His eyes flicked up, taking me in. “Let me guess—you already hit Dad about it. Brave.”
“Save me the commentary.” My arms folded. “Why’d he change his mind?”
Drew slid the phone into his pocket with a sigh. “The new lease is lucrative. Lorne handled the paperwork. Simple as that.”
“Better margins don’t make him change his mind overnight. Figure out what.” Restaurants moved cash faster than canvases. Easier to pad numbers, easier to clean books with volume.
His brow lifted, lazy. “Why me?”
“Because Dad won’t tell me. And you’ve got more access than I do.”
Drew leaned back casually on his hands. “And what exactly am I supposed to be digging for?”
“The reason why,” I said flatly. “He promised it was staying. What changed?”
Something flashed in his gaze, but it was gone before I could fully take note of it.
He covered it with a twitch of his mouth. Not a smile. Not agreement either. “Fine. I’ll poke around. Quietly.”
But it seemed too easy. Drew never made anything easy unless there was something in it for him.
“Lorne signed the authorizations?” I asked.
He tipped his head. “If it’s a lease, it runs through him. I’ll see what paper he buried with it.”
“Do that.”
We held the stare another second. He looked away first.
Later, I sat in my SUV with the engine off. The driveway was hemmed in by dark hedges and fog.
I opened the glove box and pulled out a fresh burner phone. My thumb hovered a second before dialing a number that I hadn’t touched in almost a year.
Marcus Vega. Private investigator. Ex-cop who’d walked off the force with more enemies than friends. Not polished. Not political. That was why I’d kept his number. Because when he dug, he didn’t stop for the people who thought they were untouchable.
The line clicked alive on the second ring. Silence. Then a low voice, professional but edged with street: “Who is this?”
“Luke King.”
A pause. The faint scrape of breath. “This about the girl again?”
“No,” I said flatly. “Something else. Possible relocation. Maybe death. Either way, it was covered up.”
“Go on.”
“Name’s Darren Langley. Former VP at King Enterprises. Disappeared a year ago. I want what really happened to him—and who paid to make it vanish.”
Another pause. Then: “Timeline?”
“Yesterday.”
Another small silence, as if he was weighing me. “Anyone else know you’re digging?”
“No. And it stays that way. Especially from my family.”
“Understood.” A beat. “You’ll hear from me when I have something.”
The line went dead.
