Chapter 17 #3
“He was upset,” Daniel said, drying a cheek on his shoulder. “He didn’t know what he was saying. He was hurt, and everything had gone wrong, and he didn’t know what to do. I get that now. But I was so mad at him. I ran out of the house. I didn’t even realize I still had the phone until I got home.”
Which explained why the last location the phone had registered was at Ammon’s house. And why the police had been so sure Ammon had been involved in Brennon’s death, even if they had left it off the affidavit for the warrant.
“After he—” Daniel stopped. “After I heard what happened to him, I didn’t know what to do. But I knew my dad hadn’t done it.”
“Oh yeah?” Jem asked. “Because he confessed.”
“He saw me come home that night.” The hesitation was so raw it was painful. “He was afraid.”
Jem didn’t bother saying anything to that.
Voice a little stronger, Daniel said, “The night you and Uncle Tean came over, I remembered Bren had been going to meet someone. So, I looked at the app. I found the messages. Bren had been—he’d been lying.
He said he was a lot younger than he was.
He said he’d just moved here and didn’t know anyone.
He said he didn’t talk to his family anymore.
” Silence came on the wake of the words.
“I felt like I was going crazy. It was like my brain was awake. Like it had never been awake before. All I could think about was Bren, and what had happened. And it was like I could see how it happened, every step of it.”
“Please don’t tell me you made your own Prowler account.”
“But I found him! It wasn’t the same account, but I knew it was him. He asked the same questions. Had the same way of talking. I could tell it was the same guy. So, I said what Bren said. Kind of.”
“What do you mean, kind of?”
“He wanted a picture.”
“Daniel!”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Define ‘worked.’”
“I had to tell him I was running away from home. My family hated me because I was gay. I didn’t have any relatives who would take me in. But it worked. He wanted to meet. And he said he had a friend who might be able to help me.”
For a moment, Jem had a visual of this fifteen-year-old making himself into a walking target. He fought the urge to shout or sigh or slap him upside the head. But all he said was “And you used Brennon’s phone.”
“I had to. They took mine away.”
“Right. So, what was your plan when this guy finally showed up?”
“I had a knife.”
“Apparently, so did he.”
Daniel grimaced. “I never even got it out of my pocket.”
All Jem said was “And what happened when he got there?”
With a shiver, Daniel hunkered down again, chin on his knees.
“It was so fast. He kissed me, and he started pulling my clothes off. I couldn’t get to the knife because it was in my pocket, so I said I wanted to talk, but he didn’t want to do that.
And then he got on top of me, and he was kissing me again, and I still couldn’t reach the knife.
He was…he was moaning. And rubbing himself on me, you know?
And I said I wanted a condom. That’s when he got mad. ”
“What do you mean?”
Daniel opened his mouth, but then he frowned.
“I don’t know, I guess. He was just—I could tell he was mad.
He was kind of into it until then. I could feel him.
But when I said that, maybe it was something about his breathing.
I could just tell he was mad. And he grabbed me—” Daniel’s hand floated up to his throat.
“I tried to—but he was so strong. And I couldn’t breathe.
And the next thing I remember is later, with the paramedics.
Kind of. I guess the next thing I really remember is the hospital this morning. ”
“What about this guy? Did you get a good look at him? Did he say anything?”
“He said I was gorgeous.” Daniel pinkened. “I don’t know. He didn’t really talk a lot. He said hi, you know? And then he started touching me.”
And Daniel, who was fifteen and had no idea what he was doing, who had been scared and alone and on unfamiliar ground, had defaulted to what most people did—at least, in Jem’s experience: they let the other person take the lead, and they tried to keep up so that no one would realize they were out of their depth.
Which was how Daniel had ended up on the ground, shorts around his thighs, instead of stabbing the man he’d come to kill.
“What did his voice sound like?”
Daniel’s brow furrowed. “I mean…” But he caught himself and said after a moment, “Soft. Not high. But I thought it would be deeper.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. It was dark.”
“Anything, Daniel. Was he White?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Don’t guess.”
Anger sparked in Daniel’s eyes—another sign of life that, in its own way, eased some of the tightness in Jem’s chest. “He was White. Or maybe Hispanic. His hair was dark, and I think his eyes were too.”
“Good. What else?”
“I don’t know!”
“You two were playing cowboy, Daniel. You’d better know something.”
“He had a big dick!”
The thin-skinned teenage annoyance, as much as the words themselves, startled a laugh out of Jem. “There you go.”
Daniel watched him, face set somewhere between defiance and defense. When Jem didn’t correct him, they melted into an uncertain smile.
“He was shorter than me,” Daniel said. “That’s why it surprised me.”
“That’ll happen sometimes.”
“Why are you talking to me like this?”
“How do you want me to talk to you?”
“Dad says you’re bad for Uncle Tean. He says you cheat people out of their money.”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
Daniel cocked his head, but he nodded slowly.
With a grin, Jem said, “Give me five dollars.”
Daniel rolled his eyes, but a hint of a smile crept out. Then his expression changed to something like startlement. “Holy shit! He had a scar!”
“What?”
“The guy. The man from the park. He had a scar on his arm. I forgot, but then—” He pushed up the sleeve of Tean’s jacket to expose his forearm.
“When we were—when he was kissing me, I didn’t know where to put my hands, so I grabbed his arms. And I pushed his sleeve up by accident.
I felt the scar—you know how it feels different? ”
Jem nodded.
“It was like this,” Daniel said, tracing a crescent on his forearm. “And he didn’t like me touching it, because he pushed my hand away and pulled the sleeve down again.”
“See? That’s surprisingly good for a kid who has been keeping all his brains in his dick.”
It took a moment, but then Daniel laughed. “Bro!”
“You were watching for him, right? At the park?”
Daniel nodded.
“What was he driving?”
The hesitation lasted a second too long. “I don’t know.”
Jem watched the boy, trying to read him. “Are you sure about that?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see.”
“A truck? A sedan?”
“The parking lot was too far away.”
“Try that again. This time, make eye contact.”
Splotches of red rose in Daniel’s cheeks again. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Come on. We were doing so well.” Jem waited, but Daniel folded in on himself and dropped his gaze. “All right,” Jem said. “Let’s go find Tean.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Great. We can play tag again, only this time, I’ll call hospital security, and the police, and the SBI. Do you think they’re going to sit down with you and have a nice chat on the curb about all the stupid shit you’ve been pulling?”
“I don’t have to talk to anybody,” Daniel said, voice unsteady with anger, and with something else underneath the anger. “I don’t have to say anything.”
“Up,” Jem said, getting to his feet. “You don’t have to go back to the hospital if you don’t want, but you can’t run all over the place on your own, either.”
“But you—” The mess of emotions in Daniel’s voice threatened to spill over. “I thought you were going to help me! You tricked me!”
“Yeah, well, I guess your dad was right about me. On your feet, Junior.”
For a moment, it looked like Daniel might stay where he was, hunkered down like a rock and refusing to move.
But when Jem reached for his arm, Daniel twisted away from him and rose.
He took off toward the garage fast enough that Jem hurried after him, in case the kid tried to run again, but Daniel slowed when he approached Tean.
“I’m not going back to my family,” Daniel said. “You can’t make me.”
“Daniel,” Tean began.
“You’re supposed to be helping me!”
“I’m trying to help you. I know it doesn’t feel like that, but I promise I am.”
“I won’t go back. I’m not going back. My dad wouldn’t make me go back. My dad would let me go with you because he trusts you. That’s why he told Mom to call you.”
The doc was so uncomfortable he was practically crawling out of his own skin, and he kept shooting looks at Jem over Daniel’s shoulder. Jem said nothing.
“Let me talk to your mom,” Tean said, and he sounded like every browbeaten adult Jem had ever known as a teenager. “Jem?”
“Oh no,” Jem said. “This is your rodeo.”
Tean made a face like that wasn’t particularly helpful, but he fished his keys out of his pocket and passed them to Jem. “He’s got to be freezing. Can you let him warm up in the truck?”
“Sounds like fun.” With a glance at Daniel, Jem added, “We’ll see if he remembers anything else.”
Daniel refused to meet his gaze.
Tean cast a last, pleading look that moved from Jem to Daniel and back to Jem again. Jem ignored it. Daniel ignored it too. Sighing, the doc started toward the hospital.
Jem cocked his head in the direction of the truck, and Daniel started walking gingerly down the length of the garage.
It was a sign of how messed up everything was that Tean was even considering taking Daniel in.
Jem bounced the keys restlessly in one hand, and the jingle was the only sound aside from the far-off rumble of a diesel.
Under ordinary circumstances, Tean would be all commonsensical about it, telling Daniel he had to go back home, or back to the hospital, or back wherever he was supposed to be.
Instead, Daniel knew exactly which buttons to press to make the doc feel as guilty as possible, and that, in turn, had given him the leverage to—
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Daniel hopped on one foot, grabbing the other and bending over.
“What? What’s wrong—”
“I stepped on something. I stepped on something! Ow, ow, ow! I think I stepped on glass!”
“Let me see—”
Jem took the boy by the shoulder to steady him.
Daniel twisted, faster than Jem could believe.
One of Daniel’s hands came down to slap the keys out of Jem’s loose grip.
The other caught a handful of Jem’s shirt.
Daniel shifted his weight, bringing his supposedly injured foot back down, and pivoted at the waist. The movement yanked Jem forward.
He hit Daniel’s thigh, lost his balance, and was dragged off his feet.
The next thing he knew, his back slammed down onto the pavement. Breath exploded out of him.
For a moment, the pain of the landing—combined with the flare-up from where the killer had kicked him the night before—sent colored spots floating through Jem’s vision.
He was vaguely aware that his body was trying to breathe and his lungs seemed to have forgotten how. Somehow, he flopped onto his stomach.
Just in time to see a white truck lurch out of its parking spot. Tires squealed on the pavement. Brake lights flared. There was a fumbling moment, probably because Daniel was fifteen and had never actually driven a vehicle before. And then the truck shot out of the garage.