“Scott Keys,” Darius repeated. The name was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
Winnie helped him out.
“He’s known as the White Knight of Small-town Living,” she started. “He finds ways to invest or bring in jobs that help rebuild more rural, forgotten or failing small towns. He had a few interviews at the steel mill here before he announced that his brother would be getting married in Seven Roads. Nothing’s been confirmed, but the hope is that he’s about to white-knight Seven Roads.”
“But it’s his brother getting married, Mitchell?”
That name wasn’t at all familiar.
Regardless, Darius didn’t like it.
Out of his periphery, he saw Winnie nod.
“He doesn’t have a fun nickname or really any kind of popularity other than being called Scott Keys’s brother. His media presence, at least, is pretty low.”
“My bet is that his wedding wouldn’t be that big of a deal if he wasn’t marrying the White Knight’s assistant,” Theo tacked on.
“She’s Scott Keys’s assistant?” Darius asked.
There was a small silence. He bet the two kids shared a look.
“The bride-to-be is, yeah,” Winnie answered after the moment. “She used to be a local… Is that how you know her? From when she lived here as a kid?”
Darius nodded, but even he knew it was tight.
“She was my neighbor.”
Theo made a noise. Out of his periphery, Darius saw Winnie swat back at Theo.
“So thatwasher just now?” he asked. “What did she want? Was she waiting for you? Is there something between—”
“Theo,” Winnie hissed.
“What? Don’t act like you weren’t asking me a billion questions while he was out there talking to her—”
Darius saw it up ahead and to the left. If you didn’t know it was there, it would be easy to drive by. He glanced at the truck’s clock.
If he wanted to get to the old library in time, the Twig was his only option.
But did that mean he was actually going to—
“Son of a—” Darius turned the wheel and bumped along into the Twig. Whatever Winnie and Theo were arguing about, they stopped.
“What are you doing?” Theo asked, but Winnie proved that she was less analytical than the boy. She had already made the jump to the more human problem of the equation.
“Are we going to the wedding?”
Darius cussed a good cuss.
“No,” he decided. “We’re not.”
Despite good tires and an engine that could move mountains, the Twig bounced them good and dirty as he continued driving it.
“Well, we sure aren’t going to the department this way,” Theo pointed out.
Darius was growing hot under the collar. Bothered every bump and divot they drove over, annoyance growing like the clouds of sand his tires kicked up into the air.
Theo was right. He was heading in the opposite direction.
