“Yeah,” I said. “Well, the youngest in my family. Donna’s the oldest, then Tess, then me.”
“I’m the youngest, too,” Kelsey whispered. “It’s like I’m always screwing up.”
I got that. “The fact that Danny was a jerk isn’t your fault. Do you blame yourself? If you do, I know a heck of a shrink. It’s our cousin Wanda.” Well, cousin a bunch of times removed. But she helped me all the time. “Danny’s problems were his and not yours.” I leaned toward her. “My sister Tessa is the strongest and smartest person I’ve ever met, and she dated him.”
“I think she’s still dating him,” Kelsey said, her green eyes shallow with what looked like pain. “That’s what we were fighting about when things got…out of hand.”
My heartbeat increased. “I know they talked a few times, but Tess said they weren’t dating. That she’d never date him again.”
“That’s probably true,” Kelsey sighed, looking down at the pillow. “But they were talking, and when Danny wanted something, he usually got it.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “How long did you date Danny?” Should I say that I was sorry about her loss? As it looked to me, she was lucky the bastard was dead. Saying that was probably a bad idea at the moment.
“Next week is our two-month anniversary,” she said quietly. “He wasn’t all bad, you know. It’s just, sometimes when he drank, he got so angry. But there were good times, too. I loved riding on his bike with him.” A slight color finally filtered into her too pale face. “You know what I mean.”
I blinked. “I do?”
“Sure. Aren’t you dating Aiden Devlin?” She leaned forward. “Is it true he’s the president of the Lordes now?”
The breath heated up my throat. “I’m not sure on either front.”
She made a sympathetic sound. “Then you’re probably not dating him. When those guys cut a girl loose, they do it completely. I’m sorry.”
I tilted my head and tried really hard to ignore the truth of that dagger to the heart. “Danny wasn’t a member of the Lordes, was he?”
“No.” She smiled. “They were just doing some business together.”
Finally we were getting somewhere. “What kind of business was Danny in?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like he shared that kind of information, you know? But we rode with Aiden and the Lordes a few times, and I know they had something in the works.”
“Drug related?” If the Lordes were running drugs again, I was going to shoot Aiden.
“I don’t think so,” Kelsey murmured. “I overheard one of the guys approach Aiden about drugs while we were camping out one night, and Aiden was very clear that the Lordes were out of the drug trade.”
“What guys?”
“Danny had a lot of business partners.” For the first time, Kelsey looked away. Her blush intensified.
I watched her carefully. “Like who?”
She didn’t look back at me.
Was she scared or just being careful? “You can trust me,” I said.
“I can’t trust anybody,” she said quietly, folding her hands on the pillow. “Danny kept me out of his business.”
I so didn’t want to ask the next question, but I couldn’t help myself. “Did anybody ride on the back of Aiden’s bike? Was he, um, camping out with anybody?”
“No.”
Relief filtered through me with a speed that should be embarrassing.
She shook her head. “In the few times I’ve seen Aiden, I’ve never seen him with a woman. At the camp out, a couple of women made moves on him, and he didn’t take anybody up on the invite that night. Not that I saw, anyway. I heard through the Silverville grapevine that he was dating you, so I figured that was why. I guess not.”
“Tell me more about this camp out,” I said. Just what were Aiden and Danny into, anyway? “Where was it and what was going on?”
“Hello?” The front door opened and a slightly, very slightly, older version of Kelsey walked in with her hands ladened down with bags. “I brought groceries and stuff to make for dinner since I gave you the day off.” The woman paused at seeing me, and her green eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
