The Truth of Yesterday (52 page)

          “I'm here to see Danielle,” I said, hoping I had the right house.

          “Oh. Yes. One minute, please,” he said as he turned away. His voice was a surprisingly rich baritone.

         I stood waiting on the doorstep for about a minute before she appeared.
She looked remarkably like her father, except without the receding hairline and a little heavier.
Her hair was the same mousy brown, hers hung limply to her shoulders, and she had the same pear-shaped body. She even peered at me over her glasses in much the same way. She was wearing what looked like a man's button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a pair of Capri pants with no shoes.

         “Are you the guy who called and wanted to talk to me?” she asked.

         “Yes, I'm Killian Kendall,” I said.

         She nodded. “I've heard of you. Jake used to talk about you and of course, almost everybody at school knows what you did.”

         “Of course,” I muttered.

         “What?” she asked.

          “Oh, nothing,” I said quickly. She seemed a little sullen and it appeared to be in my best interest to keep her talking while she was still willing. “Can I ask you some questions about Jake?”

She shrugged, so I took that as an affirmative. When she made no move to either come out or let me in, I asked, “Do you think I could come inside or you could come outside so we don't have to talk through the door?”

          She made a face and threw open the door with a dramatic sigh. “I'll come out there,” she said as if she were making a huge sacrifice for my benefit. “If we go inside my parents will listen.”

          It didn't seem to me that her father would be able to work up enough interest to be bothered, but I didn't know him and I'd never even met her mother. She led the way across the lawn to a freestanding lawn swing with just enough room for two people to sit next to each other if they didn't mind being a little intimate. I minded, but sat down gingerly anyway, as far to the other side as possible. Danielle gave me an expectant look.

     “You're friends with Jake?” I asked.

          “Not anymore.”

          “What happened?”

          “Who knows? He never told me.”

          “What do you think happened?”

          “I think he got bored with us and moved on to greener pastures.”

         
“Us meaning you and Craig?”

          
“Yeah.”

          “Was it always just the three of you?”

          
“Pretty much.
Every once in a while, some guy would try to get close to Jake if you know what I mean. He'd be around for a few days and then we wouldn't see him much anymore. I think Jake's motto was `Use `em and lose `em.'”

          “Do you know for a fact that Jake was sleeping with these guys?”

          “Not for a fact, no, but it doesn't take a genius.”

          “Who were some of these guys?”

          “I don't remember their names. They weren't really important, you know?”

          I tried not to sigh in frustration. For all I knew, she was making this stuff up as she went along; she seemed like the type. “So you knew that Jake is gay?” I asked.

          She rolled her eyes.
“Duh.
Everyone knows that. He's not exactly in the closet.”

          “Did that ever bother you?”

          “Of course not,” she answered quickly, which probably meant that it had. I was beginning to suspect that Danielle had a crush on Jake and had resented the other guys. It made me wonder how she felt about Craig, who had also had a crush on Jake, a crush so obvious that even Kane had noticed it.

          “What about Craig?”

          “What about him?” she asked obtusely.

          “What did you think of him?”

          
She quirked her mouth to one side.
“Craig is a little wimp. He followed Jake around like a puppy dog, mooning at him, simpering at him like some demented
Scarlette
O'Hara. It was sickening. That's probably why Jake quit hanging out with him in the first place.”

          I had to bite back a question asking her if that was why he'd quit hanging out with her too. I rather doubted that Jake's sudden change had anything to do with Craig or Danielle; it seemed to me that Jake had enjoyed having his own private fan club. Something else must have come along that made lovesick teenagers seem paltry in comparison. Could that something have been the escort business?

          It was obvious that Danielle lived in her own bitter little world. She saw only what she wanted to see. I didn't think I was going to get anything useful out of her. To be honest, I didn't like her and I wanted to get away as quickly as I could. Still, I had a few more questions I needed to ask before I made my escape.

         “So you don't really have any idea what's going on with Jake?” I asked.

         “I already said no. We don't talk anymore.”

          I took a deep breath and decided I was done here. I stood up. “Thanks for your time, Danielle…” I began, but she cut me off.

          “Wait a minute!” she demanded. “What was that all about? Why were you asking all those questions about Jake?”

          
She asks that now?
I marveled to myself. The logical time to ask that would have been when I was asking the questions, not when I was done and ready to leave. I didn't owe her anything now, but at the same time I had a feeling that if I didn't tell her she's be on the phone to Jake before I was out of the driveway. One the other hand, she seemed like the gossipy type so I couldn't tell her too much.

          “You know I'm a private investigator, right?”

          “So you said on the phone,” she retorted. “What is this so called case anyway? How do I know you're not just hot for Jake's ass like those other guys?”

          I gritted my teeth and counted to ten. “The case is classified,” I snapped. Her eyes narrowed and I knew I'd said the wrong thing. For all her bluff however, I had a feeling that she was really a coward at heart so I decided to try for a little scare tactic.

          “Jake may be involved in something very dangerous,” I told her in a tersely, clipping off each word in my annoyance. “Lives may be at stake, including everyone who he is or was close to.” Her eyes widened at that. This might work after all, and as far as I knew, I wasn't even lying. “I need you to stay very quiet about our talk or you could put the whole case in jeopardy. Do you understand?”

          She nodded.

          “Good. Thanks again for your time.” I turned quickly before she could ask anything else and strode across the yard to my car. I jumped in and backed out of their drive before she had even stood up. I hoped I had been convincing enough to keep her quiet. I also hoped I had overstated the case. I was afraid that I may have been all too accurate.

          I drove back to the office with the intentions of calling Paul's other clients. Once at the office, though, I found a message waiting for me from Craig, asking me to call him back. I wondered if he was taking me up on my offer to talk already or if he had something to add to what he'd told me earlier.

          I called him back and he answered on the second ring, as if he was waiting near the phone.

          “Hi, thanks for calling me back,” he said, sounding slightly surprised as if he hadn't expected me too.

          “No problem,” I said. “What's up?”

          “After you left I thought I remembered something, but I wasn't sure about it so I looked it up in my journal. Right before Jake started acting
weird,
he was real excited one day at school. I asked him why he was so happy and he said he couldn't tell me but that he might have met someone really different from the normal boys around here. He was always going on about how much better the guys were in
California
.”

          “He didn't tell you anything about this guy he'd met?” I asked.

          
“No, sorry.”

          “Craig, you don't have to apologize all the time. It's not your fault, there's nothing to be sorry for. You've just told me something I didn't know before. That's really helpful.”

          
“Really?”

          
“Yes, really.
Thank you.”

          “Um, you're welcome.”

          “I have another question for you. Danielle said that Jake dated a lot of guys but that they were never around for very long. Is that the way you saw it?”

          “I guess. Jake always said the guys here were too boring. I got the impression that he missed living in
California
.”

          “But he said this guy that he'd met was different?”

          
“Yeah.”

          “Any idea what he meant by that? Even a guess?”

          “I don't know.”

          “Did he have any specific complaints about the guys here other than that they were boring?”

          “He said they didn't know how to party. And, um…he sometimes tried to get me to do drugs with him. I never would and I don't know where he got them from, but he said no one here knew how to have fun. He always said that when I'd tell him I didn't want to do drugs.”

          “What kind of dugs?”

          “I don't really know. I don't know that much about drugs. I've never done anything. I don't even drink.”

          “Was it pills?
Powder?
Needles?”

          
“Pills mostly.”

          
“Mostly?”

          “That's all I ever saw.”

          “But you don't know what kind of pills they were?”

          
“No, sorry.
Er…I mean…sorry.”

          I stifled a giggle. “It's ok. Thanks Craig, you've been a big help.”

          “I have?”

          
“Definitely.”

          “Cool. Um, well, I'll let you get back to work or whatever.”

          “Ok. Thanks again, Craig.”

          “Yeah, you're welcome. Oh, and um, thank you.
For, uh, talking to me and stuff.”

          “You're welcome. And don't forget to call me anytime you want or need to talk.”

          “Ok,” he said softly. “Bye.”

          “Bye, Craig.”

          I hung up and thought about the difference between him and Danielle. One was sweet and gentle; one had the grace of a bulldozer. Jake couldn't have chosen two hangers-on that were more different. The only thing that they had in common was their fascination with Jake Davis.

          I took out my notebook and jotted down the little bit of information that I had managed to glean from Craig and Danielle, most of which had been from Craig. That done, I retrieved the papers Neal had sent me. I pulled out the guy who had hung up on me and Luis, who I had already talked to.