Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“That’s a pretty extreme reaction,” I said.
“He was full of rage. I think that’s probably just how he went through life.”
“Are you thinking about contacting him again?”
“No. Why give him a chance to reject me a second time?”
“But that happened almost twenty years ago. Maybe he mellowed with age.”
“Or maybe he got tougher and meaner. I know I did.”
“You could have gone anywhere while things cooled off in Vegas,” I said. “Why’d you choose San Francisco?”
“I wanted to do some research on my half-brothers, because I thought it’d be a good idea to keep tabs on them. One thing I wanted to know was whether they still were involved in organized crime. With the same last name, there might be potential blowback on me if one of their business ventures were to go south.”
I didn’t think he was being totally honest with me, or with himself. There had to be more to it than that, maybe some curiosity about his brothers, but I didn’t push. Instead, I asked, “What did you find out?”
“As far as I can tell, they’re retired, but it’s not like they’d advertise it if they were breaking the law. I was worried about digging too deep and ending up on their radar.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and muttered, “Am I still speaking in complete sentences? I’m so tired that I barely know what I’m saying.”
“I’m sorry. This wasn’t the time for a million questions.” I got up and collected the breakfast dishes. “Let’s get out of here, so you can sleep. I’m going to go rinse these and put them in the sink while you gather your things.” He nodded and started packing the journal and tablet into his laptop case while I headed to the kitchen.
Reno was locking the door behind us when the day shift arrived—two big, burly men on his payroll who’d be watching the bar all day and making sure no more harm came to it. I waited in the convertible while he spoke to them. Then he climbed behind the wheel, let loose with a massive yawn, and started the engine.
It took about ten minutes to reach the edge of town from the bar’s working class neighborhood. Then we drove another ten or fifteen minutes into the desert before coming to a dusty sign with a dry fountain at its base. It was for something called “Dessert Heights,” which made me grin.
“I assume that was supposed to read ‘Desert Heights,’ not that the idea of a dessert-themed neighborhood isn’t appealing,” I said. “There could be Cheesecake Lane, Ice Cream Avenue—”
“Nope, not what they were going for. The developer was just a doofus and didn’t know how to spell that thing that’s all around us.”
Reno made a left turn into the residential development, and after we drove for another minute, I asked him, “Um, why do you live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?”
All around us was a grid of empty roads with sidewalks and street lamps. That was followed by a single road lined with large, two-story houses. Almost every yard was nothing but dirt and dry, spindly-looking weeds, and there was a for sale sign in front of just about every home, except for Reno’s.
He paused in the street and fished a remote out of his glove box as he explained, “The developer went bankrupt after his business partner embezzled the investors’ money and fled to the Bahamas. Only these twenty-four houses were built out of a planned hundred and forty, and just six were sold. The reason I bought one was because my mom was dating the developer at the time, and the architect’s drawings and plans for the neighborhood were beautiful. But you can see what happened after the money was stolen—it all just fizzled out. I bought the house ten years ago and have thought about trying to sell it, but there’s no way anyone would ever buy it.”
“That’s a shame.”
He shrugged and opened his garage door with the remote. “It is what it is. At least I never have to worry about noisy neighbors.”
“Way to put a positive spin on it.”
He parked in the garage beside a big, black SUV and shut the door behind us. Then I collected the bags of convenience store snacks while he grabbed his laptop case and retrieved the large, black bag from the trunk. I assumed it was stuffed with guns, but I didn’t ask.
When he entered a code on a keypad to shut off the alarm, force of habit made me take a peek. I idly wondered if the date he’d used was his mom’s birthday or his brother Romy’s—no doubt it was one or the other, because people were ridiculous with their so-called security.
It turned out his home was actually really nice, with high ceilings, tons of space, and tasteful furnishings and artwork. I left the snacks on the kitchen counter, and as I followed him upstairs he said, “Don’t get freaked out if you see a scorpion. I don’t know how they get in, but I find one downstairs occasionally.”