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turning the key to the “off” position.
    “What brings you to this neck of the woods, babe?”
    “I’m not your babe, asshole. In fact, if you call me that again, I’ll slap those sunglasses off your face. Believe me, you don’t want to mess with me. Especially after what you did to my brother.”
    I was huffing and puffing in anger. I was afraid he was going to laugh when I yelled at him, but I noticed his face change at the mention of Jared.
    “The kid? I didn’t do a damn thing to him. What are you talking about?”
    “I have a feeling you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re the one who said he’s family, right? Well where I come from, family looks out for one another.”
    “Just calm yourself down, Adeline,” he said, slowly.
    “Don’t tell me to calm down, Hale . What, you think that because you know my name I should be worried?”
    “Not in the least,” he said, smoothly. “I’m only looking to get to the bottom of this thing.”
    “Well, you can get to the bottom of it by telling me why the hell I can’t get him on his cellphone. And…”
    I took another look around, lowering my voice so that only he could hear.
    “...And, why he dropped off almost ten thousand dollars on my front door step this morning.”
    Hale slowly lifted himself off his motorcycle seat and made his way around to the passenger side of my car. I started to squirm.
    When he got in, I couldn’t help but be struck by how awkward he looked in my car. The big, broad shouldered biker with the lean body and long limbs crammed into an economical foreign car… it was almost too perfect. Despite all of my fears and anger, I let out a little nervous laughter.
    “You want to talk about this, or not?”
    “Sorry, but I’ve never seen someone clash with a car. You look ridiculous…”
    “Guess you could say I’m not big on sitting in a cage… Now tell me about that money.”
    “It was there… around six thirty this morning, I guess. There was a knock on the door and then…”
    “Did you talk to him?”
    “No. I told you it was just a bag of money with a note attached to it saying not to worry about him.”
    “Shit.” Hale pushed his feet into the floorboards and arched his back in a tired stretch. My poor car seat creaked under the pressure.
    “So you do know what’s going on…”
    “Yeah,” he said finally. “I hate to tell you this, but your little brother isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”
    I wanted to defend him but I really didn’t have much ammunition.
    “It’s not that he’s dumb,” I offered up. “He just makes a lot of bad decisions. He needs some discipline, that’s all.”
    “What he needs is a good kick in the ass.”
    I decided not to belabor the point any further.
    “Can you please just tell me what is going on?”
    “Cool your jets, darlin’, I’ll fill you in. But you need to do a little bit better job of keeping your mouth closed than little brother does. Can you do that for me?”
    “Darlin’” was treading dangerously close to “babe” but I decided to let it slide.
    “All I care about is finding him. I won’t say anything about your business.”
    He seemed satisfied.
    “Here’s the situation,” he said. “We’ve been having a little bit of trouble with some of our guys lately. Internal stuff… that part doesn’t concern you or your brother. However, Ace did…”
    “Jared,” I corrected.
    “Sorry. Jared. It’s probably best to start thinkin’ of him as “Jared” because he doesn’t have much of a future around here anymore.”
    That sounded like music to my ears.
    “Anyway,” he continued, “Jared went and got himself mixed up with some guys who were doing the wrong shit and-”
    “What was he doing?”
    “That part doesn’t matter. What does matter is that things went sideways and now there’s a whole lot of bad people looking for him.”
    “Was it drugs? Is that drug money he brought to my house?”
    Hale didn’t answer but he let the