Turning to look at Remy, I had to guess the expression on my face matched his. Anger, shock, confusion, and the bitter tang of betrayal. That contract was worth close to seven-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars.
Pushing back from my desk, I followed Bax into the lab and looked around. Nothing else looked like it’d been messed with.
“I don’t get it,” Bax mumbled, shoving his fingers into his hair. “I always save the reports and lock up the samples.”
“Is there any way of pulling up previous versions of the reports?” I asked Remy over my shoulder, my eyes scanning over every surface to see if anything stood out.
“I can do my best. I just can’t guarantee it.”
Storming through to my computer, I jiggled the mouse to wake it up and went into the storage for our security cameras to see if anyone had been caught on them. The clips were only fifteen seconds long, but I went through each one carefully, not seeing anything unusual. That was until I noticed some time stamps were missing.
“Hey, Remy, you know how Gus came to see us two nights ago and said he’d walked past the office because he thought he’d heard something?” Getting a grunt, I explained, “Well, he would have been caught on the cameras, but no clip’s coming up on the system.”
“Looks like you’ve got a rat problem,” Elijah clipped as he sat down in the chair in front of my desk. “Did the vet ever say what he thought had caused the injury to your horse that made him run into Addy?”
“Possibly inflicted by someone, or possibly him getting spooked by something and injuring himself as he ran. There’s no certainty which one it is unless someone comes forward and tells us they did it.”
Elijah’s eye twitched. “Did you check the clips for the cameras facing the stables to see if it showed up?”
“Already ahead of you on that one,” Remy rumbled. “I checked it the day Hayes hit Addy, and all you can see is him galloping around the corner on one camera, him racing across the courtyard on another, and the collision with Addy on the last one. Nothing shows him hitting up against something or someone inflicting the injury on him.”
Rubbing his jaw, my brother’s eyes narrowed as he thought it over. “If it was inflicted, who’d be your best guess?”
“It’s one thing to have nonsensical bullshit happening with one of the hands, but it’s another for them to hurt one of the horses they care for intentionally and to ruin a contract we’ve been working on for years,” I said slowly.
Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, Elijah stared at me intently. “But if you had to choose someone, you’d likely point the finger at Marni, correct?” Unable to say the words, I jerked my chin at him to confirm it. “And she has the passwords for your security and the computer systems?”
“All of the hands have the security login and codes in case an alarm’s triggered, and we’re not here,” Remy explained. “There are also screens in the bunkhouse and the cabins Marni and Santana live in that link to the feed, in case they need to call the police.”
“So it’d be easy for her to delete clips,” Elijah pointed out. “And the computer?”
“Marni’s brother asked us to give her a job because she was getting into shit in Kissimmee. Wild partying, reckless driving, and almost giving her dad a heart attack. She was kicked out of high school for hacking into the system and finding the tests they were about to take, then sending out the answers to entire grade.”
Sitting back in my chair, I linked my hands behind my neck and clenched my eyes shut. “But would she hurt a horse and fuck shit up for us like this? We’ve never done anything to her to make her want to fuck up our lives.”
“But if she’s spiraling, man, she might not see it that way.” Hearing the words from my brother, I felt like losing my mind.
Blinking my eyes open, I looked over at my best friend. “Is there any way you can bring up the deleted clips from the security cameras? I want to have evidence when I take this to the cops.”
Remy was a computer guru. I wouldn’t say he was a hacker or anything like that, but he was what we referred to as a finder. Whatever information we needed, regardless of how he obtained it, he’d get it for us.
His dad worked for the government doing something similar, and it wasn’t unheard of for them to outsource to Remy from time to time, hence how Toby had been conceived. I never asked what the contracts were or what information was being requested, I also never asked him how he got what he got. That wasn’t any of my business, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. So long as he was okay, that’s what mattered.