Chapter 27
“Not really,” I replied. “You see worse shit than this every day. People are crazy, and grief, anger, and hate will fuck with your mind.”
“He just traded in his teen delinquency for possible hard time, if we can catch him and his buds.” Hal cleared his throat. “So how do we catch this guy? And his accomplices?”
“I don’t know. I’m working an angle. Keep digging for stuff on this kid, find out if he has any other things going on, under the table, perhaps. On my end, I’ve found a couple of malcontents on social media who are ex-employees of Forever Safes, and mouthing off about being gypped by the company. Who knows? There could be a connection. I need to get help from a friend of mine with a certain kind of expertise.”
“This is probably something I shouldn’t be hearing about,” Hal said, sounding unhappy.
“You would be right,” I replied.
“I’m the one with the law on my side, okay? Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.
“I’m just being a good investigator, like you, and covering all the bases.”
Hal grunted. “Just be careful, man.”
“I always am. Thanks for the call, Hal. This should help break this thing wide open.”
“No problem. I’ll get back to you if I turn up anything else that might be pertinent.” He hung up, and I went back to my office.
Tyler glanced at me before focusing back on the screen. “Any news?”
I sat beside him. “Yeah, but tell me if you’ve seen anything first.”
“Actually, I recognized a guy I saw at the bar once, where I meet Remmy and Devlin. It was before the last job I pulled. By the way, this guy is only friends with Griffin on Facebook, not Remmy. His profile says Douglasville, GA is his location. That’s important, right?” Tyler scrolled the pages and clicked on the profile of vengeance69. It was the insider.
“Oh yeah.”
Tyler pushed the laptop over to me.
“Tell me, did you see him talking to Griffin at that bar? Or was he just sitting by himself, or something?” As I awaited his answer, I checked out the rest of the guy’s profile. He had a lot of pages on jade, as I expected. He didn’t allow posting of comments.
“Definitely talking to Griffin. I remember Remmy just kind of hovered in the background. I had arrived early, but none of the guys saw me. I decided to hang back, and found a corner booth to wait until the discussion was over. I have pretty keen hearing, and even though they were talking really low to each other, I heard the guy tell Griffin that he found another target, and a piece of jade was to be stolen.” Bingo.“Ten minutes later, the guy left, and I had my rendezvous with the guys, as planned.”
“Okay. You’ve helped a great deal.” I closed the laptop and stood. “Let’s work on dinner, and I’ll tell you what I found out on my phone call.”
“Great. I’m starving.”
So was I.
* * * *
Over a late evening meal of spicy chicken fajitas, rice and guacamole with chips, I explained my findings, suspicions and basic theory to Tyler.
“See,” I said, wiping my mouth with a paper towel, “if I’m reading this right, the son wants revenge on those he feels are responsible for the death of his father. He wants to make Forever Safes, and by extension, his uncle, Franklin Cordone pay for, I don’t know, betrayal? What’s sad is, I’ve known this guy for a while, and think, well, thoughtof him as a good friend. He seemed to be this unassuming, humble kind of man with a thing for jade. When I met Franklin, I thought he looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t place it, until I looked again at an old family picture with the brothers together. Then it all clicked. His background, education, where he grew up, why he moved here.”
I took a bite of my fajita. It was pretty good, actually. The spices Tyler had suggested had given the meat an intense flavor. “This guy, being on the inside at the insurance company had access to sensitive information that he could use in his favor. Then, all he had to do was find disgruntled people like Remmy and Griffin, and the rest is history.”
Tyler chewed on a chip. “So, now that we’ve found the connection, and I’ve been a witness to them meeting at the bar, and you have your theory, what’s the next step?”
I wiped a bit of sauce from the corner of Tyler’s mouth and licked my finger. The flavor was even better on him. Needed to remember that for the future. Sauce on his mouth, maybe his nipples and cock…not too spicy, though. My dick throbbed, but I ignored it and got back to the matter at hand. “I need to get a friend in the IT department at Englemann to check this guy’s emails, in case there’s a trail, some kind of correspondence, as well as probe his hard drive and folders, to cover all the bases. As smart as this guy thinks he is, however, he may have covered his tracks. But I need to check every angle.”
Tyler burped. “And after that?”
I finished chewing before responding. “We may need to check out his house. I know where he lives. We’ve been, uh, intimate, a few times.”
“Is that right?” Tyler raised an eyebrow.