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Chapter 8
The drive home was every bit as long as I thought it would be. We barely spoke the entire time, arriving home in late morning. I wanted to talk to Steve, but when we finally pulled into my driveway, only Kane's vehicle was there. He told me both Steve and Adam were at the B&B today since something had happened over the weekend. He didn't say what and I didn't ask. I was in no mood to deal with anyone else's problems when I had my own to worry over.
I was also in no mood to sit around the house doing nothing. I drove into the office only to find it empty as well. Novak was obviously out on his case. I typed up my report, relying heavily on my notes since my mind wasn't exactly at peak performance, but then I was left with nothing to do except fret. Finally, the clock said it was almost time for Jake to be getting out of school. More for something to do than anything, I decided to follow him again.
I drove to the school and parked in almost the exact same spot I'd chosen to wait for him last time. As I sat and waited for the final bell to ring, my mind began to wander. Of course, the first place it went was directly to Micah.
I was still shocked about the whole thing. I couldn't believe that Micah had once been an escort. He'd told me about his troubled childhood, the much older neighbor who had seduced him and kept him quiet with mental abuse. He'd told me how it had affected his self-esteem and his view of sex; and about how he'd slept his way through practically the entire male population of his school. He'd also told me that his views of sex had changed as he'd gotten older and he never wanted his relationships to be based on sex alone again. None of that had prepared for the big news, however. And even after he'd told me that he'd planned to tell me that weekend, I still couldn't help but wonder if he would have if Tad hadn't spilled the beans.
I heard the dismissal bell ring and registered it at the back of my mind.
The question was, now that I knew, how did that affect me, and what was I going to do about it? If I had to be completely honest with myself, I knew it really shouldn't affect me. It was a part of Micah's past. As he'd said, it was part of what made him who he was today. And I had fallen in love with him as he was, hadn't I? Hadn't I? Maybe that was the real question. Did I really love Micah or was I just trying to convince myself that I loved him? Maybe I was just in love with the idea of being in love.
I was so caught up in my thoughts that I almost missed Jake when he came out of the school with a friend and climbed into his car. In fact, I really didn't notice him until he was pulling out of the parking lot. I started my car and pulled into the line of cars waiting their turn to get out of the lot, cursing myself the whole time at my ineptness.
You should have been paying more attention, I scolded myself. Novak always says that you can't let your personal life interfere with your investigation, and that's exactly what I'm doing.
I finally managed to get out onto the street and the chase was on. Jake had a considerable lead on me thanks to an overly cautious teen driver that had been in front of me. Who's ever heard of an overly cautious teen driver? I quickly made up for the lost time, and vented my frustration at the same time, by driving like a maniac until he was in site again. It was just plain luck that he hadn't turned off the main road. If he had, I would have lost him for sure.
Once I had him in my sights, Novak's training took over and my mind was free to go back to worrying at the situation with Micah like a dog with a bone. The question loomed up once again. Was I in love with Micah? I enjoyed being with him. I missed him when we weren't together. I was undeniably attracted to him. Was that love? What was love? I'd loved Asher, and probably always would, but it was so difficult to define. What I felt for Micah felt different from what I'd felt with Asher. Did that mean I loved Micah less or was it different every time? And if I did love Micah, didn't that mean I should be willing to accept him as he was? Why was I having such a hard time with this anyway? It's not as if he was a killer-for-hire or something that actually hurt anyone. While the morality of being an escort could be argued, it all depended on whose code of morality you were using. Being an escort was perfectly legal in some countries and even right here in the US in Nevada. And more importantly, he wasn't an escort now. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to handle dating someone who was still working as an escort. I was too insecure for that.
Maybe that's what this all came down to, insecurity. Was Micah comparing me to all those other guys he'd slept with when we were in bed? If so, I was sure I couldn't even begin to measure up. I didn't even know what I was doing. Why was Micah even interested in me? I was just a dumb kid from nowhere. He was a talented, bright, hunky, sophisticated man. What if he got tired of me one day and just up and left me?
I was so caught up in that train of thought that I didn't even notice when Jake turned off. I just suddenly realized he was no longer in front of me. I had no clue when he'd turned off or where. I let loose with a string of curses as I pounded the steering wheel in anger.
Great, just great, I fumed. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. This was not turning out to be a good day. Maybe I should just drive home and lock myself in my room for the rest of the day, I thought glumly. Jake was definitely gone and I had no idea where he was going. That thought spurred another thought, I might not know where he was going, but I was pretty sure where he wasn't going. We had been driving in the opposite direction of his house. Maybe now would be a good time to search his room, assuming I could manage to stay focused on the job at hand and not allow my thoughts to distract me again.
I turned the car around and drove towards Judy and Jake's house. When I arrived, I was pleased to see that my luck seemed to be changing; Jake's car was nowhere to be seen. Better yet, Judy's van was parked by the house, so that meant she was home. I parked behind the van and Judy had the front door open before I was even completely out of the car.
Judy had never been married and as far as I knew, had not been lucky in love. She'd gotten pregnant as a young teen and moved away to raise the baby, Dashel, by herself. She'd gotten pregnant a second time after her brother-in-law, Jake's father, forced himself on her. That baby was Jake. She'd ended up allowing her sister to adopt Jake and raise him as her own. It turned out that her brother-in-law had not only been a rapist, he was also abusive to his older children. The oldest son, Todd, had snapped and killed Seth, another boy, and his own sister before trying to kill Jake, Asher and me. I'd shot and killed Todd to protect Jake and soon after the people who had raised Jake from birth killed themselves in a double suicide. All that was left of Jake's family he and his little brother, Jamie. Asher's parents had adopted Jamie and Judy had come back for Jake. She'd moved Jake to California where she lived with her older son, Dash.
Now that Dash was studying in Australia, Judy had decided to move back to Maryland to be closer to her only remaining family, Asher's parents. She'd started renting this little house a few months ago. It wasn't big or fancy, but then, they didn't need much space for the two of them. Judy had worked miracles in the yard in the short time she'd been there, though. The yard was a riot of color, even this far into October. She'd planned the gardens to look very natural, so that you could barely tell where the lawn left off and the gardens began.
"The yard is beautiful," I told her as I walked up the flagstone path she's laid through the midst of the flowers.
"Thanks, it relaxes me," she said. "You haven't found anything out." It was a statement, not a question but I answered it anyway.
"Not yet," I was thinking I could search his room while he isn't here."
She nodded silently and held the door open. "I hate doing this," she said as I stepped inside, "but I can't just stand by and do nothing. I know something is wrong; I just don't know what. It's killing me."
The anguish in her voice was so strong it stopped me in my tracks. I turned to face her and found myself hugging her spontaneously. "I'll find out what's going on," I promised her.
"Please do," she said, barely above a whisper.
I pushed the door to Jake's room open with a twinge of guilt. It was one thing to snoop through a complete stranger's personal belongings, it was quite another to be doing it to a friend. I felt like I was violating a trust between us.
The room looked like any typical teenager's room. A few posters were plastered on the wall, one advertising Showtime's Queer As Folk and a couple movie posters. Dirty clothes were scattered about, wherever they'd landed when Jake had removed them. A dirty plate sat on the floor and nearby a glass lay on its side, a dried skim of milk inside it. The room itself was on the small side and most of the floor space was taken up by a double bed, a dresser, a desk, a bookcase, and an entertainment center that held a TV, VCR, DVD and a game cube. I whistled softly at the electronics. That had cost a bundle and I somehow doubted Judy could afford all that, so where had it come from? I made a mental note to ask Judy before I left.
Where to start? I asked myself as I surveyed the room. I chose the desk and started opening drawers and sifting through the contents, trying to leave as little sign that I'd been there as possible. I hadn't done many room searches, but I'd helped Novak a few times. I couldn't help but smile a little as I remembered my first search I'd done last summer. I'd found a stash of illegally filmed videos of certain local officials caught in rather compromising positions at a sleazy motel. The manager had been taping people with hidden cameras for his own pleasure; the fact that it also netted him a lucrative side-business blackmailing the folks on the tapes was just icing on the cake. We'd called in the cops and he was promptly arrested. Last I heard, he was in jail-where he belonged.
So far, my search of Jake's desk was turning up nothing more than a few bad test grades and one marijuana roach all the way at the back of the bottom left-hand drawer. God only knew how long it had been there, and it was hardly the kind of problem I suspected Judy was worried about. Hell, for all I knew, it was Judy's.
The desk out of the way, I moved on to the dresser. There was nothing in any of the drawers except clothes. I'd never realized what a clothes horse Jake was, or how expensive his tastes were. Most of the clothes looked brand new or almost so. How did he afford to shop at these places? I was beginning to understand why Judy was so worried. The more I searched the more questions I had.
I searched the closet-more clothes and a few boxes of outgrown toys and games-and under the bed, mostly dust. I lifted the mattress and looked under it, nothing. Next, I carefully looked through the bookcase, looking behind the books, and feeling along under the shelves. The only thing I learned was that Jake favored science fiction and seldom used the set of encyclopedias on the bottom shelf, the dust was so thick down there it had made me sneeze.
Unless, I had missed something, which was entirely possible, the only place left to look was the entertainment center. I looked it over, there were only a few places that something could be hidden or kept. A small cabinet with doors at the bottom and a carved wooden box he'd placed on one of the shelves. I went to the cabinet first. I opened the doors and a small avalanche of magazines, video tapes, and photographs tumbled out, a motley assortment of XY, Teen People, EW, and gay porn. The magazines and videos I set aside after shaking them upside down to make sure nothing was hidden in the pages. All that fell out were subscription cards, but there were enough of those to paper the walls. I went through the pictures more carefully in case there was a clue in any of them.
Most of them were of people I didn't know and the backgrounds often included palm trees, so I deduced that they had been taken while Jake was living in California. Towards the bottom of the pile, I started recognizing more of the people in the pictures. There were a few from family gatherings, the Davis clan at birthdays and holidays. The pictures of Asher caused a dull ache, but the ones that almost made me forget why I was here were the others. Ones that Jake must have been unable to throw away. One was a wallet-sized family portrait of Jake's old family, all dead now but Jake and Jamie. Another must have been taken while I was briefly dating Jake's sister Gilly; it was supposed to have been a cover, but she'd fallen for me anyway. Gilly and I were in the forefront, my arm tossed casually around her shoulder with Todd glaring from the background. And then there were several pictures taken at the huge Halloween bash Jake and Gilly had thrown the same year the photo of Gilly and me had been taken. One showed Jake, Kane, Asher, and me in costume, mugging for the camera. It wasn't a night I was all that eager to remember.
The last one in the pile was the one that really got to me. I had no idea when it had been taken or who had taken it. It had the look of a photo taken without the subjects being aware it was being taken, even though they were looking directly at the photographer. It was of Seth and me. It had been taken at school, we were walking down the hall, and it looked like we had been talking before something had made us both look up. I didn't remember when it was taken; I hadn't even known there had ever been a picture taken of us together. For a moment, I was terribly tempted to slide the picture into my pocket-for selfish reasons-but I couldn't risk Jake noticing it was gone. I reluctantly returned it to the pile and then, after making sure I hadn't missed anything in the cabinet, shoved everything back in as near as I could get it to the way it had been when I'd opened the door. The way everything had just slid out, though, I wasn't too worried that he'd notice if anything out of place. I shut the cabinet doors on the mess and tried to shut the picture out of my mind as well. If only one was as easy as the other.
I only had the carved wooden box to look through now. I stood up and lifted the lid of the box. As I sifted through the contents, I wondered if I was going to turn up absolutely nothing concrete. The box held nothing more than a few more photos, some discarded movie stubs Jake had kept as keepsakes and a few pieces of jewelry. The photos were of Jake's new family; Judy with her arms around Jake and Dash, Judy with her arms wrapped around Jake's neck, Jake and Dash posing comically for the photographer. All of it about as exciting and incriminating as mud.
Then, for some reason, I took everything out of the box and picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy and a suspicion rose up in my mind. I shook it and heard a shuffling sound despite the fact that it was empty, or at least it appeared to be empty. A second, closer look showed that the outside of the box was a lot deeper than the inside. That could only mean one thing-a false bottom.
I turned the box over in my hands and examined the bottom. It didn't take me long to see that the bottom was rigged to slide out. It was a snug fit, but I was able to move it with my thumbs far enough to get my fingers inside and push it open. When I saw what was inside, I almost dropped it. There was wad of money bigger than I had ever seen, and as I soon learned, made up of all hundreds. Where on earth had Jake gotten this? And more importantly, how had he gotten it? But that wasn't to be the last surprise the box held. There was another ticket in here. At first, I thought it was another stub, another keepsake, but on further inspection, I realized it was actually for an event that hadn't yet taken place. It was for the highly publicized AIDS Benefit Ball, a high-society function that I'd read about in the paper just last week. They were expecting everyone from the governor on down to be in attendance and tickets were starting at $300 each.
Under the ticket was a picture that had been clipped from the newspaper. The grainy image showed an elegant looking man shaking hands with a state senator. The man was strangely familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn't place him. He was obviously some sort of big-wig, but I couldn't figure out who he was or where I had seen him. The bigger question was why did Jake have a picture of him hidden in this secret compartment?
I looked at the picture for a little longer, then slid the bottom back into place, replaced the box's other contents and set it carefully back into the outline that had been left in the light coating of dust on the shelf. When I was finished, you would have never known the box had been touched. I slowly backed out of the room, pausing at the door to see if I had missed anything. I finally decided that if there were any more hidden hiding places I didn't know how to find them and I didn't want to risk leaving evidence of my search. It was entirely possible that there was some sort of innocent explanation for all this, and if so, I didn't want to alienate Jake for no reason. I closed the door and went to find Judy.
I found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a mug of hot tea steaming in her hand. Another mug sat steaming in front of her and when I stepped into the room, she pushed it in my direction.
"Sugar?" she asked.
I sat down in the chair next to her and accepted the tea and the sugar. I added sugar until the strong tea was sweet enough for my liking and then we sat and sipped in companionable silence for a few minutes.
"You didn't find anything definite but you found some things that concern you," she stated. Judy seldom asked questions unless they were for your benefit. It was eerie at times, but you eventually got used to it.
"I found a joint in one of the drawers," I said, deciding to work my way up to the big stuff. She waved that aside. As I'd suspected, that wasn't high on Judy's list of concerns. "I also saw that he'd bought an awful lot of rather expensive clothes in the last few months."
"In the last month, actually. I'd noticed that too, that's one of the reasons I decided to come to you for help. He didn't get the money for them from me and as far as I know, he doesn't have a job, at least not a legitimate one. When I asked him where the money was coming from, he told me to mind my own business and stormed off."
I nodded. "Did you buy him all the electronic equipment?"
"You mean the TV and all? No. He just showed up with it all one day. He wouldn't say where that came from either."
I took a deep breath. "Do you know the carved wooden box on the entertainment center?"
"I know there's one there; where it came from I have no idea."
"There's more to it than meets the eye. It has a false bottom that slides out. He had some things hidden in there."
Her eyes sharpened. "What kinds of things?"
"A wad of money that probably equals about six months of my salary, if not more, a ticket to the AIDS Benefit Ball, and a newspaper clipping of a photo of a man that I know I should recognize but can't."
Judy frowned. Obviously, it wasn't what she had been expecting. "What in God's name is he doing with a ticket to AIDS Benefit Ball? Those things are harder to come by than plutonium."
I shrugged. I didn't have any clue.
She thought a moment, then asked, "What did the man in the picture look like?"
"Distinguished," I said immediately before realizing it wasn't the most vivid description. I thought a moment. "He had dark hair and was tall and slim." I shook my head in frustration. "He was handsome; beyond that I don't know. He's hard to describe."
"That could almost anyone," she said with a sigh.
I hated to see her look so dispirited. It wasn't how I was used to seeing Judy. "It could all be something completely innocent," I offered.
Her raised eyebrow spoke eloquently and I sighed.
"Trust me," she began. "I've wracked my brain trying to come up with an innocent explanation for all this and I've come up with nada. Where is this money coming from? How can he afford to buy all these clothes and expensive equipment? And now I have even more questions. How did he get a ticket for the Ball and why would he want one? And who the hell is that man in the picture?"
"You hired me to find the answers to those questions and, damn it, I'm going to find them," I said firmly.
She gave me a weak smile. "Finish your tea," she said softly.
Typical Judy, I thought as I drank the last of my tea. I sputtered and picked something off my tongue.
"Tea leaves," Judy explained, taking my mug and peering into it.
"Don't tell me you read tea leaves," I said.
She glanced up at me and smiled a little. "Not often, but I picked it up from a gypsy woman who lived in my neighborhood back in California. She also read tarot and palms. Fascinating woman. I'm not as good as she was; my gifts really lay in other areas, but I'm not bad. Or so she said."
"So what's mine say?"
She studied the bottom of my mug for a while before answering. Her face lost all expression and when she spoke, it was in a voice so low that I had to strain to hear her. "You're fighting battles on many fronts, some are battles within, and some are battles without. Some are battles you shouldn't even be fighting. And whether you know it or not, many of the battles are intertwined. There is even one possible battle on the horizon that you haven't even begun yet, and what you decide about that battle could greatly affect the other battles."
I sat for a moment, not sure what to say. "That's a lot of battles," I said finally, weakly attempting a joke. "You got all that from some tea leaves?"
She looked up and smiled tightly, a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Most of it," she said simply. And then, after a beat, "I'm worried about you."
"Why? Because of these battles you're talking about?"
She nodded.
"I'll be fine," I said with more bravado than I actually felt. The truth was her predictions had left me feeling very unsettled. I was wondering what the battles could be. The situation with Micah was one that jumped to mind, and that was most likely the internal one she had mentioned. What would the external ones be though? My investigation of Jake? And what was this mysterious future battle? I hated these vague predictions. I never knew what to think of them. One thing I did know, I most certainly did not like all this talk of battles; it sounded awful violent.
Almost as if she was reading my mind, Judy spoke up. "I'm worried because there is a feeling of death running through all your battles."
That was certainly encouraging.
"Not necessarily yours," she added quickly as I felt the blood drain from my face. "Although, it is within the realm of possibility."
I took a deep breath and tried to force a carefree smile. "That's pretty vague, you know. It's not outside the realm of possibility that we could all die tomorrow. I mean, we could die anytime. I could get hit by a drunk driver or lightning could strike me when I walk outside. No one has any guarantees."
"No, but we can increase our chances of dying by acting foolishly."
"Am I acting foolishly?"
"I don't know. Are you?"
"I don't think so."
"One of the battles you are facing is your refusal to acknowledge your Gift. That is foolish."
"Oh great, here we go again. Haven't we been over this enough?"
"Obviously not. You still haven't acknowledged them."
"Isn't that my choice?"
"Sure, and it's also the choice of a natural artist not to draw if they so choose, or someone with a beautiful voice can choose not to sing if they wish, but if they make that choice they are throwing away a beautiful gift that could have been of benefit to others."
"It's not the same."
"Oh, but it is. You were given this Gift for a reason. It's a part of you. You can choose not to use it or to even acknowledge it, but it's still there. By choosing not to use it, you are denying a part of yourself, the same way someone who is gay and refuses to admit it is denying a part of his or herself. But unlike choosing not to sing or draw or admit that you are gay, ignoring this Gift could have dire repercussions."
I felt a chill go down my spine. "What kind of repercussions?" I asked in a small voice.
"What you have is essentially an untrained Gift. Whether you like it or not, you have the ability to see things other people cannot. You have the ability to communicate with those caught between this world and the next. And that's just the Gift we know about. It's very possible that if you have that, you may have others."
"But how can that have dire repercussions. If I choose not to use that...Gift, and I use the term loosely, what could happen?"
"There is some purpose behind your Gift. Something that only you can accomplish with it. And before you ask, I don't know what that purpose is. I sense that it is of great importance, but I don't know more than that."
"Does it involve the battle on the horizon?"
She paused. "No, I don't think so. I think that is a separate issue. I think whatever this purpose is; it still lies in the distant future. Your decisions now, however, will affect it greatly."
"You mean if I decide to ignore the Gift?"
"The path you choose affects your destination."
I frowned. "That sounds like a fortune cookie."
"But it's very true. The decisions you make now will affect when and how you face your purpose."
"How do I know if I'm making the right decisions?"
"You don't. Not until it's too late to change them."
I suddenly felt very small and insignificant. I didn't like the idea that there was some destiny out there with my name on it; that my life was somehow out of my control. Of course, I still had the choice to ignore the Gift, if you call that a choice. Accept it and fulfill my destiny, whatever that may be; ignore it and possibly screw up not only my life but others as well. Then I remembered something Seth had told me a long time ago, before he was killed. He'd told me that I was at a crossroads then, something he felt was significant because my middle name means crossroads. He'd said that the path I chose would affect the rest of my life and that there was only one path that was right for me. I'd thought then that I had chosen the right path and that was the end of it. I was beginning to realize now that life was really a succession of crossroads, and you had to constantly and consciously choose what path you took. There was still only one path that was truly right for me, but it seemed that, for me at least, they all led to the same place eventually. What path I chose would apparently decide how prepared I would be when I got there, or maybe even if I got there. One wrong choice and I could end up dead. Hadn't Judy said that the feeling of death had permeated my fortune? She couldn't be sure it wasn't mine.
I don't know how long I sat there, lost in these thoughts before Judy spoke up again. "You can't let yourself be paralyzed by indecision and fear," she said softly. "You have to keep making decisions and fighting your battles. It's entirely possible that the purpose I sense is only within yourself. That wouldn't make it any less important, you know."
I shook off the dark mood I had been slipping into and gave her a tentative smile. "Obviously I need to give this a lot of thought," I said.
She smiled and her eyes showed relief as her whole body relaxed. "That's a good sign," she said. "At least you are willing to think about it now."
"It doesn't seem like I have much choice."
"You always have a choice, Killian."
"What about you?"
"What about me? I have choices as well."
"No, I mean, what did your tea leaves say?"
Her smile faltered a little and she reached almost reluctantly towards her mug. She examined the dregs and her smile faded away completely. She was so still and quiet I was afraid to move or make a sound for fear of breaking the spell. Finally, she carefully set the mug down and looked up. I couldn't read the expression in her eyes; it was almost as if she had closed shutters behind them, closing off her emotions from view.
"Well?" I asked.
She shook her head slightly. "Don't worry about it."
"But..."
"No, I think that was a message meant for me and me alone. You'd better go before Jake comes home." She stood and briskly began clearing the table of the mugs. She rinsed hers out before I could say another word, almost as if she was trying to wash away whatever it was she had seen at its bottom. I stood slowly and, as I started to turn and go, I was taken by a sudden urge. I spun around and grabbed Judy in a tight hug. She was surprised at first, but quickly returned the hug just as fiercely.
"Go," she said after a moment and gently pushed me away. She turned quickly back to the sink, but not before I saw unshed tears brightening her eyes. What had she seen in that mug that could have caused such a reaction? I wasn't at all sure I wanted to know.