Chapter 35: The Morning Interrupted
The first thing Jennifer felt was warmth. A solid line of it against her back, from shoulders to hips. Then the whisper of lips between her shoulder blades, moving down with a lazy, claiming certainty. Morning light cut through the blinds in bright, sharp stripes, painting the rumpled sheets in gold and shadow.
John’s hand splayed across her stomach, pulling her closer into the curve of his body. His mouth found a particular spot at the base of her spine and lingered. A shiver, pleasant and deep, rolled through her.
“You’re awake,” she mumbled into her pillow, her voice thick with sleep.
“Mmm.” His affirmation vibrated against her skin. His fingers traced idle patterns on her hip. “Been awake. Watching you. Thinking this is better than any Sunday brunch.”
A smile touched her lips. The memory of his mother’s kitchen, the warning, felt distant. This—the heat of him, the quiet of her loft, the city still humming softly beyond the windows—felt immediate and real. She arched back into him, a silent invitation.
His lips continued their trail. The phone on her nightstand buzzed.
Once. A dull, metallic rattle against the wood.
She ignored it. Closed her eyes. Focused on the scrape of his stubble, the pressure of his hands.
It buzzed again.And again. Insistent. An angry mechanical insect.
“Jen,” John murmured, his mouth moving to the curve of her ass. “Your work is calling.”
“It can wait five minutes.” She reached back, her fingers tangling in his dark hair, urging him to continue.
He chuckled, the sound low and intimate, and obeyed. The buzzing stopped. For about ten seconds. Then it started up again, a relentless, arrhythmic pattern. Someone wasn’t just calling. They were hammering the line.
“Goddamn it.” The sigh left her body, taking the warmth and languor with it. She twisted, extracting herself from his arms, and grabbed the phone. The screen glowed: CAPTAIN RUIZ.
She swiped to answer, putting it to her ear as she sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. “Sir.”
“Wu.” His voice was all business, the fatherly tone from his dining room completely absent. “I need you in. Now.”
John sat up beside her, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. He watched her, his brown eyes soft with a concern that was both personal and professional.
“What’s up?” she asked, already swinging her legs out of bed.
“Body found in a silver Lexus convertible. parked in the middle of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Star of some old game show host. Driver’s still behind the wheel.”
“O.D.?” Jennifer stood, padding naked to her closet. She could feel John’s gaze on her, a tangible warmth on her skin.
“Not unless O.D.s now include a precise, single-entry wound to the right temple. No exit. No gun in the vehicle. Crowd of tourists forming. Media’s going to be a nightmare in twenty minutes.”
Jennifer ended the call and tossed the phone onto the rumpled sheets. “Walk of Fame. Single gunshot wound. No weapon.”
“Sounds messy.” John was already out of bed, fetching her discarded bra from the floor. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers. “And public.”
“The worst kind.” She stepped into it, fastening the clasp with practiced ease. She found her black slacks and a simple grey tank top, dressing with a brisk, mechanical efficiency. “I’m sorry. This morning was… I wanted it to last.”
He crossed the room and stopped her hands, which were buttoning her pants. He kissed her, slow and deep, a deliberate contrast to her rushed movements. “Go,” he murmured against her lips. “Be the great detective I know you are.”
She dressed quickly after that, pulling on a blazer and holstering her service weapon. At the apartment door, she paused, turning back. He stood in the middle of the sun-streaked loft, shirtless, watching her. She went to him for one last, lingering peck on the lips, tasting the bitter coffee he’d drunk and the sharp regret of interrupted intimacy.
Then she was gone.
The Hollywood station buzzed with a tense, early-monday energy. Jennifer walked in, the familiar scent of stale coffee and industrial cleaner barely masking the phantom trace of John’s cologne on her collar. She found Captain Ruiz in his office, but instead of the usual grim set to his jaw, he was leaning back in his chair, fingers steepled.
“You’re in a good mood for a homicide,” she said, dropping into the chair across from him.
“The victim is one Arlo Finch. Minor game show celebrity from the eighties, bigger-time financial fraudster.” Ruiz tapped his keyboard and spun his laptop around. “But that’s not the interesting part. Meet your special partner for this.”
The screen showed a video call window. Marcus Cole’s face filled it, his salt-and-pepper beard neatly trimmed, his expression a mixture of sharp intelligence and deep amusement. He was sitting on what looked like a sun-drenched porch, lush green foliage blurring behind him.
“Jenny Wu.” His voice was a rich, familiar baritone, slightly scratchy from decades of cigar smoke he’d given up. “Still getting dragged out of bed for other people’s problems, I see.”
“Marcus.” The flush was immediate, a heat that started in her chest. It was the professional respect, she told herself, for the legend. But it was also the memory of his hands, the sound of his laugh in the dark, the way he’d taught her to read a crime scene like a novel. “I heard you were happily retired.”
“I am. This consultant gig is me being charitable. And mildly curious.” His knowing smile deepened, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Your Captain called in a personal favor. Seems your dead game show host has inconvenient ties to some characters down in my neck of the woods.”
Ruiz took back the laptop. “Finch was laundering for a Creole investment group out of New Orleans. It’s a shell, thin as rice paper. Marcus knows the players, the soil they grow in.” He looked at Jennifer, his demeanor shifting back to command. “This isn’t an L.A. crime. It’s a Louisiana crime that happened to finish here. You’re going down to the source.”
“For how long?” Jennifer asked, her mind already whirring through logistics.
“Weeks, maybe. Pack for a long dig.” Ruiz closed the laptop, severing the connection to Marcus’s knowing gaze. “Your flight is tomorrow morning. Marcus will pick you up at Armstrong.”
The following morning at LAX was a blur of harsh fluorescents and rolling suitcases. John found her at the departure gate, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. “Bayou-bound,” he said, trying for a smile.
“Apparently.” She adjusted the strap of her carry-on bag. “Try not to solve everything while I’m gone.”
“No promises.” He reached out, pulling her into a tight hug. He smelled like soap and the crisp morning air. “Just come back in one piece, alright? No heroics for your old mentor.”
She buried a laugh into his shoulder, a thick, unexpected wave of emotion tightening her throat. She pulled back, chuckling softly as she willed the sudden, stupid tears in her eyes not to fall. “Deal.”
Then she turned and walked towards the jet bridge, not looking back.
The flight was a numb, pressurized limbo. She stared at the cloud blanket below, seeing not white fluff but the exact pattern of the sheets tangled around John’s legs that morning. The phantom sensation of his lips on her spine warred with the brittle memory of Marcus’s voice through the laptop speaker. Jenny Wu. No one else called her that. It felt like a key turning in a long-locked door.
Armstrong International hit her like a wet fist. The air wasn’t just hot, it was thick, weighted with damp and the distant, muddy decay of the river. It smelled of jet fuel, fried food, and something sweetly organic rotting beneath it all. She joined the river of disembarking passengers, her carry-on rolling behind her like a stubborn pet.
Her phone vibrated in her blazer pocket. A text from John: Landed? She typed a quick yes, then paused, her thumb hovering. She added, It smells like someone boiled a garden. She didn’t send the other thing she thought: I feel completely untethered.
The terminal concourse stretched ahead, a carnival of noise and moving bodies. She scanned the crowd at the barriers, looking for a familiar, sharp-eyed face. Her pulse, a steady drum since LAX, skipped.
He wasn’t at the barrier.
He was leaning against a pillar twenty feet beyond it, slightly apart from the greeting chaos, observing the flow. Marcus Cole. He wore a light linen shirt, sleeves rolled, and dark trousers. He looked utterly at ease, a part of the atmosphere itself. His eyes found hers before she’d fully registered him, a hunter’s quiet lock.
He pushed off the pillar and closed the distance. “You look like you fought with the air conditioner and lost.”
“It’s a hundred percent humidity, Marcus. It’s a biological attack.” Her voice came out drier than she felt.
A faint smile touched his mouth. He didn’t offer to hug her. He just took her larger suitcase handle from her, his fingers brushing hers. A simple, practical move. The contact was electric. “Car’s out front. You can brief me on what little Ruiz has on the flight down.”
“Aren’t you the consultant? Shouldn’t you be briefing me?”
“I know the swamp, Jenny. You know the body. Let’s see if we can still make the pieces talk.” He led the way, moving through the crowd with an assured, unhurried grace she remembered. She followed, the wheels of her bag a whisper on the tile behind him, into the soupy, waiting heat.
The airport doors slid open with a sigh, and the heat enveloped her completely. It had weight. “Christ, it’s like breathing through a wet towel,” she said, blinking in the harsh white sunlight.
Marcus’s car was a vintage Mercedes, black and gleaming with condensation in the flooded parking lot. He tossed her bag in the trunk. “You get used to it. Or you don’t. Either way, it’s in charge.”
The car’s interior was chilled leather and old spice. She sank into the passenger seat, the flight’s stiffness seeping from her joints. He navigated out of the airport with a relaxed precision, one wrist resting on the wheel. The city unfolded, a cascade of palm fronds, peeling pastel buildings, and wrought-iron balconies sagging under the weight of ferns.
“So, Arlo Finch,” she began, forcing her mind onto the work.
“A tourist with bad finances and worse friends,” Marcus supplied, his eyes on the road. “His laundering operation was small-time. A vanity project for the kind of men who don’t like loose ends.”
“You think he was a loose end?”
“I think a man is shot once, neatly, in a convertible on a tourist walkway. That’s a message. The question is for who.” He glanced at her. “Ruiz said you pulled a print.”
“From the car’s navigation screen. A partial, smudged. It matched a guy named Remy Doucet. Petty burglary, aggravated assault. A local.”
Marcus’s mouth tightened, almost imperceptibly. “Remy’s not a mastermind. He’s hired hands. Useful, but disposable.” He turned down a narrower street, the buildings crowding closer. “We’ll start with the hands.”
The precinct they pulled up to wasn’t like hers in Los Feliz. This was a low, buff-colored building with tired azaleas struggling in concrete planters. The air inside was marginally cooler, but carried the stale, persistent notes of burnt coffee, mildew, and human sweat.
A desk sergeant with a close-shaven head and eyes like chips of flint looked up as they entered. His gaze slid over Jennifer, lingered on Marcus, and a slow, knowing smile spread. “Cole. Heard you were back on the leash. Departmental consulting fit okay?”
“It fits, Leroi.” Marcus rested his hands on the high counter. “This is Detective Wu, LAPD. We’re looking for Remy Doucet.”
Leroi’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He looked at Jennifer properly now, an appraising, unhurried scan. “L.A., huh? You here about that game show guy.” It wasn’t a question. “Remy’s not been around. Word is he came into a little money, got skittish.”
“We’d like to find him before he spends it all,” Jennifer said, her voice calm and clear in the humid stillness of the room.
Leroi leaned back, his chair groaning. He looked at Marcus, ignoring her. “Your show, Marcus. But the water’s murky on this one. Finch was playing in puddles he didn’t know had gators.” He shifted his gaze back to Jennifer, finally. “You sure you want to go wading?”
Before she could answer, a door behind the counter swung open. A woman stepped out, maybe late forties, with a fierce gray braid over one shoulder and a detective’s shield clipped to a belt sagging with the weight of a holstered Glock. Her face was a map of fine lines and quiet patience.
“Leroi, stop scaring the visitors,” she said, her voice a warm, gravelly alto. She extended a hand to Jennifer over the counter. “Detective Evangeline Theriot. You must be Wu. Captain Ruiz called, said you’d be digging. Welcome to the Fourth.”
Jennifer shook her hand, finding the grip firm and dry. “Jennifer. Appreciate the welcome.”
Evangeline nodded, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “You’ll be wanting to see the evidence from your end, see if it talks to anything from ours.” She looked past Jennifer to Marcus. “Marcus. Good to see you.”
“Evangeline.” He gave a slight, respectful nod. “You have the file on Remy’s known associates?”
“I do. And I’ve got a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste like motor oil in my office. Let’s have a conversation.” She held the door open, her manner pragmatic and inviting no argument. As Jennifer moved past her, Evangeline added, softly, just for her, “Don’t mind Leroi. He thinks hospitality is a sign of weakness.”
In the cramped, orderly office, file boxes formed towers against one wall. A fan oscillated in the corner, pushing the thick air around. Evangeline poured coffee from a personal carafe into three mismatched mugs. “So,” she said, handing one to Jennifer. “You and Marcus have history.”
Jennifer’s cup halted halfway to her lips. She glanced at Marcus, who was studying a framed photograph on the wall—a younger Evangeline standing knee-deep in swamp water.
“It was a while ago,” Jennifer said, carefully.
“Mm-hmm.” Evangeline sipped her coffee, her eyes knowing. “He requested you specifically, you know. When Ruiz called down for a liaison. Said you were the only one on that coast who could tell the difference between a clue and a coincidence.” She set her mug down with a soft click. “High praise, from him.”
Jennifer felt Marcus’s silence like a physical presence in the room. She didn’t look at him. “The print,” she said, redirecting. “Remy Doucet. You think he’s still in the city?”
Evangeline opened a folder, spreading photos on her desk. Remy’s mugshot showed a man with hungry eyes and a sneer.
Evangeline tapped the photo with a blunt finger. "He was mean, but not smart. The kind who brags in the wrong bars." The fan whirred, pushing the damp air across Jennifer’s skin.
Marcus leaned over the desk, his shadow falling across the image. "Where's he holing up?"
"Last known was a flophouse near the river. We checked this morning." Evangeline’s radio crackled on her hip, a burst of static and coded numbers. She unclipped it, held it to her ear. Her eyes, previously warm, iced over. "Say again." A pause. The coffee scent in the room suddenly felt cloying, thick. "Understood."
She lowered the radio. Looked first at Marcus, then settled her gaze on Jennifer. The humidity in the office seemed to congeal.
"Patrol just fished a body out of the Industrial Canal. ID in his wallet." She let the silence stretch, heavy and intentional. "Remy's dead."
Jennifer felt the words land like a physical blow. The partial print, the lone thread from L.A., now severed. Marcus didn’t move, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Evangeline dropped the radio onto the file. "Single gunshot to the temple. Same as your guy in the convertible." She shook her head, a slow, weary motion. "Message received."
The silence in the humid office became a third presence, dense and suffocating. Jennifer stared at the grainy photo of Remy Doucet’s sneer, now the face of a dead end. Her coffee tasted like acid.
“They’re cleaning house,” Marcus said, his voice a low rumble. He didn’t sound surprised. He sounded resigned.
Evangeline pushed back from her desk, the chair legs screeching on the linoleum. “Cleaning implies mess. This is sanitization. Your print was the only direct link from Finch to here. Now it’s been dissolved in canal water.” She fixed them with a pragmatic stare. “Your case just got Louisiana-sized. You need a new thread.”
Jennifer’s mind, still half-tangled in the memory of John’s sheets and the sterile airport goodbye, snapped into a cold, sharp focus. The frustration was a fuel. “The money. Finch’s laundering. The flow doesn’t stop because one accountant and one goon are dead. There’s a system.”
“A system protected by a demonstration,” Marcus added. He finally looked at her, his gaze stripping away the years in an instant. It was all business, but the history was there, in the assessing weight of it. “We need the bank. The shell company records.”
Evangeline snorted. “Good luck. Those records are smoke in this parish. But Remy had a cousin. Léon Doucet. Less mean, more talkative. Owns a little auto shop out in the Ninth Ward.” She scribbled an address on a sticky note, the pen digging into the paper. “If Remy bragged to anyone, it was to Léon. He might be feeling chatty, now that family’s turned up dead.”
Jennifer took the note. The paper felt flimsy, a fragile counterweight to the violence it represented. “You’re not coming?”
“My jurisdiction ends where the pavement gets patchy. This is your chase.” Evangeline’s eyes flicked to Marcus. “You two know how to run one.”
The sun outside was a white hammer. The Mercedes’s leather seats were scorching, searing through Jennifer’s slacks. She cranked the AC, but the air it pushed was barely cooler than the soup outside.
Marcus guided the car through streets that narrowed into canals of shadow and shattered light. “Léon will be scared. Or hostile. Probably both.”
“I’m good with scared,” Jennifer said, watching weathered houses slide by. “Scared people make mistakes. They remember details.”
“He might not be there. He might have already gotten a visit.”
“Then we’ll see what was left behind.” She turned from the window. “You requested me specifically.”
He drove in silence for a full block. The radio played static and a zydeco accordion, faint and mournful. “You’re the best detective Ruiz has. You see the strings, not just the puppet. I need that for this.”
“That’s the only reason?”
A muscle in his jaw feathered. “It’s the professional reason, Jenny. The one that matters in a report.”
The auto shop was a rusted corrugated metal shell clinging to a cracked slab of concrete. Two lifted pickup trucks sat on deflated tires, gutted. The sign, ‘Doucet’s Repairs,’ had lost half its letters.
The air smelled of hot oil, gasoline, and the slow, sweet rot of the nearby wetlands. A man in grease-stained coveralls was hunched over the engine bay of a sedan, a wrench in his hand. He looked up as the Mercedes crunched to a stop on the gravel, his eyes narrowing against the glare. He didn’t straighten up. He just watched.
Jennifer and Marcus approached, their shoes crunching in the silence. The buzz of insects was a high-pitched wall of sound.
“Léon Doucet?” Marcus’s voice was calm, carrying.
The man wiped his hands on a rag that was already black. “Who’s askin’?”
“Detectives. We need to talk about Remy.”
Léon’s expression didn’t change, but a vein in his temple began to pulse. He threw the rag onto the fender. “Ain’t seen him. Don’t wanna.”
“We understand that,” Jennifer said, keeping her tone even, non-confrontational. She took a step closer, within his space but not aggressively so. “We need you to come with us, Léon. There’s been an incident. We need a formal identification.”
He froze. The wrench hung loose in his grip. “Identification of what?”
Marcus answered, his voice low and devoid of any cushion. “A body, pulled from the Industrial Canal this morning. We need you to look at it.”
Léon’s face collapsed inward. All the defensive toughness bled out, leaving something pale and shaken. He looked from Marcus to Jennifer, searching for a lie, and found none. The wrench clattered to the concrete. “He’s dead.”
“We’re very sorry,” Jennifer said. The words felt inadequate, which they were.
He stared at his oil-blackened hands. A full minute passed, measured in the drone of flies. Finally, he nodded, a short, jerky motion. “Let me clean up.”
The ride to the parish morgue was silent. Léon sat in the back, staring out the window, smelling of soap and simmering shock. The sterile, chilled air of the morgue’s viewing room was a violent contrast to the swamp heat. A sheet-covered form lay on a stainless steel gurney.
The attendant, a woman with tired eyes, pulled the sheet back just far enough to reveal the swollen, waxy face.
Léon made a sound like a punched lung. He took one step forward, then his legs buckled. Marcus was closer, catching him under the arm, holding him upright. Léon didn’t sob; he shuddered, a series of violent, silent tremors that seemed to rip through his core. He stared at his cousin’s ruined face, then turned away, burying his own in his hands. “Alright,” he choked out. “That’s him. That’s Remy.”
They led him to a bleak interview room, bringing him water in a paper cup. He held it without drinking. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
“Who did this, Léon?” Jennifer asked softly, once the worst of the shaking had passed.
“I don’t know.” His voice was raw. “I mean it. He was mixed up. Always was, since we were kids. Could never leave the fast money alone.” He finally took a sip, his hand unsteady. “He’d get these calls. All times. He’d get jumpy, then he’d flash a new roll of cash. Never said from who.”
“But you have ideas,” Marcus stated, leaning back in his chair. It wasn’t a question.
Léon’s eyes were red-rimmed and hopeless. “Look at who he talked to. The regulars. Not his drinkin’ buddies. The quiet ones. The ones who’d meet him at the neutral ground, hand him a bag, don’t say nothin’. He was a tool. A stupid tool. And somebody just broke their tool.” He set the cup down. “That’s all I got.”
Back at the precinct, Jennifer borrowed Evangeline’s desk phone. Captain Ruiz answered on the first ring. “Wu. Tell me you’re not drowning.”
“Not literally. Our print is dead. Fished out of a canal this morning, same M.O. as Finch.” She summarized the sterile room, Léon’s breakdown, the vague suggestion about Remy’s contacts. “The connection is here, Captain. It’s local. The money trail is the only thread left.”
Ruiz was quiet for a moment. “And Cole?”
“He’s… sharp.” She glanced at Marcus, who was across the room in low conversation with Evangeline. “He knows the ground.”
“Good. Keep your head down. And, Jennifer?” His tone shifted, becoming the voice from his sunlit kitchen. “Be careful who you trust down there. The water’s murky.”
“Always am,” she said, and hung up.
Later, in her bland hotel room, the events of the day curdled in her stomach. She picked up her personal phone, scrolling to John’s name. He answered on the second ring.
“Hey. You calling to complain about the bugs?” His voice was a warm anchor, pulling her back to a different world.
A genuine smile touched her lips. “The bugs are the size of small birds. I think one tried to scan my badge.”
He laughed, and the sound eased a knot between her shoulders. They talked about nothing. His mother’s suspicious looks, a ridiculous report he’d filed, the horrible coffee at his desk. It was light, effortless, and it draped over the day’s grim imagery like a soft blanket. She lay back on the stiff hotel bed, listening to him, and felt the coiled tension in her spine begin to unwind.
“Get some sleep, Jen,” he said finally, his voice soft. “Come back soon.”
“I will,” she whispered. The call ended. The room was quiet, but the echo of his laugh lingered, a talisman against the dark. She slept deeply, and without dreams.
The next morning, under a sky the color of a bruised peach, Evangeline laid out the plan. “We need ears on the ground they won’t see coming. For that, we need the community.” They were in her office again, maps of the Ninth Ward spread out. “I’ve called a briefing with a few key leaders. The pastor at St. Magdalene, the head of the neighborhood watch, old Mrs. LeBlanc who knows everything that breathes on her block. Their cooperation is key. They see things we never will.”
Marcus agreed, his arms crossed. “If Remy was meeting people, someone saw a car, a face. They just need a reason to remember.”
The briefing was set for ten a.m. at a community center a few blocks away. As they walked, the humid air clung to Jennifer’s blazer. Marcus walked slightly behind her, his gaze lingering on the confident sway of her hips, the way her trousers curved over her perfect ass. The professional detachment of the last day momentarily evaporated, replaced by a crisp, vivid memory of the feel of her skin under his hands years ago. He wouldn’t mind another roll in the hay with her. Not one bit.
They reached the faded blue door of the community center. Evangeline was already inside, her voice audible, greeting someone. Jennifer reached for the handle and opend the door.
"Come in, detectives," Evangeline said. "Mrs. LeBlanc’s waiting inside with the others."
The community center smelled of pine tar soap and old coffee, the air thick with the low murmur of voices over the hum of a poorly maintained AC unit. A row of folding chairs faced a small stage, where a silver-haired woman with a face like crumpled parchment stood speaking to a young man in a hoodie.
Evangeline didn’t bother with introductions. "This is Mrs. LeBlanc," she said, gesturing to the older woman. "She knows every car, every plate, every bad decision made in a two-mile radius."
Mrs. LeBlanc’s sharp dark eyes flicked over Jennifer and Marcus before settling on Marcus with recognition. "Captain Cole," she said, nodding.
"Heard you were back in these parts. Time sure does fly when you're running from ghosts."
Marcus gave a small, tight smile. "Time flies whether you're running or not, Mrs. LeBlanc. So you're saying you know Remy Doucet's usual ride?"
The old woman's lips thinned into a line. "Remy drove a beat-up black Chevy, always smelled like cheap cologne and bad decisions. But the car you care about isn't his—it's the one he was found in. Silver Lexus convertible. Didn't belong to him."
Jennifer's pen hovered over her notepad. "You see who was driving it?" Jennifer asked, keeping her tone casual, as if they were discussing the weather.
Mrs. LeBlanc's gaze sharpened, a glint of something knowing in the dark eyes. "You don't beat around the bush, do you, Detective?"
Marcus leaned against the back of one of the folding chairs, his arms crossed, watching the exchange. "Directness saves time, Mrs. LeBlanc. And time is something we're running short on."
The woman let out a cackle that seemed to shake the loose wires in her hearing aid. "God bless you, Captain Cole. Always with the charm." She turned back to Jennifer. "The driver was a man named Darius Veyrac. Mid-forties.
Drives a newer model silver Lexus. One of those wives in the Garden district who tip well and don’t ask questions about where the money comes from. He was meeting people at that toy store on Hollywood Boulevard, the one with the robot outside the window.”
Jennifer’s pen hesitated for half a second before tapping the notepad against her thigh. The name *Darius Veyrac* didn’t ring any immediate bells, but the car description—silver Lexus convertible—matched the victim’s vehicle from the LAPD case. A chill skittered up her spine.
Evangeline stepped forward, her sharp eyes locking onto Mrs. LeBlanc.
“Did he see Remy get into the car?”
The old woman’s lips curled into something between a smile and a grimace. “Remy didn’t get into cars anymore. Not like that. He walked to that toy store like he owned the sidewalk. But Darius was already inside when Remy arrived. Waited twenty minutes, then came out alone.”
Jennifer’s fingers tapped the notepad, a rhythm of controlled impatience. “You’re certain?”
Mrs. LeBlanc’s gaze darkened, sharp as a knife. “I’ve been watching that store since I was knee-high.
I know every face that comes out of there. And that one? Darius Veyrac—he cleaned his shoes on the welcome mat like he owned the damn pedicure.”
Marcus exhaled through his nose, a slow, controlled release of frustration. “So Remy went in. No weapon. Pickup by Darius. No Lexus in sight during the meet.” He turned to Jennifer, his expression tightening. “Finch was executed in a convertible that didn’t belong to him, driven by someone with a clean record, no obvious ties. And now we’re asking a wet-behind-the-ears toy store about it.”
Evangeline didn’t flinch. “The store’s called *Playtime Emporium*.
Cute name, lousy security.” Mrs. LeBlanc’s gnarled fingers tapped the edge of her cane, a rhythm as deliberate as a judge’s gavel. “Cameras face the robots out front so parents can take pictures but the back door? A blind spot. A cat could walk in and walk away with the entire stock of remote-control fire trucks.”
Jennifer’s eyes flicked to Marcus, catching the subtle tension in his jaw. He was thinking the same thing she was—no footage meant no direct proof, but it also meant no witnesses inside. Just a toy store and an unmarked silver Lexus parked at the curb.
Evangeline’s phone buzzed on the table.
She glanced at the screen, her expression darkening. "The fire marshal just called the toy store. Fire in the storage room. Electrical, they think."
Jennifer’s fingers tightened around her pen. "Convenient timing."
Marcus crossed his arms, the movement pressing his linen shirt against the hard planes of his chest. "Or calculated." He turned to Mrs. LeBlanc. "You know the owner?"
The old woman shook her head. "Name’s Gareth. Comin’ in from out of town. Bought the place three months ago. Cash."
Jennifer’s pulse quickened. Cash. No paper trail. Exactly the kind of transaction that left no footprints.