Page 43 of The Darkest Note

Finn shrugs. “He won’t tell me what happened, but I’m assuming he tried to get under her skin and she got under his first.”

His words send a tightness through my chest. Is that what Brahms is doing to me?

I shake my head quickly.

Nah. What I feel for her is just the thrill of the hunt. What I feel for the redhead, now that’s something more akin to what my twin is going through. And it’s exactly why I don’t want anything to do with the mystery girl.

The farther I stay away from the debilitating effects of love, the less havoc it can wreak on me.

Zane glances up, sees me, and drags the headphones so it’s resting around his neck.

I do a chin-up gesture.

He rises abruptly from the stool and saunters over to us. Sprawling in the sectional, he lifts an arm. Finn throws him a water bottle and he catches it out of the air.

“You want to explain what’s going on?” I ask.

“Nope?” Zane tips his drink back and guzzles it. When he’s done, he peers at me. “Any progress with CC?”

“CC?” My hackles rise immediately. “You’re giving her nicknames?”

“You started it. You called her ‘Brahms’ in the hallway,” Zane points out.

“Because it was the song playing on her phone,” I snarl.

Brahms’Wiegenlied.

She didn’t strike me as a fan of classical music. Maybe it was the tight shirt that her breasts were practically bursting out of or the short skirt or the lightning in her eyes, but she seemed more like a rocker chick to me.

Not that I care what she listens to.

“Brahms,” Finn grips the neck of his bass guitar and plucks a melody on the high strings. “The greatest representative of the musical Romantic movement. Fitting.”

“Why the hell is it fitting?”

Finn does that annoying thing where he smirks like he knows something I don’t.

I glare at him. “Have you been texting Jinx?”

“This guy.” Zane hooks a finger at Finn. “He treats her like she’s his girlfriend.”

“Information is powerful. And it’s through Jinx that I got a lead on Sol,” Finn says.

That makes both Zane and I shut up.

I peer at my brother’s dark eyes. “What did she say?”

“That the school had his transcripts sent out of the country. Wherever he is, it’s not here.” Finn frowns.

Zane curses and flops back. “How much did you pay Jinx for that? That’s not much of a lead.”

“It tells us that going to his house and trying to convince his mother to let us into his room isn’t going to solve anything,” I say calmly. Folding my hands together, I set it between my thighs and stare at the ground. “It means we have to broaden our net.”

“It would be so much easier if he just picked up a damn phone and let us know,” Zane huffs. “Damn.”

“That can help to narrow the search,” Finn suggests. “Wherever he is, he doesn’t have his phone.”

“You don’t think he’s, like, dead, do you?” Zane sits up, his eyes wide.