CHAPTER NINE
KAI
Rome wanted Dre charged by Monday.
Kai wanted proof.
Those priorities were no longer lining up cleanly.
“We got enough,” Rome said in the conference room. “Video of him carrying the lockbox. He runs. He pulls cash. He stays in a motel under a fake name. What else you waiting for?”
Kai sat at the head of the table with Dez to his right and Malik from IT across from him.
“Proof he took the money.”
Rome spread both hands. “Come on.”
“You asked me what I’m waiting for. That’s what.”
“Police can find him faster than us.”
“Police also turn this into a theft case before we know if it is one.”
Rome leaned back.
“Since when you this patient?”
Dez looked up from his tablet.
Kai did too.
Rome must have heard himself because he added, “I’m saying, eighty-seven ain’t small.”
“Exactly why I’m not handing somebody a story that don’t make sense.”
Malik cleared his throat. “There’s another thing.”
He projected the access log.
“The dispatch message Dre got came through a legacy admin path. We stopped using it last year, but it still exists because some of the older tow contracts push through that system.”
“Who knows it exists?” Kai asked.
“Anybody who’s been here more than a year and had supervisor access.”
Rome’s eyes moved to the screen.
“That ain’t helpful.”
“It’s narrower than staff-wide,” Malik said.
Kai asked for names.
Malik had nine.
Kai.
Dez.
Rome.
Two office managers.
Three senior dispatchers.
One former supervisor whose access should have been removed six months ago.
Kai pointed at the last name. “Why this still live?”
Malik grimaced. “It shouldn’t be.”
“Kill it now. Audit every inactive account.”
“Already started.”
Good.
Kai turned to Rome.
“I want you and Dez on people. Malik stays on systems. Pull financials on everybody who had override access, including us.”
Rome frowned. “Us?”
“Everybody.”
“You think Dez stole your money?”
Dez smiled. “I mean, if I did, I’d have taken more.”
Kai ignored him.
“I think the quickest way to lose control of an investigation is deciding who ain’t worth checking.”
Rome nodded once.
Meeting over.
Dez stayed behind.
Kai knew he would.
“Say it.”
“Rome getting on my nerves.”
“Why?”
“Too eager.”
“He don’t like Dre.”
“Rome don’t like half the young niggas we hire. He wasn’t campaigning this hard when Terrance from Camden disappeared with three catalytic converters.”
Kai remembered.
They found Terrance two days later trying to sell them through a cousin.
“Eighty-seven is different.”
“Maybe.”
Dez closed the tablet.
“I’m not calling him dirty. I’m telling you his energy don’t match the evidence yet.”
Kai nodded.
“I know.”
That was all Dez needed.
He stood.
Then he stopped at the door.
“So.”
Kai didn’t look up. “No.”
“I didn’t ask nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“You stay at Nola’s last night?”
Kai looked at him.
Dez smiled.
“That’s a yes.”
“Mind your business.”
“I have minded my business for years. Specifically because your business did not overlap with mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You. Big women. Supply chain concerns.”
Kai rubbed his forehead.
“You are too old to talk like this.”
“I’m thirty-five. Prime age for marriage.”
“Then get married.”
“To who if your confused ass starts browsing my section?”
Kai laughed despite himself.
Dez pointed. “See? You think this funny. I have supported your discrimination silently for a decade because it benefited me personally.”
“Supported?”
“Silently.”
“You used to call me shallow.”
“For public relations. Privately, I was thrilled.”
Kai shook his head.
“Nola got a friend,” Dez said.
Kai looked up slowly.
Dez grinned.
“Big?”
“That’s always your first question?”
“Pretty is assumed. I’m asking the important shit.”
Kai thought of Mani. Pretty. Big. Quick smile she seemed to hide behind her hand.
“She’s taken.”
Dez’s grin vanished. “Damn.”
“See? Problem solved.”
“For now.”
“Don’t be that nigga.”
“I’m never that nigga. Taken is taken. I can still mourn.”
Kai’s phone rang before Dez could keep going.
One of the tow-lot supervisors.
“Boss, you looking for Dre James, right?”
Kai sat straighter. “Yeah.”
“Security guard over at Whitman Auto says he saw him Wednesday night. Came through with Keem.”
“Wednesday?”
“Night before the money went missing.”
Kai looked at Dez.
“What were they doing?”
“Picking up a toolbox Keem left in one of the repo cars. Guard says Dre was talking to somebody by the side gate.”
“Who?”
“Didn’t know him. Said older Black dude, maybe mid-thirties. Clean clothes. Drove a white Tahoe.”
Kai’s mind moved immediately.
Several supervisors drove SUVs.
Rome drove a white Tahoe.
So did half of South Jersey.
“Get me the footage.”
“Already asked. Guard says camera catches side gate.”
Kai hung up.
Dez didn’t say I told you so.
That was why they had been friends this long.
“Let’s go,” Kai said.
Whitman Auto was twenty minutes away.
The footage was grainy but usable.
Dre stood near the side gate with Keem at 8:17 p.m. Wednesday.
A white Tahoe pulled into the edge of frame.
Driver never got out.
Dre walked over and leaned toward the passenger window.
Thirty seconds later, he stepped back.
The Tahoe left.
License plate blurred by glare.
Kai watched it three times.
“Could be Rome,” Dez said.
“Could be anybody.”
“Yup.”
“Don’t say anything to him yet.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Kai took the footage.
His phone buzzed.
Nola.
YOU EAT?
He stared at the screen.
Dez leaned over.
Kai moved the phone away.
“Mind your business.”
“She checking if you ate?”
“Dez.”
“Oh, you cooked.”
Kai typed back.
NO.
Three dots appeared.
THEN EAT. YOU GET EXTRA BOSSY WHEN YOU HUNGRY.
He smiled before he could stop himself.
Dez saw that too.
“Oh my God.”
Kai put the phone in his pocket.
“Shut up.”
“You smiling at texts.”
“We’re working.”
“You had one rule.”
“I’m about to make a new rule about your employment.”
Dez laughed all the way back to the truck.