Spike shrugged. “Who knows why he does anything? Why did he save Betsy from being buried alive? Why did he save Sunny from Horse and Rory? Why give us alibis?”
“The guy is a loose unit,” Reyes muttered. “His behavior is erratic. He almost seems to do things on a whim. Like a child. He takes interest in something shiny then moves on to something else when it dulls.”
“He still finds Sunny shiny,” Duke muttered.
“Do we call him? Ask?” Jason said. “Sunny has his number, right?”
“I don’t want Sunny calling him. I don’t want Sunny having anything to do with him,” Duke stated.
“You have to get past this hatred of him,” Ink told Duke. “At the end of the day, he’s saved all our asses. We owe the guy. And the fact that he saved Betsy means I’m forever indebted to him. Cut him some slack.”
“All right for you to say, he didn’t send Betsy a motorcycle for her birthday,” Duke muttered. “Who knows what he’ll send her for Christmas? A damn plane?”
“He enjoys getting a rise out of you,” Razor said.
“Let’s get back on track,” Reyes demanded. “So Millie is Daria’s half-sister. She gets a huge amount of money from the Fox. Only she doesn’t know who he is?”
Spike nodded. “She has no clue or she likely would be trying to hire him to kill Luther.”
“So she decides to come here to find her sister’s killer,” Reyes continued. “Which is a damn stupid idea. She overhears a conversation. Which leads her to us. Well, to you.”
“Yep.”
“And it’s all one fucking big coincidence,” Reyes muttered. “Except for the Fox sending her money. He obviously did that deliberately.”
“Remember when he stole that money from Sunny’s ex and donated it to a charity for foxes?” Jason asked.
“What? You think he used that money to send to Millie?” Ink asked. “But Sunny’s ex didn’t have that sort of money.”
“Nah, I’m saying that what if he took money from someone else and gave it to her. Someone he considered had wronged her.”
Spike straightened. “The senator. Who knows what sort of dirty funds he had? If he’d taken that money, he might have thought it was a weird sort of justice to give it to Daria’s sister.”
“Fuck,” Ink stated. He then looked over at Spike. “What are you going to tell her?”
Spike ran his hand over his face. “The truth, I guess.”
“Don’t envy you that, man,” Duke told him.
No. He was dreading it. “I think she’ll react one of two ways. She’ll either try to ignore the pain.” Push it into her box. “Or she’ll completely lose it.”
“Anything else we can do?” Duke asked.
“Umm, yeah, there is one more thing I need help with.”
36
Millie reached the top of the stairs just as Spike appeared at the bottom.
He scowled up at her. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, baby doll?”
“Coming downstairs to see you?” She’d woken up feeling out of sorts. Part of it was aftereffects from the migraine and the fact that she’d slept so long. But mostly it was because she’d remembered that Spike knew something about her sister’s death.
It cut her to the quick. She wanted to know.
And yet she didn’t.
He strode up the stairs. “Stay right there.”