I had been gone for three days, and although Remy had partially caught me up in the alley last night, I needed a full download on our double murder—and quick.

I pushed through the lobby and nodded at Hope Duffy. Hustled up the stairwell and found my partner. We hadn’t exchanged a word or a text since last night.

“How about we get coffee?” I said. “I’m buying. You can officially catch me up on the case.”

Remy stared at me, her dark eyes searching my face. Wondering if I was still angry about the argument last night. But the reality is—I don’t have a ton of people in my life that I trust. And some days, it seems like Remy, Marvin, and Abe are the only ones. It was too short of a list to write any of them off.

“Sure,” she said. “Let me grab my iPad.”

We walked down the steps to the first floor and out the door. There was a guy who set up in the park down the block and served Italian coffee from a cart.

“So what’s the latest on our old guy?” I asked. “We never discussed that part.”

“We’ve had a BOLO out on him for three days now, and no reports. Patrol’s been canvassing.”

“You said last night you picked up a motel card from the guy who escaped out the window. The one who got shot.”

“Thiago Carilla,” she said. “We’ve also gone through his phone records. I told you about the text we saw, right?”

“He wanted more scratch.”

“Exactly,” Remy said. “We also found earlier texts to Vinorama and Dilmendes. So we know for certain they were all buddies.”

We walked across this spongy material on the playground and over to the coffee cart.

“And what’s the latest on them?” I asked. “The two dead guys in the car.”

“We still suspect they’re drug couriers,” Remy said. “From Carilla’s texts to them, it’s obvious they’re friends. He told them he had something to deliver and could pay them a grand for their trouble. Were they up for a little road trip?”

“They said yes?”

“‘Por supuesto,’ is what they said.” Remy did her best Spanish accent. “Of course.”

We got to the coffee cart, and I ordered an Americano.

“For you, honey?” the coffee cart guy asked Remy.

“Fior di Zagara,” she said.

I paid the guy, and he got under way with making our drinks.

A mom and her son were flying a kite in the distance, and a green dragon flipped and danced against the sky. It smelled like fresh-cut grass outside.

“P.T.,” Remy said. She hesitated, her brow a mess of lines. “Last night—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

I grabbed my coffee. “So the two guys up front in the Caprice both have charges for drug possession,” I said. “And Carilla referred to them as drivers. Can we assume this whole thing is about drugs?”

“Or drug money,” Remy said. “Or what Abe and I were working on. Which is drug equipment.”