No, I needed to get up, walk away, and never enter this room again.
I typed in Remington. Of course that didn’t work. It was way too obvious. I didn’t know his birthday, and I doubted he’d use his brother’s name or Tony the monkey’s, but I tried those options anyway. Wrong.
I thought about what I knew about him and suddenly had an inspiration. I quickly typed in Bayou Melody, the name of the piece of music on the stand by his cello. This time instead of the immediate error message, the lock screen went away, and I was in.
I looked on the desktop and saw a folder labeled Projects. What if I opened it and discovered he was an architect or a marketing analyst or something equally benign?
I laughed at myself. No way in hell was that the case. If it was, why wouldn’t he just answer me when I asked him what he did?
I clicked on the folder as I tried to listen carefully for any sign of Remington’s return. I’d have to run if I heard the door open.
There were lots more folders inside the first. As I read their names, I saw one that made a knot form in my stomach. It was labeled Bob Gayle.
The man had been charged with multiple counts of murder. He had duped hundreds of elderly people into purchasing prescriptions they needed directly from him. He sold them cheap drugs, but most of them were placebo or far lower strength than advertised. Numerous people died or had chronic conditions worsen. He was also suspected of being connected to other drug rings in Louisiana. Surely Remington hadn’t been working with him. He couldn’t be that evil.
When I opened the folder, there were several documents inside. One was filled with notes and records of conversations. There was another that was password protected. I shivered as I contemplated what could be worse than the things I’d already seen. If he put the information I’d already found where anyone who got into his computer could see it, what could be scary enough that it needed to be hidden behind yet another password?
As I continued to explore, I didn’t find anything to indicate Remington had done business with Gayle. Everything I saw simply recorded things that had happened, but how did Remington know about those things?
Maybe he was a true-crime aficionado, but looking at the dates on the files, they were all before Gayle’s arrest, before he’d even been a suspect. I needed to know more, but there wasn’t anything else I could learn from the documents.
I looked at the other folders, and a wave of nausea hit when I saw one that clearly had to do with the three men the Theriot family had been suspected of killing.
I clicked on one of the files inside. There were notes there and a list of names. Three of them were crossed out and the word eliminated was written next to them. Remington was part of a powerful mob family. He was a murderer, but he’d been kinder to me than any other man I’d ever been with. I shouldn’t stay there knowing what I did, but I still wanted to, and I clung to the hope that there was a good explanation for the file on Gayle.
I was staring at the screen, willing it to tell a different story, when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
23
Remington
Corbin had shown up on time with the car, but on the ride to Metairie to pick up Lance and Dax, he bitched constantly about Beau and how he’d treated Corbin like a kid.
“You are a kid.”
“I’m twenty-two, and I don’t want to be treated—”
“Then don’t act like you’re fourteen.”
He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Why are you so fucking hard on me?”
“Because somebody has to be in order to keep you alive.”
He sighed but didn’t say anything else. When Lance climbed into the car, Tony was on his shoulder. “No. Hell no. I’m not going to be involved in another operation with that fucking monkey.”
“Tony’s my good luck charm,” Lance insisted. “I can’t leave him. Besides, he gets lonely.”
“I’m sure he can survive for a few hours tonight,” Dax said.
“No way. I’m not leaving him.”
I would’ve told Lance and the damn monkey to stay home, but Lance was much better at finessing his way into a house than I was. I needed him to be involved.
“Tony can sit in the car with me,” Corbin said. “You’re not going to let me go inside, so I might as well have Tony to entertain me.” The monkey leapt onto his shoulder and started playing with his hair.
“At least somebody appreciates Tony,” Lance said.
I might kill them both before the night was over. Surely no one would blame me if they knew how fucking obnoxious the two of them were.
“Watch out, guys,” Dax said. “Much more of this and Remington’s going to explode.”
I glared at him. “Are you trying to get on my bad side too?”
“You have a good side?” Lance asked.
“Not around you and Corbin.”
Corbin huffed. “I think we’re a lot of fun, and it would be even more fun if I went inside with you.”
Lance and I simultaneously said, “No.”
“When are you going to realize I’m all grown-up?”
“When you start acting like it,” Lance said. At least I didn’t have to repeat myself.
The drive back into the French Quarter seemed to take forever, but eventually, Corbin was parking in an alley behind Clark Landry’s house. Lance gave him a bag of snacks for the monkey and far more instructions than necessary. I told Corbin to call us immediately if he saw anything suspicious. If that damn monkey distracted him from his job, I didn’t care how lonely he got, he wasn’t coming on
