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“We don’t know who we can trust. We need someone discreet and who knows how to follow money and leads. Someone who won’t draw suspicion,” Paz continued. “We can sit around and hope no one else gets killed. We can ignore the fact that our business and our heritage are at risk due to narcotics trafficking. Or we can take shit into our own hands.”
As much as Paz and I had been butting heads lately, I agreed with his approach.
Adele dropped to the porch swing, her head in her hands. No one had taken this harder than her. She blamed herself and, against Henri’s wishes, had inspected what was left of the truck Dad had been driving for possible clues. She was the one who discovered it hadn’t been an accident. And she was struggling to process all the implications.
Over the past few months, she had become a ghost. She was never around and did her best to avoid all of us at work. She was dating someone, but we’d never met the guy. She hadn’t even told us his name.
“We need closure,” she said softly.
We turned to her in unison. Normally, Adele barked orders, lecturing us on why she was right and we were wrong and throwing a few punches if necessary.
“But how do we find someone? How do we keep this a secret?” Henri asked, removing his hat and running his hands through his hair. “I don’t even know how this all works.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Paz said. “We just need to gather all the information we have and hope it can all be sorted out.”
“Hazel can help,” I added. “She’s been studying Dad’s notes and the old maps.”
Paz scowled at the suggestion, but I ignored him. “You should see her office.” I popped my head inside, where it looked like my mother and Alice were interrogating her about our wedding. “Can I steal my beautiful wife for a moment?” I asked, giving them my patented Remy smile.
Hazel jumped up, a look of relief crossing her face.
“Was she trying to convince you to get pregnant?” I whispered when she approached. “No. She was trying to convince me to have another wedding. A big one with a church and party and all that shit.”
“Ignore her,” I said, letting my hand graze her ass. “We’ve got more important things to discuss.”
I caught her up on our discussion, and she took a seat next to Adele on the porch swing.
“Were you able to look at those files I gave you?” Henri asked in a tone far more polite than usual.
She nodded. “I’ve been combing through them. My plan was to create pivot tables of narcotics arrests in this county to assess the efficacy of diversion and needle exchange programs. But—”
“But?” Paz interrupted.
“But I’ve been distracted. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I get the sense your dad was doing something off the books. He was reviewing all the old stuff too, leaving notes and memories and a bunch of breadcrumbs.”
“Leading to what?”
“Not sure yet. But my suspicion is that he knew more about the drug trafficking than he may have let on.”
Paz stood, his fists clenched. “Don’t fucking insinuate he had something to do with it.”
I pushed myself in front of him, ready to go toe to toe for the tone he was taking with my wife.
“Relax, Remy,” Hazel said. “I’ve got this.”
I retreated, looking to her for reassurance. No matter how angry Paz got, Hazel remained serene and focused. It was unnerving and really fucking sexy.
She pinned Paz with a withering look, making Adele snort behind her. “I’m doing no such thing. If you had listened instead of jumping to insane, paranoid conclusions, I was going to tell you that I think he had suspicions, but he was trying to keep things on the down low.”
“From us?”
“From everyone. Maybe he thought someone at Gagnon Lumber was compromised or leaking information. Or maybe he hadn’t confirmed anything and wanted to be sure first. But the maps are just a small portion of what he collected, and I’m working on trying to understand it all.”
“You think someone betrayed Dad?” Adele asked.
“We should talk to Richard. See if he suspected anything,” Henri added. He was probably right. Richard was an asshole, but he and Dad had been lifelong friends and worked together for decades. If anything had been happening under the radar, he’d probably know.
“This.” Paz slammed his hand on the door frame. “This is why we need a PI. Someone to dig and let us keep our hands clean. We can’t go around accusing and interrogating people.”
