Page 13 of Kyle

“Where’s Mrs. Silver?” he asks, like we just left her upstairs with her throat slit.

“Relax, Chad,” Cole says. “She had some calls to make.” He approaches the man and rests his fists on the desk.

Chad leans back in terror.

“Did you have any unusual visitors the week Mr. Silver died?”

Chad shakes his head. “No. No one. I swear.”

We leave the man shaking in his shoes and walk to our bikes.

“What do you think?” TJ asks his father.

“I’m thinking we drive to Machado Almond Co.” He flips open the file and checks the information. Then pulls it up on his phone’s map app. “Looks like the orchard is near theintersection of I5 and I40, north of Santa Nella. Come on. Let’s go, boys.”

“How far is it?” Billy asks. “I’ve got a little over a half a tank.”

“Eighty-nine miles. You’ll make it. There’s a gas station at the exit.”

We mount up and head out.

CHAPTER SIX

Kyle—

An hour and a half later, we pull off the exit and stop at the gas station. My phone goes off, and I pull it out of my hip pocket, glancing at the screen.

Rafe.

Grinding my teeth, I shove it back where it was.

TJ notices. “Who was that?”

“My brother.”

TJ chuckles. “Probably calling for your help again.”

“Oh, he’s already waiting for an answer from the last thing he asked me to do.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“He wants me to hire Sutton to work for me.”

“On the food truck? What’d you tell him?”

“I gave him a bunch of reasons why it would be a lousy idea. He kept shooting them down. So, I told him I’d think about it. My plan is to avoid him until he forgets about it.”

“And how’s that workin’?”

“Well, I’m out of town, so so-far so-good.”

“Holy shit.”

We turn and stare at our president, who’s looking at his phone.

“What’s the matter?” TJ asks.

“Check this out, guys.” Cole faces his phone toward us. “I pulled up the area on my map app. You can see the neon green crap polluting the stream in the satellite image.”

---