“No way,” I said. “Harrington had a .38 to the teacher’s neck. He turned toward the students and Kelly Borland. All that was true.”

“Okay,” she said. “So be it then. Harrington brought a loaded gun into a middle school and murdered a teacher. He was about to shoot our boss’s kid. You did the right thing.”

I was leaning against the house. “I know,” I said. “But—”

“But nothing,” Remy answered.

I stared at her.

“Forget the call ever happened,” she said. “The GBI’s taking the case over anyway.”

For two years I’d been giving my partner shit for being too black and white in her thinking.

Learn to swim in the gray area, I’d said to her.

If she was letting me off the hook now, this was a new Remy. Drenched in so much gray I could hardly recognize her.

“That’s why Monroe said your name on TV,” Remy pointed out. “An hour after the shooting.”

I nodded. “Make me a hero, and I won’t turn on him.”

Remy stared at me, her face twisted. “But Tarticoft,” she said. “Something’s wrong, P.T. He was a paid killer. If he went after Lena and Jonas . . . who hired him?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about that since the night you shot him.”

“And you got nothing?” Remy flicked her eyebrows. “C’mon, P.T. I know you better than that.”

“I thought the attack on Lena and Jonas might be related to an old case,” I said. “Someone trying to get at me. But I was only on one investigation when Tarticoft drove them off the road.”

“Which was what?” she asked.

This was a time that predated Remy and me working together.

“A robbery at a liquor store,” I said.

“And you’re thinking what?” Remy asked. “Someone came at Lena to get you off that robbery?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a big heist?”

“Just the opposite,” I said. “Thirty-three dollars and a Cherry Coke were stolen.”

“It might have nothing to do with your wife then.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But the manager at the liquor store was lying to me, and I couldn’t figure out why. I kept circling back there. Harassing him.”

“So do you have a lead or not?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “The liquor store went out of business, Rem. It’s been abandoned. But I searched—a month ago—for who owned the property. Thinking I might ask the owner if I could look around the place. You know, re-jog an old memory?”

“Sure,” Remy said. “Who owns it?”

“An outfit called FJF Investments.”

“Should that mean something to me?”

“It’s a partnership,” I said. “But when I searched further, I noticed every legal document was authored by Lauten Hartley. Most signed by him. He owns the majority stake.”

“I know that name,” Remy said.

“The first time we saw Hartley was last Christmas,” I said. “A rich guy named Bernie hanged himself in jail. Lauten Hartley was the family attorney. Last person to talk to the rich guy.”