Or somebody else?
Before I could ask another question, someone called out, “Hey, Milo?”
We looked over. Dillon Kirby, Piper’s employee from Silver Linings, stood several yards away.
Geez, was that stomach bug going around? Because Dillon didn’t look well either. He looked like warmed-over shit.
“How’s it going, Dillon?” Milo asked, walking between the motorcycles toward him.
Dillon dug a hand into his greasy hair. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “Can I talk to you?”
He glanced past Milo’s shoulder, scowling at me, and the rest of that sentence was implied.In private. Whatever Dillon wanted to discuss, he didn’t want me around for it.
“Sure.” Milo gave me an apologetic smile. “I’ll be right back, Grayden. Feel free to look around at the other bikes. Unless you need to take off?”
“I’m good. I’ll be here.”
Milo and Dillon walked toward the shop’s front door and into the small reception area.
But I didn’t stay put. I wanted to know why Dillon looked so stressed.
As soon as the shop’s front door closed, I walked along the building to get closer. The two bay doors to the garage were closed today, probably because it was chilly out.
I paused beside the shop’s front window and leaned against the stucco exterior wall. An upper frame of the window was open for ventilation, which meant I could hear everything they were saying. If I craned my neck, I could just see them without risking them spotting me.
“Have you seen my brother?” Dillon asked.
“I haven’t.” Milo’s voice was tight. “I was out sick for over two days.”
“So he hasn’t been here?”
“No, and that’s obviously an issue. Nobody’s seen him, and he won’t respond to my messages. I was going to callyouto find out what the hell’s up with him. He’s stressing me out.”
Dillon muttered a curse. He grabbed his head and shifted his weight from foot to foot. The picture of anxiety. “You thinkyou’restressed? He told me something was up a couple months ago, but when I’ve asked lately what’s going on with him, he denies anything is wrong.”
I remembered how Dillon had been hanging around with Chad Bronski, the Silver Ridge cop who hated me.
Couldthatbe the brother Dillon was talking about? Not all brothers had the same last name. They could have different fathers.
Mentally, I went back to the details that had been bugging me. The intuition that there was an obvious connection, and yet I was missing it.
So far, all I had were a lot of disjointed threads. Dillon was one of them. Bronski was another. My new friend Milo.
The fake drugs.
Then there was Danny. The break-ins at my place and Piper’s garage. Danny’s stabbing and his reluctance to confess what he’d really been up to in Silver Ridge.
“You guys aren’t all that close,” Milo said.
“But after everything our family has been through, I know my brother. I’m afraid he’s into something really bad this time, Milo. Really, really bad.”
Dillon asked Milo to contact him if his brother showed up. Milo agreed.
I stepped over to a nearby Harley, pretending to admire the leather and chrome, and Dillon stormed out of the shop. He jumped in a car and took off.
Milo came out a couple moments later, sighing heavily.
“Sorry,” he said. “Thanks for waiting around. As you can probably tell, I’m having a shitty day.”
