Page 193 of Sweet Temptation

It was a shot, but it seemed to land. He turned an even more sickly shade of pale.

“Let me guess,” I went on. “They missed something of interest to you, and you took it?”

He shook his head but said nothing.

“Or maybe you got to it first?”

He started to breathe too loudly.

“You don’t have to tell me. I know. It was meth, right? Or was it money?”

He swallowed, but maybe he wasn’t as slow as I thought. Because he muttered, “Come,” and headed back into the building.

I followed him back to his apartment. I held the door open with my boot while he went inside, and he returned seconds later with a business card and a wad of tinfoil. He held both out to me.

I eyed the tinfoil.

“I swear, I didn’t know it was yours,” he said.

I just stared at him.

I took the business card. It was blank and cheap, with a hand-written phone number scrawled on it. “This is it? No name?”

“He said his name was Brando.”

“Brando?”

“That’s what he said.”

I considered that. “What did he look like? Blond hair?”

“It was dark,” he said, trying to back into his apartment, but I was still holding the door. “That’s all I know.” He was still holding out the wad of tinfoil to me.

I stared him down for a minute, reading his fear. I could smell it beneath the stench of sweat and musty carpets. I really didn’t want to spend one second longer than I needed to in this place, talking to this waste of air.

“That,” I informed him, nodding at the shit in his hand, “is not mine.”

I turned and headed up the hall.

“So, you’re not gonna call the cops, right?” he called after me.

“If you don’t get rid of that stash,” I told him, “the cops are gonna be the least of your problems.”

I pushed through the exit door and stalked back up the street to where my bike was parked. I glanced at the card in my hand.

Brando.

What was it with Piper Grayson and biker movies? He had some serious delusions of grandeur or something.

Although… he was pretty much living the dream, I’d give him that.

His dream, anyway.

As I reached my bike, I pulled out my phone and called the number on the card.

“Talk,” a gruff voice answered.

“Brando?” I said. “As in Marlon Brando? The Wild One? Really?”

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