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“Cassie has other plans,” I said and Brecken raised an eyebrow. He smirked.

“What?” I demanded, pushing the brim of his baseball cap over his eyes.

He flicked the cap back up. “Nothing. I’m starving so let’s go now.”

Brecken had a hearty appetite these days. He wolfed down two plates of pancakes and went back for thirds.

“Take it easy,” I laughed. “You keep going at that pace and you’re gonna turn into a pancake yourself.”

“That’s the beauty of an all you can eat buffet,” he said, ignoring my advice and piling his plate high for the third time.

The summer sky was darkening by the time I finally convinced Brecken that he’d consumed an adequate amount of carbs for the evening.

It was in the parking lot outside of Pancake Buffet that something caught my eye.

The two girls were walking about twenty yards ahead of us, holding onto each other and laughing as they clutched their phones. They were young, probably high school age, and the one on the right looked very familiar. I felt a little sick when I realized why.

I’d last seen her hurriedly replacing her clothes in a shitty motel room after I’d walked in on a three way fuck fest between her, my brother and some other girl who wasn’t the friend currently laughing at her side.

“Wait!” I shouted.

The girls turned around, startled looks on their faces. I pulled Brecken along with me as I ran over, hoping I appeared less threatening in the company of a kid. It probably wasn’t the best idea to chase down a pair of high school girls in the parking lot of Pancake Buffet but she was the first link to Tristan I’d come across. I didn’t know his other friends, or even if he had any. If there was any chance this girl knew something then I needed to talk to her.

“I’ve got pepper spray,” the other girl warned, digging around in her handbag.

I stopped a good ten feet away and held my hands out. “I’m looking for my brother,” I said. “Tristan Mulligan. Do either of you happen to know where he might be?”

The pepper spray chick stopped searching for her weapon and stared at me. The other one, the one who’d been with Tristan, flushed with embarrassment. Her cheeks pinked and she stared down at her flip-flops. She remembered where she’d seen me last.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“I think he skipped town,” the other girl said, nudging her friend. “You were hooking up with him, Sam. Didn’t he say he was leaving?”

Sam was still examining her toes. I could imagine she wasn’t too excited to run into me again and I felt bad that she was uncomfortable but this was my only shot.

“Sam?” I prodded. “Please? We’re very worried. We need to make sure he’s okay.”

“I miss him,” said Brecken and that’s when Sam looked up. Her round-cheeked features softened when she saw Brecken’s anguish.

“Yeah, he left,” she said. “I can’t remember when exactly but it was probably a week ago. He was crashing with this loser named Grady and then there was some trouble. Tristan said that he wouldn’t be around for a while.”

“This Grady,” I said, seizing on any information I could. “Is he a kid, a high school student?”

“No, he’s old. He’s like twenty-five,” Sam’s friend said. “He can get you any kind of pill you want but he’s a disgusting dog, thinks every pair of boobs was put on this earth just for his entertainment. This one time we were all partying down by the canal and-“

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, not really caring to hear a long story about Grady’s lecherous misdeeds. “You said there was trouble. What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “But I think it was bad. Tristan, he seemed scared the last time I saw him. Look, I knew you guys had this big fight and I told him to go to you but he said he couldn’t do that.”

“He couldn’t do that,” I repeated. “Why couldn’t he?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

“And Grady?” I asked. “Where can I find him?”

“The nearest gutter,” Sam’s friend said and then cackled at her own wit.

“I haven’t seen Grady around either,” Sam told me. “I don’t know where he went.”

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