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We scrambled around my office to shut everything down. I practically ripped the computer cords from the wall as Eden shoved our lifeless cell phones into the cushions of my couch on the other side of the room. I had a personal modem and router in my office for internet that no one else in the building could use, so I pulled my desk drawer open and unplugged both of them from the back.
Then, Eden started cracking her knuckles. “All right, what do we have?”
I cracked my neck. “Outside of everything taped up behind me, we’ve got the video I took from your parents’’ house before we ended up here. But, outside of that? We don’t have anything.”
“Do any of those pictures up there have Thaddius in them?”
I turned to look at the wall of information behind me. “No, not to my knowledge. I’ll give them another once-over just to make sure, but I’m pretty sure all of these surveillance photos are of your father.”
“So many chunks missing,” Eden whispered as she walked up to my side.
“If I had anymore answers, I’d give them to you,” their father said.
“You sure about that?” Jackson spat.
“Hey,” Em said sternly, “that’s my father you’re talking to. Mind your ass.”
Their father sighed. “I know, I know, I haven’t really shown that this evening. I just wasn’t sure I could trust these two goons that have suddenly popped up with our daughters.”
I turned to face him. “Goons or not, trust doesn’t matter. We’re roped into this because of the seat Thaddius has within this company. Whether you trust us or not isn’t important any longer.”
Mr. Rochere slumped his shoulders. “Well, my girls were shot at. My wife was shot at. And if I even had an inkling as to who was responsible for that, I’d—”
When he cut himself off, I quirked an eyebrow. “Go on. Finish that statement.”
He shook his head slowly. “I honestly thought we were done with this. Claudia and I came to L.A. for a fresh start. To get away from all of this nonsense that had dropped into our laps. So, why is this just kicking up now? Even if Thaddius had kept tabs on us, why sit on things for so long if we were in the same area? It seems more like opportunity than anything else.”
Eden sighed. “He’s got a point. It seems odd that a man like Thaddius would sit on something like this for so long if he had some sort of vendetta still.”
“So, there’s a catalyst,” Jackson said, “a recent catalyst.”
“Is it the banquet, we think?” Em asked.
Eden shook her head. “That just doesn’t seem plausible. The only way he would’ve recognized us at the banquet was if he’d known us from before. And that lends itself to the theory that Thaddius has been watching our family. But if we’re working with the assumption--”
“Either way,” her father said as he interrupted her, “I want answers to all of this. I want to know why in the hell my family is under attack again, and no dumbass scary voice on some office line is going to scare me away from those answers. Especially now that it’s personal.”
“And since Thaddius apparently has ties to a very disgusting organization,” I said with my head held high, “then that implicates my company, which isn’t okay with me. It puts a strain on my reputation that I don’t want.”
Eden rolled her eyes. “And here we go with the ego.”
I shrugged. “Hey, I’m many things, but I sure as hell don’t work with corrupt organizations.”
Jackson grinned. “We just take money from corrupt people before we work our magic.”
“Yeah,” Eden spat, “you just take the scum of the earth and make them look like angels.”
“Whether you like it or not,” I said as I turned back toward the wall of information, “that’s as shitty as it gets for us. Jackson?”
“Yeah?”
I looked over at him. “It’s time we shift our focus. We’ve looked enough into their family, so I think it’s time to start digging into the Beauregard family.”
“You want to do what?” Em asked.
“Are you sure that’s smart?” Mrs. Rochere asked.
Jackson scoffed. “You can’t be serious. After everything that’s happened tonight, and you want to open that specific can of worms?”
