Page 84 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
Miles rolled his window up with a sigh. “Where do you think they’re really going?” He gestured around to the houses. “There’s no way they live here.”
He was right. This was a nicer neighborhood with houses much bigger than mine or Miles’s. Those kids didn’t look like they came from a rich family.
“I mean… I guess they could live here if their parents just… choose not to feed them or buy them new clothes.”
Miles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you… do you think they’re unhoused?”
I sighed. “The thought crossed my mind.”
“Fuck. I gotta… I gotta find out. Maybe I should call Higgins.”
My body tensed at the mention of that man. It wasn’t that I disliked him or anything like that. Honestly, I didn’t know the guy at all. But I did know that every time he’d stopped by or Miles had spoken to him over the phone, it put my guy in a weird mood. He was almost always upset and didn’t seem to know how to handle it.
And I hated it.
I hated that this Higgins guy put Miles through that every time.
But I could tell Miles wanted to be his… friend. He’d spoken about him enough, and I couldn’t really explain it, but I… sensed it. I wasn’t the empath, but I sometimes felt like I could read Miles pretty well. And I wanted him to have everything he wanted.
If that meant befriending this Higgins guy, then that was what I wanted him to do.
But it was a strange time to bring him up. What did a detective have to do with the twins?
I asked, “What can he do about it? I don’t think we should get the police involved before we know what’s going on.”
Miles waved that away. “I would never in a million years call the police on a runaway or unhoused person. Not without knowing why they were in the situation to begin with.”
“Okay… then why talk to Higgins?”
He sighed. “Because he might be able to look into the kids’ parents and see if they’re on the police’s radar or anything. And he might be able to give us a true address for them.”
“But won’t the police go check on them or something?”
He shook his head. “Not if I tell Higs to keep it quiet. He won’t betray my trust.”
For some reason, I had a feeling there was more to that sentence than he was saying out loud, but just like the broodingteenagers, I was afraid to push too hard on those kinds of subjects. Miles might shut down on me, and I didn’t want that.
“Okay, then… you’ll let me know what he finds out, right?”
Miles looked at me with a small smile. “Of course I will.”
He said it with so much conviction that my worries over the Higgins guy faded away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Miles
When we got back to my house, we found Lyric sitting on the couch watching TV. All the food was cleaned up and the dishes were done, so I immediately went to grab my laptop and came back to the living room.
Win and I sat on the loveseat while he explained our theory about the kids to Lyric.
“Do we know their last name?” I asked. It was kind of pathetic that none of us knew their last name off the top of our heads. “It’s probably on Chaos’s necromancer stuff, right?”
“Oh, I think it is.” Lyric pulled out their phone. “I think I have it somewhere.” They started searching with their phone while I did it on the computer.
Winter rested his chin on my shoulder, watching what I was doing. It only took me a few minutes to find it. “Mortimer Strickland and Aeson Strickland. Got it.”
“Damn, you’re fast,” Lyric said with a huff. “I was hoping to find it first.”
