“That dope-running bunch from the projects?”
“Yep, that’d be them.”
“Damn. You might be right about this Long guy being a dirty cop.”
“It’d make sense. The question is...who else was involved, and did Remington know about it?”
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I got pissed at the idea of her seeing some cop. Something told me it wouldn’t have mattered who she was with; I still wouldn’t have liked it. Hell, I was getting more fucked up by the minute. Trying to redirect my focus, I looked up at Menace and said, “We don’t even know if she’s involved with Long. The news just said they were last seen together, but that doesn’t mean she was actually dating the guy or even knew him.”
“Yeah, you got a point there.” He turned the screen back around, then started typing away on his keyboard. “Now that we actually know her name, I can do some digging and see what I can find on her. Maybe then, we can figure out what we’re dealing with here.”
“Get to it, brother.”
In a matter of minutes, he had Remington’s Facebook and Instagram pages pulled up, and when an image of her came up on the screen, it almost took my breath away. Fuck. Just like the night when I’d seen her at Stilettos, she was absolutely stunning—the kind of beauty you’d expect to see in some ritzy magazine. Her long dark hair and olive skin brought out her deep, sultry eyes, making me wonder what kind of secrets she kept hidden beneath them. As I looked at Remington’s hour-glass figure, rage started to creep over me once again. Not only because someone beat the hell out of her and left her for dead, but the fact that the mere sight of her had the blood rushing to my cock.
Sensing my interest in her, Menace glanced over to me with a smirk. “She’s a real looker, isn’t she?”
“Whatever.”
“Oh, come on, brother.” A big, mischievous smirk crossed my brother’s unshaven face, making the bristles of his day-old beard protrude from his chin. The asshole was mocking me when he said, “You gotta admit that she’s hot.”
“Focus, Menace.”
“Damn, this chick has gotten all up in your head, hasn’t she?”
“Menace,” I warned.
“Okay, okay. Back at it.”
Menace turned his attention to the task at hand, and it wasn’t long before he was able to connect the information from her Facebook page to confirm the identity of her parents, her friends, and where she worked. With that knowledge, he was able to locate her address, driver’s license, and medical history, and that was just the beginning. It wasn’t long before he had everything there was to know about her—including the fact that she’d only been living in Nashville for a couple of months. He was still focused on the screen when he asked, “You seeing something I don’t? ’Cause I’m not finding anything that could possibly connect her to the cop or the Punishers.”
“Nah, man. I don’t see anything either.”
He turned to face me as he suggested, “Maybe it’s as simple as she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Could be, but I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it than that.”
“I hate to say it, but I do too.” Concern marked his face as he glanced back at the screen and shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ve got big trouble coming our way with all of this.”
“I don’t disagree.” I thought for a moment, then suggested, “Why don’t you dig into this Thomas Long guy? Maybe we can find a connection there.”
He nodded, then got busy typing away on his laptop. He pulled up everything there was on the guy, and from what we could tell, he’d been investigating several guys within the metro unit. Other than that, there wasn’t much on the guy. Menace shook his head as he said, “I don’t know, Shotgun. Everything from his track record with the force to his bank accounts makes it look like this guy is legit.”
“What about the restaurant they mentioned on the news? You think they’ve got any security cameras?”
“No idea, but I can look.” As he turned back to his laptop, he asked, “It was the Parlor, right?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
I waited for several minutes, hoping he’d be able to come up with something. Eventually, he looked over to me and said, “Sorry, man. Looks like someone fucked with it. No feed whatsoever from the night of the attack.”
“Fuck.”
“I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to track down Drake and Alfonzo.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll go talk to Prez as soon as I find their location. If I can run them down, I’ll get with Viper and check with him about bringing them in.”
“Sounds good.” I stood up and started towards the door. “While you’re doing that, I’m gonna go back and talk to Remington. See if she’s remembered anything.”