Page 104 of Code of Courage

“Why’d you give up?” Marrs asked once Danni was in the street.

“Because there’s something else I want to check.” She turned to follow the cyclist, who was now pedaling toward the back of the residence.

“What did you see?”

Danni made a quick right and there they were, the two teens who’d been with Leonard White the day she’d confronted them in the market lot. They were on the curb and across the street.

“I want to talk to these guys.”

Danni pulled across the road and jammed the car into park. She got out fast, and the boys looked like they were going to bolt.

She held up her hands, palms out, over the open car door. “Hey, stay put. You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk.”

They regarded her suspiciously but didn’t flee.

“Remember me? Detective Grace. I met you and your friend Lenny in the market parking lot.”

They looked at one another. One had brown hair, long and stringy; the other, close-cropped black hair.

Brown Hair spoke up. “You messed with Lenny, I remember. Did you take him to jail?”

“What? No. Remember? The uniforms let you go. Where is he now?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“He disappeared yesterday. He’s not answering his phone, and he hasn’t been out to ride at all today.”

“We tried to go get him,” the other guy chimed in, “but the guy at the gate won’t let us in.”

“He used to let us in but not today.”

“Is he a new guy?” Danni asked. Marrs had gotten out of the car and walked around to join her.

“No. But he’s acting different, just tells us to go away.”

Danni considered this. “When you say ‘disappeared,’ what do you mean?”

“We were riding our bikes, when all of a sudden, he wasn’t there.”

“I thought he was pranking us, so we didn’t fall for it,” Brown Hair said. “We kept riding.”

“But he never showed up. When we got home, we tried to go to his house. The G-man told us he was home and that’s where his mom wanted him to stay.”

“Where were you riding?”

“Where we normally do. Over near where you saw us. Not all the way to the market, closer to the park.”

Danni considered this. The market was a long way away from the Heights. The kids had e-bikes, though, so it wasn’t a stretch.

“Why do you guys ride all the way over there?”

“No one knows us there. We don’t get harassed—normally.”

“Can you give me Lenny’s phone number?”

The boys exchanged looks. “Is he in trouble?”

“Not with me. I just want to be sure he’s okay. Did he ever ditch you before?”

“Yeah, well, maybe sometimes we mess with each other. It was weird. He was there and then he wasn’t,” Brown Hair said.

The second guy took out his phone and recited the number for Danni.

“Thanks, guys. We’ll do our best to find out what is going on with Lenny.”

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