I hung up and placed my phone in my pocket.
I got this.
I grabbed my keys and left.
* * *
I parked my car three houses away from Mr. Motorcycle’s place. Not too close, just in case someone in the neighborhood got suspicious. Not too far, just in case I needed to make a run for it.
The screen dashboard in my car indicated 7:00 p.m. It was dark. The streetlights were on, good folks tucked away in their lit-up houses, probably having a homecooked dinner or relaxing in their overpriced, comfortable beds.
Which I should be doing. Instead, I was here on a mission to save my brother’s ass.
I grabbed my thick hair—it was too long, and I needed to give it a trim—twisted and squished it under a cap. Should’ve brought my shades to be more incognito, I thought as I slid out of my car. Mr. Motorcycle’s house wasn’t that far from ours; someone might recognize me.
I shivered. Must be the cool night air, I decided as I zipped my oversized jacket closed. It was absolutely not because I was nervous. Or excited. Nope. Normal people stalk all the time. It was a legit pastime.
I always do it on social media.
Correction. Not stalk. Research. I was here to do research. I was just going to look around, see if the motorcycle was in the driveway. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as Dylan suspected.
What if the owner came back while I was sneaking around? I stopped in my tracks. Maybe I should bring the flyers from church I had in the car. If Mr. Motorcycle caught me around his house, I could simply hand him a flyer and say I was distributing it around the neighborhood. Genius.
Giving out flyers at seven-shit-o’-clock at night is genius? Really.
I shushed the bitchy voice in my head and spun around to return to my car to fetch the flyers.
Mr. Motorcycle’s house looked like a modern bachelor pad. Tall privacy-glass windows, sharp angles, lots of concrete. It seemed like a spare house for a drug lord’s youngest son. Not too big, but luxurious and expensive.
If my hunch was right, Dylan was going to be in an enormous pit of trouble. And it wouldn’t be just him in that pit. It’d be him, me, and my dad.
There was a long, wide driveway that led to the garage. On the driveway was a muscle truck, but no sign of a motorcycle. Why was his truck on the driveway and not in the garage?
Maybe there was more than one person living in the house. That would make it a little more complicated, but nothing my investigative skills couldn’t handle.
A six-foot-high fence extended from the side of the windowless garage with a door I assumed led to the backyard. There were no lights in the house except for the soft glow of the porch light. No one was home.
I imagined an evil grin on my face, rubbing my hands in glee at this golden opportunity. I cracked my knuckles. My body is ready.
Maybe I should whistle casually.
Overkill much?
Swallowing the nervousness down, I walked closer. There were no trees or bushes I could jump in to hide. My eyes scanned for any cameras attached to the exterior of his house. In the darkness, it was hard to see every nook and cranny, but I was 97.9% sure there weren’t any.
My heart beat madly as I studied the fence. I looked behind me to check if I was still alone. Everything was spookily quiet except for my loud breathing and the occasional scratching sound my shoes made against the concrete as I stopped in front of the fence.
I laid my palm carefully on the door, pushe
d gently. It was locked. Damn it. It was too high to see over, and there were no gaps between the wood posts to peek through.
There should have been something in the front yard I could use to step on, so I could see what was behind the fence, but he didn’t care to have anything on his lawn but grass. My eyes shot to Big Tony’s house. He still owed us money, and he was next on my list. I marched quickly to his front yard, unapologetically grabbed a fake wood stump made of plastic surrounded by funny-looking gnomes, and returned to Mr. Motorcycle’s fence.
There, I thought, dusting my hands off after positioning the stump. I stepped on it, looking down to make sure it didn’t wobble. When I looked up, my jaw dropped.
La-dee-freaking-da. A huge pool sat empty in the backyard—probably didn’t bother filling it because it was too cold to swim outdoors now—but the blue lights on its walls were on and some fancy lampposts scattered in the garden, casting an eerie glow around the yard. Mature trees, beautiful stonework. I loved good landscaping, and this was first-class.
I almost forgot my mission. The motorcycle. Peace of mind was imperative, and I just had to make sure this wasn’t going to bite us in the ass later. Still, there was no sign of the motorcycle. I could very well be honest about it and knock on his door and confess everything, but what if this guy proved to be a psycho? I didn’t want to risk it.