He looks at me in confusion, but he complies with my demand regardless. He’s always been willing to please—it’s one of those traits I like about him—and he throws me his shirt without question. He sure does look good in the midafternoon sun. The grooves of his muscles are an appetizing sight.
I toss the shirt to the ground and go back to my gardening. Out of the corner of my eye I spot Miles staring, like he’s bewildered by the transaction. After mulling it over, he returns to his work, flushed from embarrassment or sunlight, I don’t know which.
Then he turns back around. “Uh, Ms. Timo? Would you be willing to watch Lacy and Jayden Friday night? It’s my twenty-first birthday, and I expect Pierce and I will be out late.”
Ms. Timo smiles and nods. “I would be happy to.”
I can hear the two girls’ excited whispers all the way from across the yard. I never had a sleepover as a child, but the way those two talk about it, I missed out on the most enriching experience of my life.
The news on the radio catches my interest the moment I hear words like “Noimore” and “crime rates.”
“—the Noimore Police official statement is that the commotion within the New Grounds Construction Site was the result of gang infighting,” the woman on the radio announces. “Deputy Chief Charleston further added that the quick response time was due, in part, to attentive citizens who contacted police after witnessing suspicious activity. Calling the police is—”
Miles switches the station to one with music.
“Was that you guys?” Jayden asks.
Everyone in the backyard stops what they’re doing. After a moment, Miles returns to tapping his hammer against a half-buried nail. “What’re you talking about?”
“Were you the guys who stopped that stuff in the construction yard? Wasn’t that the day you were both messed up? That’s why Pierce has all those bullet holes in his jacket.”
I grit my teeth. Does that kid never learn? I swear he’s secretly asking for me to beat his ass.
“Are you two detectives?” Shannon asks with a gasp. “I knew you must be working with the cops somehow!”
“I’m a student at a police academy,” Miles replies, keeping his focus on his work. “And Pierce is a private investigator. We’re not with the police, and we weren’t at the construction site.”
Shannon leaps away from the picnic table, leaving her whittling knife and woodblock with Lacy. In a few short bounds, she’s by my side, her eyes wide and her energy visible in the way she shakes. “So you’re the private detective on my parents’ case, right? That’s why you came to my house?”
“Look,” I begin. “I’m not—”
“Are my mom and dad okay?” she asks. “When are they coming home?”
“Speak with your grandmother.”
Ms. Timo regards me with the same deep frown as earlier. Shannon obviously doesn’t like this answer. She throws her hands down in balled fists.
“I’m old enough to know,” she yells.
I don’t reply. Is it even my place to say? Seems like I should avoid getting involved at all costs. Ms. Timo must think the same damn thing because she clams up. Shannon switches her gaze from me to her grandmother, back to me.
“Tell me!”
“Your grandmother will tell you when she’s damn good and ready,” I snap, my voice louder than hers and no doubt carrying to the backyards of our surrounding neighbors.
Shannon gets misty-eyed. She turns and runs back to her house, never even bothering to confront her grandmother. Lacy gets off the table and chases after, but not before giving me a dirty look, like she’s implying that this is somehow all my fault. What the hell did I do? It’s Shannon’s grandmother who can’t handle the truth.
“I’ll go talk with her,” Ms. Timo says. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“You gonna tell her everything?”
The old bag doesn’t answer, which basically means no.
The moment me, Jayden, and Miles are alone in the backyard, Miles turns to his brother. “Hey. Don’t ask us where we’ve been in front of Lacy. Got it?”
Jayden brings his phone back up, a weaselly little smirk etched into his face. “Heh. I knew it was you guys. I knew it.”
“Got it?”
“Yeah. I’ll keep it to myself.”
“Good.”
“YOU THINK they’ll be okay?” Miles asks.
“Jayden and Lacy? Yeah. Of course.”
It’s not like Castor got a good look at Lacy or Jayden. Even if he was driving around our neighborhood, he wouldn’t find anything he’s looking for—not our car, not us. I know Miles worries, but it’s not him or his siblings I’m concerned about.
Once Jeremy knows I’m alive, it’ll be me he wants to deal with.
“How is the contact lens?”
I rub at my eye. “I’m blind, but I guess it does the trick.”
“It’s meant to cover an eye with cataract.”
“Tsk. Perfect.” I suppose, since a cataract will cloud the iris, the only way to hide it would be to blind someone, but it’s weird to me that anyone would pick vanity over sight. Then again, I guess I don’t have room to talk. I’m wearing it right now.
Oh, well. It’s irritating and I dislike it, but I guess it’s better than wearing sunglasses at all times. Miles keeps his gaze on the road as he drives deeper into Joliet. He clenches his jaw, however, and I know he isn’t satisfied with the outcome.
“Maybe you should go through with a corrective surgery,” he says.
“Tsk.”
“Oh, uh, this is the place.”
Miles parks the vehicle outside of some standard middle-class home. It’s yellow, an odd color, but the same shade as all the other houses in both directions of the street, like they were all duplicated from the same photograph. I guess the designs of the houses are slightly different, but only slightly. It’s pleasant enough, in a creepy way, and I hold back my commentary.
“This is Logan’s house,” Miles says.
“Logan?”
“He’s a guy I go to the police academy with.”
I groan. “This is where you wanted to go for your twenty-first birthday? To another suburb? Don’t most kids your age want to
