I pointed. “I know that guy! He was at the studio earlier and got caught in an argument between Nick and Quint. Oliver something.”
“Oliver James. CFO of Talbot Creative, formerly Quint Talbot’s personal accountant.”
He took another flurry of photos. Down below, Oliver knocked on the door of the guest house. Quint opened it a sliver. The two men exchanged terse words. Then Quint slammed the door. Oliver didn’t leave, though. He walked over to the pool, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one up. He took a long drag, blew smoke at the sky.
“What do we know about him?” I said.
“Four years at Stanford for his bachelor’s, then two more for his master’s. Opened his own accounting firm in Los Angeles, then sold that and joined Talbot Creative. He became the CFO five years ago, and then…wait. Look.”
I refocused the binoculars. Quint came out of the guest house, fastening his shirt. He said something to Oliver, who turned around, anger blossoming on his face.
“Dude is not happy with Quint,” I said.
“And Quint is not happy with him.”
The argument continued. Quint was working himself into a fury, steaming and frothing. He stomped back into the guest house and slammed the door. Oliver dropped his cigarette on the etched concrete and ground it out with the toe of his fine leather loafer. He left in a huff. Quint watched him through the window. He glared at the cigarette like he was going to yell at Oliver to come back and get it. Instead, he went outside and picked up the butt, distaste flaring across his features. He carried it back into the guest house and slammed the door again.
“Has anyone interviewed Oliver?” I said.
Trey shook his head. “No. But I’ll tell Finn and see what she decides.”
I started to argue, and then bit back the response. This wasn’t my call, it was Trey’s, and he was much more adept at following a chain of command. I chafed at any chain. Or command.
I settled back against the tree trunk. In the guest house, the lights went out. A small lamp flickered on a few seconds later, followed by the blue glow of a computer screen. Quint had retired to the bedroom with his laptop.
Trey sat back too, camera in hand. “You should have known the Ritz Carlton wouldn’t share my employment record. And that I would have the account flagged so that I would be alerted if an unauthorized person tried to access it.”
I shrugged. “I suspected as much. But I had to cover all the bases.”
“Of course.” He nudged the toe of my boot with his. “Are you ready to give up yet?”
I nudged him back. “Not on your life.”
Chapter Thirty-two
I spent Thursday morning getting the shop ready for Kenny. He didn’t like modern firearms, but he was comfortable with the reenactment trade, so I locked the semi-autos and revolvers in the main safe, prepped the day box, ran the ATF paperwork…and then spent lunch rewatching the season finale of Moonshine. The last scene showed Portia’s character Mad Luna as she’d been at the photo shoot—gore-spotted, blond hair in tangled fairy-locks, a gun in each hand. She stood alone, the ruins of her ancestral home crumbling behind her. Then a shotgun blast from offscreen, the heavy thud of a body dropping, a spatter of crimson on the mossy rocks. Fade to black.
I finished the last of my sandwich, rewound the final scene for another watch. No wonder Quint Talbot was desperate to keep the production schedule moving. Moonshine was as addictive as heroin with twice the merchandising potential. It was the hit he’d been waiting for his whole life.
My phone rang, and I hit pause, freeze-framing Portia’s brazen, blood-smeared face.
It was Eric. “I got your message. What’s wrong?”
“Why is that always your first question?”
“Experience.” The sounds of cutlery and lunchtime conversation backgrounded his voice. “Seriously, what’s up?”
“Has Trey ever mentioned anything about getting fired from the Ritz to you?”
Eric hesitated. Trey had long ago given my brother permission to share what would have otherwise been confidential information with me. He’d served as Trey’s occupational psychologist after the accident, guiding him through the transition from cop to corporate security agent, and more importantly, through the maze of his own reconfigured brain. Eric was still tentative with his answers, though.
“He wasn’t fired. He left of his own volition to enter the police academy.”
“There’s a firing in there somewhere. He’s admitted as much. But I can’t find a record of it.”
“I’m not surprised. Employment records are not public.”
“How could a PI find it then?”
“Those things sometimes float around in cyberspace, officially dead but showing up in certain searches, even if the record itself has been deleted.” A pause. “It doesn’t make any sense, though. Trey was admitted to the Ritz’s Leadership Center for training. They wouldn’t have let him in there with even a hint of termination on his record.”
Eric was right. The Ritz ran a tight, picky ship. I reached under the cabinet and hauled up the stack of employment files I’ll pilfered the day before. I paged through the folders until I found one marked with the Ritz’s iconic lion head logo.
“You mean the Executive Culture and Experience program?”
“Yes, that. That was one of the reasons Marisa was so eager to hire him for Phoenix. She sends all her executive protection people to it.”
“Marisa trains her bodyguards in etiquette?”
“Executive culture. And Phoenix isn’t the only company that does so. It’s an especially good transitional tool for former cops.”
I flipped through the pages. Certificate of completion, signed and dated. A slick newsletter from the Buckhead Ritz headlined with an article about Trey and another employee graduating from the program. The photo
