Scratch the Surface

9

Jeremiah

Detective Aguilar brought his partner, Detective Dennehy, with him, and he was the one who reiterated what I’d been told on the phone when he got to Zack’s shop: Shawn had taken something from somebody, with or without meaning to, and now the gang—that was what they were calling them—wanted it back. At this point it came down to tracking Shawn’s every movement over the last month.

“He doesn’t know what he took?” I was surprised. “I mean, you asked him and he has no fuckin’ clue?”

“Yeah, no,” Aguilar assured me. “Apparently when you swipe a lot of small shit, it doesn’t stick in your head.”

“I guess that’d be too easy,” I muttered.

“We think he got involved with someone and didn’t want to be an escort anymore,” Detective Aguilar informed me. “You weren’t the only one he’d asked to fill in for him; he was tapping all the guys in Gina’s stable.”

“So you’re thinking his connection to the gang is through someone he was dating?”

“Maybe. Or maybe a regular client who wanted him to, I dunno, be exclusive?”

That made sense.

“You don’t remember anyone who fits that description?”

“He has friends he went out with and did whatever with, but as I said, I saw him in class and that was it.”

Aguilar nodded. “I know, kid. Like I told you earlier, we checked you out. Two jobs plus school, I’m surprised you even agreed to do it when he asked you. And when we talked to the professors you and Shawn had in common, they had great things to say about you, but not much about him at all.”

“Shawn comes off like he was skating by,” Dennehy chimed in. “And I have to wonder why he’s going to school to be a social worker if he doesn’t really give a crap.”

“He wants to run the human resources division of his family company, and from what he told me, the board won’t even consider him without a master’s.”

Dennehy nodded. “It just seems odd. From the picture we’ve gathered from his social media accounts, from Gina Hayward, from his family, and acquaintances we’ve spoken to, I’m not seeing a guy like you and your classmates. He’s not a serious student, which makes me think we’re missing something.”

A memory hit me then. “There was a guy who came to pick him up a couple of times,” I told them. “He drove a gold Dodge Charger. Shawn thought it was cool, and he got annoyed that I thought it was lame.”

“It is lame,” Aguilar agreed with me.

“We’d be on the way to class, and he’d see the car, ask me to take good notes, and then ditch. That happened, like, two, three times.”

“Okay.” Dennehy smiled at me. “Gold Charger, good job, kid. You call us if you remember anything else, all right?”

I agreed to do so, and they left. Which is when Zack gave me the great news that I had a very dead carburetor.

“The bad news is I gotta order it, and it’ll take a week, but the good news is you can borrow the pickup until it gets here.”

“And if it dies on the side of the road?”

“Then you call me,” he replied, using the tone of voice that meant I was a dumbass.

On my way home, I pulled over when Cam called me, and we talked for a while. I explained about the detectives, and somehow it was not as bad after I told him. I had never been the kind of person to share things about myself, but suddenly I wanted to explain to him why blue was my favorite color and why you should never count on anyone—because they would let you down, even when they didn’t mean to. He was making plans for me to visit, and while half of me was over-the-moon excited, the other half was certain it would never happen. We were just over a hundred miles apart, but even being in the same state, the chances of this working out were slim.

And yet…

He was calling and texting and again, making plans, and it was an altogether new experience for me to have someone working to see me.

I was close to home when I got a call from Kingman’s.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Cheyenne greeted me. “Remember when you told me—what was it, Thursday when those people came to talk to the Bowens about selling the restaurant?”

“Yeah,” I answered hesitantly. I refused to believe Cam had done anything more on the deal without telling me. It wasn’t him.

“Well, now I know the real reason the Bowens didn’t sell to the Country Porch people.”

I was relieved, even though she did not sound happy. The guy I was falling for had not gone back and figured out a better deal. “And what is that?”

“They sold the whole fuckin’ road they own, all five goddamn miles of it, to the asshole who just got elected mayor.”