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“If you say so.” Penny’s eyes go back to Derek behind the bar. “If Redix Dean has changed and makes you happy, then I’m his biggest fan.”
Suddenly, Derek glances up at me and grins; then he goes back to grabbing bottles from the well and pouring concoctions at lightning speed.
“What’s his deal?” Penny sees it too. How every spare glance from that man is on me. “Do you know him?”
“No.” Fuck, do I? I don’t break my stare. “But I know his sick cousin, Gentry, and their putrid pal, TJ.”
The thought of those three men working together; I’m obsessed.
“We got traces of GHB on Kayla’s yellow dress.” Penny lowers her voice. “We got TJ spotted in the parrot T-shirt Natalie remembers. And we got Derek on Instagram in a striped shirt also seen by a victim.” Penny throws her tattered straw on the table. “And none of that is the evidence we need. It’s all circumstantial dots on a map with no connection.”
“Give it time.” I think of those evil men. Of ten years ago. Of Redix. “It’ll surprise you what it can do.”
An hour later, Derek looks like he’s clocking off before the dinner shift.
Penny pays our tab while I go out to a car I’ve rented this week. From the passenger seat, I put on a white T-shirt and a baseball hat with long blonde hair extensions sewn in. Sunglasses too. I’ve got three disguises, and this is my favorite.
Keeping my nose down on my phone, I text Penny I’ll do the tail of Derek home. Tomorrow, we watch TJ again.
Minutes later, Derek’s truck roars to life in the parking lot. I let him turn onto the highway before pulling out behind him. I stay far back, expecting him to take his usual route home through the busy traffic circle, but he doesn’t.
Surprising me, he turns right, and I have to react on a dime, switching lanes to follow. Winding through residential side streets, he parks in front of a group of townhomes. They’re off a golf course and often rented for tournaments.
This is new.
I stop a block away and watch him amble up to the front door, press in a code, and enter. Then nothing. For two hours. He’s in for the night but why this new place? I’ll be back tomorrow while he’s at work to check through the dumpster and snoop around.
Until then, I drive by, using my periphery to note the unit number when I grin, spotting what’s on the door of the condo next door to the one he entered.
A doorbell camera.
Thank you, technology and paranoid people. Many criminals forget about those little gadgets.
I don’t. I memorize the condo number with the camera and call Jameson hands-free.
“Hey.” He sounds bummed.
“Hey, did I interrupt a hot date?”
“Nope. She moved to Atlanta. Took the job there with that security company, so I’m nursing a beer alone.”
Scarlett took that job with HGR Security? I don’t blame her. They were stroking a huge check to recruit her. Women in private security are rare and highly valued. Sometimes I’m tempted to do it too.
“I need you to run a search on Palmetto Bluff, unit number 1803. Find the owner.” If I give Jameson a lead, he’ll perk up. “They have a doorbell camera, and I want the footage. Derek Baucom just went inside, next door to it.”
“On it.”
“Penny and I are on TJ tomorrow. You?”
“I got Gentry at the golf course. That man might as well hold office there, not at the capital.”
“They all do—putters, pricks, and politics—this country runs on it.”
I end our call and work my way home. Shaking the day off with a deep exhale, I focus on calling Redix when I get there. Throwing myself into work helps for hours, but when I get home, there’s a hollow silence that matches the one in my heart.
I miss him.
A box by my front door lifts my lips when I see it’s from him. I wait until I change and sit on my balcony lounger with it on my lap to start our video call.
