Page 16 of Kyle

“Yeah. Sometimes a plane lands over there. Mr. Big Shot flies around in a private plane, I guess.”

“Mr. Big Shot?”

Machado shrugs. “Property is in the name of Warren Drake. I only know that from looking up the docs online. Never met the guy.”

“How often do these planes come and go?”

“Every couple of days. Usually just before sunrise, I’ll hear one come in. It never stays long.”

Cole frowns. “Have they got landing strip lights over there?”

Machado shrugs.

“They come this morning?”

“Nah.”

“So maybe they’ll come tomorrow?”

“Probably.”

“Mind if we go across your land and check out what’s going on over there?”

“You think it’s why Mr. Silver was killed?”

“Maybe. Security cameras, mysterious pre-dawn flights in and out… Something’s going on. Maybe Silver stumbled upon it when he was trying to find out who polluted your stream.”

“So, if I hadn’t contacted him for help, he’d still be alive?” The man looks forlorn.

Cole slaps a hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna find out who killed him. It wasn’t you. You didn’t want anyone dead, so don’t feel guilty.”

He nods, but I’m not sure he’s buying Cole’s words. “Still, I got this ball rolling.”

“Let’s go check it out.”

Machado returns us to his property.

“You got a pair of binoculars?” Cole asks.

“Yeah, give me a minute.” He disappears inside and returns with two of them. Then he leads us through the orchard of trees toward the back of his property.

“Stay away from the left side of the grove. The bee keepers are busy today,” Machado warns.

I give a side-eye to the nearby trees, hearing the buzzing among the pretty white blossoms. The ground is covered with white petals.

“Look at all these,” Billy says, kicking some up with his boot.

“They call it valley snow,” Machado says. “Lasts from February to mid-March while the almond trees are in blossom.” We come out at the far end of the rows of trees, and he points at the creek and a dusty dirt hill rising on the other side that runs the length of his property. “That’s where they used to dirt bike. You’ll see the trails.”

Cole stares at the creek. “We need to get across.”

Machado points to the left. “It’s pretty shallow down that way.”

We head downstream and find a place to avoid getting our boots soaked.

“There may be more cameras,” Cole says. “Stay low. You two go that way.” He points to Billy and TJ, passing them one set of binoculars, then looks at me. “You’re with me, kid.”

We get low and move up the hill until we can see over it. There’s a maze of dirt bike trails and some old plywood jumps they’ve made with boulders. We lie flat on our bellies, and Cole looks through the binoculars.

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