” Gryder said, “international transactions involve a bit of red tape up front. It’ll take a few months for the accounts to be set up and the currency purchased.”

The only thing that would take a few months was for Gryder to figure out where he’d run off to with their money.

Gryder stepped a little closer to Christina. “I was thinking of heading over to the bar for a nightcap. Any chance you’d like to join me?”

Hello? Had the guy forgotten he had a wife? Heck, he’d even mentioned her on his Web site.

Christina picked up his left hand and pointed at the ring. “Aren’t you married?”

Gryder didn’t hesitate a second before shaking his head. “Lost my wife a few months ago. Cancer took her. I can’t bring myself to take the ring off yet.” He looked down at his hand, then back up at Christina. “Maybe if I met someone new I’d feel differently.”

This guy just didn’t quit. I actually found myself feeling a bit of pity for Chelsea.

Christina checked her watch. “I’d love to have a drink some other time. I promised a friend I’d pick her up at the airport tonight and I’m already about ten minutes late.”

“You’ve got my card,” Gryder said, running his hand down her arm. “Call me.”

First the guy screws her out of her supposed inheritance, then he wants to screw her. He had some screws loose if he thought that was going to happen.

Gryder headed back into the room to pack up.

Christina walked out through the hotel’s front door and headed into the parking lot. “That guy’s so slimy,” she said directly into the phone now. “I feel like I need a shower.”

I left a twenty on the table, giving the waiter a thirty percent tip, but I didn’t want to wait for my change and risk running into Gryder. I didn’t bother getting a receipt, either. If I filed an expense report, those tight-asses in the accounting department would say I could’ve had water free.

When I met Christina at the car, she handed me the thin brochure Gryder had distributed and a copy of the new account form he’d asked her to complete. Although both contained language claiming only qualified investors with a high net worth could participate, the documents simply gave lip service to SEC regulations Gryder clearly had no intention of following. Christina had noted on the application that her net worth was only five hundred bucks once her credit card debt was deducted. If a five-hundred-dollar net worth was high, so was Gryder. Nowhere in the documents did he disclose his previous brushes with the law, which was itself a violation of securities regulations.

I slipped the documents into my briefcase. They’d serve as evidence tomorrow when I’d ask Judge Trumbull to issue a search warrant for the lake house where Gryder was staying. “That stuff about his wife dying of cancer was total crap,” I told Christina. “He’s married to a skank half his age.”

“What a sleazeball.” Christina put her car in gear and backed out of the space.

“Thanks for helping me out,” I said. “I owe you one.”

“That creep touched me,” she said, shuddering. “You owe me
two
.”

*   *   *

Just in case Gryder had finished packing up, I kept my scarf on and my head down as we circled our way back up through the parking garage. Fortunately, there was no sign of him. When Christina stopped to pay the attendant at the booth, I sat up and handed her a ten from my purse. She returned the change and receipt to me, waited for the attendant to raise the arm, then pulled out onto Commerce Street.

The night was dark now, the flashing lights of the Reunion Arena Tower, the enormous concrete phallic symbol of the Dallas skyline, playing over the car’s hood. As we drove through the sparse evening traffic, I felt sad realizing my escapades with Christina were at an end. Sure, we’d see each other as we prepared for Joe’s trial, but the girl talk, manicures, and contorting our bodies into bizarre yoga poses were over for now. We’d known each other little more than a week, but spending days cooped up together, sharing a common purpose, each of us knowing her life might depend on the other, brought us close fast.

“I’m going to miss working with you,” I said. “It’s been fun.”

Christina glanced over at me. “Me, too. I usually get stuck with some guy who became a federal agent so he could play cops and robbers and reeks of testosterone. It was refreshing to smell Chanel No. 5 for a change.”

When she dropped me at my car in the now dark and empty IRS parking lot, we gave each other a quick hug. Before I realized what she was doing, she’d pulled me down into a half nelson again and rubbed her fist on the top of my head, treating me to a good old-fashioned noogie. She released me, climbed back into the car, and rolled down the window. “If things work out with Brett, give me a call. Maybe we can double-date.”

If
.

Ugh.

I stood next to my car, watching wistfully as she drove off down the street, her car’s taillights fading in the distance.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Search and Destroy

Three lattes in an hour hadn’t been a good idea. My whole body buzzed, every nerve ending on high voltage. It had been a busy day, and under normal circumstances I’d be ready for bed. It was nearly ten o’clock, after all. But with all the caffeine in my system, I’d be lucky to fall asleep before midnight.

I considered swinging by Alicia’s, but Daniel’s trial had just ended and the two of them were probably fornicating like rabbits, making up for lost time. Instead, I figured I’d drive around for a while, see if the drone of my car engine and the gentle vibration would lull me to sleep. Hey, it worked for overstimulated, colicky infants. Maybe it would work for an overcaffeinated, jittery Treasury agent, too. But where to go?

In my briefcase were copies of the reports I’d printed out on the Gryders and the ones Eddie’d run on Stan Shelton, including the property tax report on the Sheltons’ principal residence. Their house was valued at a cool $1.3 million. The property taxes alone amounted to more than my annual mortgage payments.

Curious, I turned on my car’s dome light, retrieved the report from my briefcase, and riffled around in the glove compartment for my city map. I spread the map across the passenger seat and located Shelton’s street. He and Britney lived in Highland Park, one of the most exclusive areas in Dallas, the same neighborhood Brett had grown up in. I made a mental note of the route I’d need to take, stuck the map back in the glove box, and set my course.

With my radio tuned to a country station, I sang along to a rowdy drinking song as I maneuvered through the freeway traffic, still fairly busy despite the late hour. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Dallas is the city where people stay up late. Can’t keep up with the Joneses without putting in lots of overtime.

A few miles north of downtown, I exited from Central Expressway onto Mockingbird, the main thoroughfare through Highland Park. I aimed my car west, driving past the large Southern Methodist University football stadium, a red mustang situated on the back of the enormous scoreboard at the end of the field. Two coeds made their way down the sidewalk, returning to their dormitory or sorority house, heavy backpacks slung over their shoulders. A few more turns and I was cruising slowly down Shelton’s street, searching in the dark for house numbers, trying to locate his address.

The homes in Highland Park were traditional and tasteful, expensive but not excessive. The inhabitants were primarily well-educated, cultured, old-money families who didn’t flaunt their wealth like the dot-com millionaires in their gaudy suburban McMansions. Still, the impeccable manners and precise etiquette of the Dallas elite gave the city a reputation for pretension.

Finally, near the end of a block, I spotted the Sheltons’ address. I pulled to a stop across the street from their house and cut my lights and engine.

Stan and Britney Shelton lived in a two-story red-brick Colonial with dark shutters and white trim, the conventional style at odds with the unconventional couple who lived inside. Brass coach lights flanked the front door, as well as the doors of the three-car detached garage, set behind a wrought-iron gate to the side of the home. The downstairs lights were on, as well as the lights in one window upstairs, probably the couple’s bedroom.

I stared at the house for a minute or two. I didn’t know what I’d expected to learn by coming here, but there wasn’t much to glean other than the fact that one of the Sheltons appeared to be a night owl while the other was getting ready for bed. Big whoop.

It was then that a pair of headlights became visible, heading up the street. As the car approached and slowed, I reflexively ducked in my seat, avoiding the blinding light, staying out of view. I heard the car pull to a stop nearby, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of a parking brake being set. A door opened then slammed shut. Footsteps, the clack of men’s dress shoes.

I eased myself up until I could just see over the windowsill. A late-model silver Lexus sedan sat in the Sheltons’ driveway now, the engine giving off clicks and creaks as it cooled in the night air. On the back of the car was an Arizona license plate. My eyes moved to the man making his way across the porch to the front door, a large manila envelope clutched in his hand.

Gryder.

He knocked only once. A short, soft knock, the knock of someone whose arrival was expected. The door opened and Stan appeared in the doorway, dressed in nightclothes. Gryder disappeared inside with the envelope, presumably filled with the night’s take, a stack of checks from the hopeful yet hapless investors who’d attended his seminar.

I glanced at my watch, making a note of the time. It was 10:08. Five minutes later, the door opened again and Gryder emerged, his hands now empty. As I watched from my slouched position in my car, Gryder returned to his Lexus, backed out of the driveway, and drove off in the direction from which he’d come.

Where was he going now? Back to the lake house? Given the late hour, he may have secured a hotel room in Dallas instead. Better follow him to make sure. I’d need to know where he was in the morning in order to serve my search warrant and arrest his sorry, scheming ass.

I gave Gryder a one-block lead before starting my engine and easing back into the street with my headlights off for now so he wouldn’t notice me. Unfortunately, my car was aimed in the wrong direction. I’d have to pull into the driveway next door so I could turn my car around.

“What the crap!”

Reflexively, I slammed on my brakes, my seat belt jerking against my shoulder. I’d been so focused on watching Shelton’s house before that I’d paid no attention to the vehicle parked in the street. But there at the curb, halfway between the Sheltons’ house and the one next door, sat a black Lincoln Navigator.

My heart beat so fast I could hear my pulse in my ears. Was that Brett’s car? Or did it belong to someone else? Navigators weren’t that uncommon. But what were the odds that one would be parked here? I glanced at the license plate, desperately trying to dredge up information from my memory banks. What was Brett’s license plate number? I couldn’t remember. Dang! I banged my fist on the steering wheel.

I glanced in my rearview mirror. Gryder’s taillights disappeared as he turned. I’d have to move now if I planned to follow him.

I knew I should.

But I couldn’t.

Failing to follow Gryder was a dereliction of my duties as a Treasury agent, but at the moment I had to follow my heart. And my heart told me to find out whether this was Brett’s car parked at the curb.

There was one way to tell for sure. If the passenger door bore the telltale dent from an errant golf ball, the car had to be Brett’s. The passenger door faced the house, not visible from the street. I drove past the Navigator and two more houses, parking on the nearest side street just in case Brett or one of the Sheltons came out of the house while I was on the sidewalk. It wouldn’t be hard to slip off into the darkness on foot, but it would be much harder to jump into my car and drive off undetected.

I draped my pashmina over my head once again and crept down the street, doing my best to stay in the shadows. Finally, I reached the front of the car. I took a deep breath and sneaked forward.

I took one look at the door and covered my mouth to squelch my involuntary cry. Clearly visible on the passenger door was a round, white, golf-ball-sized dent. Damn.

Damn. Damn. Damn!

*   *   *

Back at my town house, I fed the dog and the cats, then poured myself a glass of wine to counteract the caffeine and calm my nerves. I stood at my kitchen sink and chugged it down, staring at my warped reflection in the chrome faucet for a few moments while giving the alcohol time to take effect. Annie hopped up onto the countertop and made her way to me. I set my glass in the sink and picked up the cat. Cradling her in my arms, I ran my hand again and again down her back, as much to soothe myself as to show affection for her.

I tried to think. Brett was parked in front of Stan Shelton’s house, late in the evening, at the same time Gryder had come by to drop off an envelope. Why was Brett there? What did it mean? “What’s going on, Annie?”

My cat looked up at me, momentarily halting her purr as if she’d clued in to the urgency and angst in my voice. Acid churned in my stomach. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t pretend anymore that the odd circumstances were mere coincidences, that the facts didn’t implicate Brett. Not only had he transported a hefty deposit of cash and checks from the lake house to the bank, he’d engaged in meetings with Gryder and Shelton at the bank and, now, he’d been parked at the Sheltons’ house late in the evening when Gryder had delivered another deposit.

But there had to be some other explanation, didn’t there? Maybe they were engaging in nothing more than a friendly poker game, or watching the Mavericks on television. But it took more than two people to play poker and there’d been no other cars parked near Shelton’s house to indicate a crowd inside. Besides, Brett had never mentioned spending any time with Shelton on a friendly basis.

I simply didn’t want to believe that Brett could be involved in anything illegal and was trying, yet again, to fool myself. I had refused to face facts because that would mean the end of my relationship with Brett, the man who had seemed so perfect, so right for me. Regardless, I had to admit now that the likelihood of Brett’s innocence seemed smaller than ever, infinitesimal even.

Still, the only thing I knew for certain was that tomorrow would be a busy day and I had to be at my professional best. I was a special agent for the Treasury, dammit, and, despite my feelings for Brett, I had a job to do.

*   *   *

Thanks to the overdose of caffeine and emotional distress, I hardly slept Wednesday night. It was all I could do not to hurl my alarm clock against the wall when it buzzed Thursday morning. I felt emotionally wrung out. But I couldn’t let my feelings cloud my judgment today.

After I arrived at the office, I called the Adolphus Hotel, figuring it was the most likely place Gryder would have stayed last night if he’d remained in the city. But when I asked for Michael Gryder’s room, the hotel operator told me there was no registered guest by that name. I tried several of the more exclusive hotels in the Highland Park and downtown areas, but none showed a Michael Gryder on their guest lists. It was possible he’d stayed at one of the less extravagant hotels, but somehow I just didn’t see him doing that. He was a man who enjoyed the finer things in life, and paid for those finer things with other people’s hard-earned money.

I ran a quick computer search to determine which county the Sheltons’ lake house was located in, then telephoned the Henderson County sheriff’s department. Fortunately, they had a deputy in the area who agreed to swing by the place. The deputy reported back that a silver Lexus with Arizona plates was parked in the driveway. Looked like Gryder had made the long drive out to the lake last night, after all. I crossed my fingers he’d still be at the lake house when we arrived a couple hours from now. Didn’t want to risk alerting him too quickly and giving him a chance to hide evidence or flee.

After spending several unsuccessful minutes on the Internet, I was forced to form an unholy alliance, asking Josh to help me track down information on the address in Belize where the headquarters of XChange Investments was allegedly located. With his computer skills, Josh could locate information ten times faster than I could. And with Gryder surely poised to leave the area soon, time was in short supply. After I promised he could share in the glory when we brought Gryder down, Josh agreed to help me.

He spent a few minutes on his computer and handed me a printout. “That address in Belize isn’t for an office building. It’s for one of those storefront mail centers where you can rent a post office box.”

A phony address. That clinched it.

Armed with this additional information, Eddie and I headed over to the courthouse. We were dressed as virtual twins today, both in navy blue pants and white shirts, forgoing our usual suits since we’d be putting on our Kevlar vests and raid jackets later. The only difference was our shoes. While I’d worn my cherry-red steel-toed Dr. Martens, Eddie’d worn brown loafers.

We met up with Ross O’Donnell in the courtroom and waited for the bailiff to call our case. Fortunately, it didn’t take long.

As we stepped up to the bench, Judge Trumbull looked down at me over her glasses. “You? Again? I’m not giving out green stamps, you know.”

I forced a nervous smile at her. “It’s been a busy week, your honor.”

Ross stated our request for a search warrant, and I handed the judge the tape recorder, the paperwork Gryder had given Christina at yesterday’s seminar, the printouts from the XChange Investments’ Web site, and the computer printout showing that the address in Belize was phony. Judge Trumbull leaned back in her chair and took a few minutes to read the documents over. When she finished, she glanced down at me. “You sure this is a scam?” She held up the brochure. “Says here this Gryder’s a ‘Certified Senior Investment Manager.’”

“That’s a mail-order title,” I said. “Anyone who pays the fee gets the designation. There’s no training or test to qualify.” I explained how the arrangement was nothing more than a pyramid scheme, how Gryder’s guarantees were bullshit, how Gryder had violated numerous banking, securities, and tax laws.

She listened to the tape next, shaking her head. “Fools and their money.” Trumbull gathered up the documents and the recorder and handed them back to me. “Some con artist like this took off with fifty grand of my dad’s retirement funds. He was long gone before anyone caught on. Never found the guy. Pop couldn’t afford his rent and moved in with me. It’s been prunes for breakfast ever since. Pure hell.”

She signed the warrant and handed it to me.

We’d received our marching orders.

Time to march.

*   *   *

In addition to the search warrant, Ross had obtained an injunction—an order prohibiting Stan Shelton from transferring any further funds out of the country on behalf of Gryder or any entity with which he was associated. The injunction also prohibited Shelton from contacting Gryder regarding the order. Didn’t want him to tip our hand and give Gryder time to hide evidence, or himself. We returned to the office and handed the order off to Josh. He grabbed his raid jacket and headed out immediately. Josh loved serving warrants and injunctions. Bossing other people around made the sniveling little weenie feel like a big shot.