Chapter 18

Eighteen

W alter

Everything happened so fast.

We went back to the house and Gene and Denny got on the phone. Fifteen minutes later, a detective from the LAPD who Gene knew was knocking on the door.Gene went to answer, and Denny took that opportunity to calm me down, or at least attempt to get me on board with their plans.

"Junior, I know you don't like this. But we'll be sure Dane is never in danger for a second. You stay on him like you have been, and let us handle the rest."

"Denny, I'm not trying to be unreasonable here?—"

"No, but you're compromised. You did the right thing stepping back, now let me do the rest, okay? I won't shut you out, but you have to follow my lead."

I nodded, but I didn't like this one bit. And he knew it.

"What's happening?" Dane asked me.He'd gone straight to the bathroom to clean up when we got back, but then returned to my side.

I took him by the hand and started to lead him to the kitchen, but he tugged my hand.

"Can we go out back? I need a smoke."

I let him lead the way and we went out the slider. Instead of standing near the pool, he took me around the corner into an area enclosed on three sides by retaining walls. He took out a cigarette but like the first time, his hands were shaking so bad, he couldn't light it.

"Here," I said, approaching him slowly. I took the matches so I could help him. "I hate what this is doing to you."

He sucked in the smoke and squinted. "The smoking?"

"No, all this. Your hands, the shaking."

He shrugged. "It started after… the bad thing. Mr. Ame at the carnival made it stop for a while, but I have a feeling it's going to be like this until… I don't know."

I wanted to offer him some sort of comfort. I stepped behind him and placed my hands lightly on his shoulders. "May I?"

He nodded and blew out a huge puff of smoke.

I began to apply light pressure with my thumbs at the base of his neck, and he moaned softly.

"That's nice," he said, and he let his head hang forward. "It's been so long since I've had any sort of physical contact with another person. Not even a hug. But you touch me a lot, and it's… so nice."

"I'm glad. I get it. My parents weren't affectionate with each other, and when I married my wife, she used to get on my case about me being the same. I went to see a therapist when we had our twins. I had all kinds of worries about whether… Let's just say my father had a lot of issues, and I didn't want to repeat those patterns. It was important to me that my kids always knew how much I loved them." I laughed. "I wasn't great about it with my wife, but my kids always knew."

"I bet you're a great dad." He rolled his head from side to side and then crushed the cigarette out in the dirt. "Your kids are lucky."

"I'm the lucky one. They helped keep me tethered to the good things in life when my work led me to dark places."

He sighed. "You really are a poet at heart, aren't you?"

"Nah," I said, sliding his hair to the side and kissing his neck. "You're the poet. You've written some beautiful songs. I listened to your music a lot when I was frustrated and didn't know how to deal with my life."

He turned to face me, but then stepped back. "Shit. I forget you don't smoke. I should brush my teeth. Sorry."

"Don't even worry about it," I said, pulling him into an embrace. "I might not smoke, but between picking up sweaty kids from sports practices, and long stakeouts in small cars with stale coffee and cigarette smoke from my co-workers, smells don't bother me."

He chuckled but rested his head on my shoulder, his face away from mine. "Were you a hands-on parent? I didn't really see many fathers with their kids growing up. Cass had Owen, but no one knew who the father was. I wasn't close with the other people in our circle who had kids. They didn't stay late."

"I wanted to be involved in everything. My kids were the most important thing I'd ever done, and with twins, Lisa needed me. My mom helped, but she isn't a real nurturing type. She's more like a good buddy than someone to take care of your boo boos. Lisa and I figured the parenting stuff out together."

"You're a good man, Walter. I'm sorry to lay all this heavy shit on you."

"No way," I said, hugging him tighter. "I chose this. I chose to take on your case. I chose to come when Ryan called. I chose to… to lead with my heart when I met you, whatever the consequences. But Dane? Don't choose this . Putting yourself in danger. I'm begging you. Let me take you away from here."

Dane put his hand up to my face and stared into my eyes. He was so strong. Ever since the close call outside the club, he'd seemed more determined than ever to do what he came here to do. It hurt my heart.

"I made my choice before we met, Walter. I decided to leave the carnival and come after this guy to stop him. That's why I was at Buttonwillow. I was too late that time, but I'm still gonna do it. I'd like you to be with me, but I understand if you can't." He stood a little taller and kicked his chin up. So brave.

I stepped away from him. I needed some sort of clarity, though I should have known I was beyond getting it from a few feet of separation. My obsession with finding Dane, and then finding him to be so much more than I imagined, had completely clouded my judgement. I knew I needed to let Denny and Gene run this thing, but my instincts told me this was not the way. I just didn't know if that was the detective talking, or the man catching feelings.

"Hey, you two," Gene said as he came outside. "I've got a reporter coming from the local news channel tomorrow, a friend of my wife's from when she used to work here. He's agreed to do a story on the Buttonwillow case and the history of unsolved disappearances on the I-5 corridor. It'll run on the evening news. Detective Ramos from the LAPD has three of his guys scouting out the perimeter of the property as we speak, and they'll be set up out there, out of sight, in case this guy shows up. These guys are former military. They're good. I've met them before. Dane, you'll be safe, all right?"

Dane nodded at him but gave me a wide-eyed look.

"Are you heading out?" I asked Gene.

He shook his head. "Sam knows I'm staying now. She wanted me to, said to tell you to let us help, and that she loves you."

I couldn't look at him. I couldn't stand the fucking pity in his voice. I'd had no choice but to turn things over to my two closest friends, I knew that.

"Thanks," was all I could say.

He squeezed my shoulder. "So, Dane. Since we've seen the Buttonwillow suspect here in LA, Detective Ramos would like to ask you a few questions about this guy we're looking for. Can you tell him what you told us?" He turned and looked over his shoulder, and then spoke quietly. "You know, what we decided?"

"I can, but is he going to believe me?"

"Maybe stick to the facts that matter. You were working at the carnival, he came to your booth, he was pushy, made you uncomfortable, and then he said, ‘I'll see you again.' That ties him directly to our crime scene. We'll, uh, have to figure out what to do about your identity."

"We have a plan about that." I turned to Dane. "Are you okay with what we talked about earlier?"

He nodded. "Yeah. And look." He pulled out the empty billfold from Kal and opened it.

Gene and I leaned in—and stared in disbelief.

"Holy… where the fuck did that come from?" Gene reached for it and looked at it closely. "You didn't tell me you got a fake ID for him."

"No, he didn't do this," Dane said. "It's, um… It came from the carnival."

"Dee Dee Miller, born August twenty-ninth, nineteen eighty. What?—"

"Tess Miller was my… mother," Dane said, his words halting as if he wasn't sure how far to go. "Dane Donovan was my father. He disappeared when my mother was pregnant with me, and before she was killed, she sent me to live with an aunt and uncle of hers in…" He looked to me with his eyes wide.

"We'll figure that out. What about Dane?" I asked. I hated this plan, but I knew we needed to have a cover story for him.

"No one knows. He disappeared. When I turned eighteen, I went to work at the carnival."

"And someone attacked you when you were traveling," Gene said. "You gotta have some way to explain the scars."

Dane nodded, touching his cheek and looking down at his hands.

"Yeah. I wanted to know more about him, so I went looking for information about his life. I got jumped along the way. The guy from the carnival found me, and I stayed on." He kicked up his chin. "Bob Dylan told stories about traveling with a carnival and since I knew Dane loved Dylan, I thought I'd give it a shot. Guess it grew on me."

I exhaled as I felt the weight of that explanation. I was familiar with Dylan's tale, which apparently was false, but it gave us the perfect explanation.

"It's brilliant," I breathed. "Makes total sense given ‘Dane's' history." I used finger quotes, and Dane grinned at me.

"Then you gotta start calling me Dee Dee," he whispered.

I took his hand and tangled our fingers together, ready to forget the chaos around us and let the spell this man had cast on me take over.

"Great. Fucking carnivals. Got it," Gene finally said. "Just make sure you've got that story down and find some relatives somewhere. I'm going inside. I'm getting a headache from all this woo-woo."

"You ready to go in? Dee Dee?" I asked, and he laughed that big, loud laugh of his that had happened so infrequently since I'd met him. I wanted more.

"Thought you loved woo-woo?" Dane asked Gene's retreating back.

He flipped us off as he turned the corner.

Dane moved closer to me as we walked inside."I just need a minute to use the bathroom." He smiled at me, and I had to admit that he was doing better with all of this than I was.

"Sure," I said as we stepped into the house. I watched him walk to his room, and then I found Gene.

"You good with all this?" Gene asked.

I stood a little taller, making myself eye level with my friend. "I guess I have to be. I don't like it."

"Walt, man. We've got it covered?—"

"And as much as I trust you with my life, I don't like it for him ."

Gene narrowed his eyes at me. "I'm not going to take that personally, since I can see you're hung up on this guy."

"Let me ask you this—would you put Sam in harm's way if the situation called for it?"

"Jesus, Walter?—"

"Yeah, fuck off, because you wouldn't."

I walked away from him before I said anything else. I still needed to be sharp because despite their assurances that the place was protected, if anything happened to Dane, I'd still consider it my fault… and it would break me.

Before I rounded the corner, my phone buzzed. It was Dax in the group text.

There's been another homicide.

"Walt," Gene called out, and I returned to him as he dialed Dax's number.

"Where?" I asked.

"Dax, where?" Gene said into the phone.

"Lebec. Tejon Pass Rest Area. Before dawn. Like the last one."

Gene and I both cursed. "Same MO?"

"Yeah," Dax said, "and he was caught on surveillance camera. It's the guy. We didn't get a vehicle but he had to have one."

"We saw him on foot here just a bit ago."

Dax cursed. "And you didn't think to fucking call me?"

Gene frowned and held the phone away, like are you kidding me right now . "It just happened, kid ," he said, putting Dax in his place. Gene and Denny still treated Dax like the youngster he was. "We were out to dinner, we saw him, we called LAPD, and we were going to call you as soon as we came up with a plan."

I hated that I now had Gene and Denny involved with keeping information from Dax.

"Well, I just wish… I'd like to have any information you've got that is relative to my case." His tone changed quite a bit, from whiny to formal and recalcitrant.

"Okay. That's better. As for your case, we are currently trying to determine how the suspect found out where we?—"

"Who's we? Walter? And those guys from this morning? Who the hell is this Dee Dee person? I can't find anything on him."

"I'll send you my notes in a few minutes. That'll answer all of your questions. Now, if you would please let me get back to work?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks."

"Thank you , Detective Brown." Gene hung up and cursed at the phone in his hand. "That little twat. Talking to me like that."

I knew it was time for me to get over my snit.

"Gene, I'm sorry, man?—"

He didn't wait for me to finish speaking. He pulled me in for a hug and pounded on my back.

"We got this, brother," he said in my ear. "You let me deal with Detective Pissy Pants, all right?"

"Thanks, man. Go easy on him, would you? He's not used to being on his own, and this is a big case."

He raised his eyebrows. "Little shit's not going to get snippy with me and get away with it if he wants to be treated like a big boy. And relax, I was just reminding him of his place. Now, we good?"

I exhaled. "Yeah, man. I'm sorry. I appreciate you and Denny coming down here. I've never… I can't think straight around him."

Gene smiled and squeezed my shoulder. "We gotchoo. I love you, man, Don't ever doubt that."

I just nodded, not trusting my voice.

Dane stepped out of the hallway as we entered the living room.

"You ready to talk, Mr. Miller?" Gene asked.

Dane looked to me, and I went to his side. "You want me here?"

"You have to ask?"

We sat together on the couch after shaking hands with Detective Efrain Ramos.

"We want to help your guys catch this man before he tries to pull this bullshit in our city, so whatever you can tell us will help."

Dane nodded and folded his hands in his lap. With the beanie off and his hair down, he looked vulnerable once more. I fucking hated putting him in this position.

"Great. I already spoke to Mr. Wells, who drew the sketch of the suspect, and I just received a photo of the suspect from Detective Brown with Kern County. A surveillance camera caught him leaving the Tejon Pass Rest Area, where another victim was found."

Dane flinched, and I reached for his hand. He took mine in both of his, and I felt him fighting the shakes.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down. He tucked his hair over his ear, and I noticed Ramos's reaction when he saw the scars on his face and hands. Good . I hoped he understood how delicate this situation was.

"Not your fault, son. We just want to make sure he doesn't do it again." I appreciated that Detective Ramos was being gentle with his questioning. He was probably close to my age, but without sounding vain, he definitely carried himself older than I did. "Now, I know the basics of your situation, and I don't want to drag you through the horrible scene you witnessed again, but can you tell me what you know about this suspect?"

Here goes.

"I've been working with a traveling carnival for a long time now, since I was eighteen or something? The other night, this guy came to my booth and he was just… strange. Something about him set me off, and I told the carnival boss."

"Can you elaborate? What about him was strange?"

"He was real pushy. When he left, he said, ‘I'll see you again.' Wait…" Dane got quiet for a minute, and he rubbed at his head, wincing as if he was having another memory.

"Did you remember something else?" I asked him in a low voice.

Dane whispered to me, "He said, ‘He told me I'd find you here.' I forgot that part before."

Detective Ramos looked at me with interest. "We all sort of wondered if there was a link between this suspect and what happened forty years prior to Dane Donovan."

Dane cleared his throat. "He was my dad."

Detective Ramos's eyes flared, and then he coughed into his fist. "You said Dane Donovan was your father ? Are you aware that he's a missing person?"

Dane nodded. "I am now. I mean, Detective Muse explained it to me. All I know is he disappeared while my mother was pregnant with me."

"And your mother…"

Dane cleared his throat. "Tess Miller. My aunt and uncle raised me. I lived with them until I was eighteen. I went looking for information about my father, more than the little bit I knew, and I ended up going to work at a traveling carnival. I liked it so I stayed. 'Til now." Dane's hands shook as he brushed his hair out of his face again, and I noticed his lip trembling.

Ramos turned to me. "You check this out?"

"Detectives Hamilton and Ochoa have been working on it. I'm on vacation and, after everything that's happened, I've recused myself from the Donovan case."

He frowned. Yeah, it was unusual for a detective to step back from a case. I knew this guy was going to have a lot more questions.

"So, your dad went missing, then your mom is murdered, and you've been working at a carnival?"

Dane just nodded, and his eyes were wide, as if he was terrified of making a misstep.

"And where did this aunt and uncle live?"

"Minnesota."

A shudder ran through his body, and I leaned against him to offer what I could.

"You go to school there?"

"Uh, my aunt homeschooled me."

Ramos nodded, but there was something he wasn't buying about the story.

"Your aunt never mentioned that people were looking for your father?"

Dane shrugged with one shoulder. "They didn't really talk about him."

Gene cut in. "We've got no evidence to support it yet, but there's a possibility that Tess Miller's killer may be connected to Dane Donovan's disappearance, as well as the Buttonwillow suspect."

"You mean that piece of shit Virgil Evans?" Ramos made a disgusted face. "Excuse my language, Mr. Miller. That case was before my time, but I'm familiar with it. We've had several run-ins with him since he was released. A few of his wards at the halfway house have gone missing in the past couple of years, and when the parole officers go in to follow up, they get nothing but pushback from him."

"I remembered his name when Detective Muse mentioned it. My aunt and uncle told me when I was old enough about my mother's murder."

That was a great angle. Dane was doing really well with this.

Ramos sat up taller at that piece of information. "You think," he said to me, "this guy might be responsible for Mr. Donovan's abduction?"

"It's a strong possibility. It's the closest I've come to identifying a suspect. Her murder was three years to the day after he disappeared." A thought occurred to me. "You've got the suspect's picture. You have an ID yet? I wonder if maybe he passed through that halfway house, or maybe they served together in prison."

"It's worth checking out," Ramos said. "You know, when they interviewed Evans after she was reported missing, he made out like they were a thing, said he was the caretaker of her house. He said she'd been in mourning ever since Donovan disappeared and hadn't been taking care of things. Guess by things, he must have meant you. Her son."

Dane didn't speak, but two tears ran down his cheeks.

What a horrible bit of information to lay on him.

As if Ramos realized it, he said, "We didn't buy his story, hence the twenty years he spent in jail. He pled guilty in an Alford plea deal." When Dane frowned, he said, "It's a plea without admitting guilt."

"They never found her body?"

"That's correct," Ramos said.

"Detectives Hamilton and Ochoa are going to interview Evans tomorrow. They'll see if they can find a connection between him and the suspect from Buttonwillow."

"Sounds good. My guys are set up on the hillside surrounding the house and we've got drop cams at every entry point. Mr. Wells called Mr. Cross, the owner of this property, to get us access to the security feeds for the twenty-four hours leading up to their arrival and since they arrived, to see if anyone has been poking around."

"I was wondering, are you able to put a patrol car on Diane Donovan's house?" I smiled at Dane apologetically. We hadn't had time to talk about it, but if anything about him ended up on the news, it was better his mother find out from him than the TV. "She doesn't know about Dee Dee, and since that's also a significant location?—"

"Of course, yes. I'll get someone there right away." He put out his hand for Dane to shake. "Thank you, Mr. Miller. We'll talk again, but I want you to be assured that we're doing everything in our power to keep you safe. Is there anything else you need?"

Dane shook his head, murmured his thanks, and then curled up with his knees to his chest on the couch.

"I'll be right back," I said to him as I went to walk Detective Ramos out.

"Thank you," I said to Ramos out of earshot, and the detective shook his head.

"Un-fucking-believable," he said. "Ochoa said Miller's pretty shook up?"

"Yes," I said. "And I appreciate you going easy on him."

"He's got a lot of scars. He tell you what happened?"

I shrugged. "Got jumped when he was out looking for his dad, is all he's said." Fuck, here I was being dishonest to another fucking cop. I was sliding down a slippery slope of deceit, and who the fuck knew how this would all play out? I could end up in jail for obstruction at the rate I was going.

Ramos pulled out a business card. "This is for victim's services. I know his case is with Kern County, but if he's going to be living here, we have services he could be eligible for. I'll keep in touch and if you need a referral, I'm happy to give one. He's got a long road ahead of him."

I shook Ramos's hand. "Thank you, I appreciate it."

He held on a moment longer, and looked to Dane and then back at me. "I understand he's more than just a case to you?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah."

He smiled. "I'm glad he has you. I've seen the documentaries about his father. They look fucking identical."

"Yeah. It was a shock, honestly."

Ramos shook his head. "And you didn't know Donovan had a love child with Tess Miller?"

"No clue. Hamilton and Ochoa will follow up on it, but no, I had no idea."

"Wild shit with these artists up here in the canyon, huh? A lot of history. Stay frosty," he said, and then he let go of my hand and went back over to Gene and Denny, who were talking to another detective in the foyer.I recognized his move for what it was. He was trying to see whether or not I was bullshitting him. I hoped, after how good Dane had been, I hadn't just blown it.

When I came back in the room, Dane had picked up the acoustic guitar and was playing softly. I sat on the same couch but with enough room for him to have space, and I just listened. He drifted away into some state of consciousness where hopefully nothing could get to him. He had such an intense look of concentration on his face, it was as if he had the ability to shut out the whole world, and I wanted that for him right then.

A flurry of movement in the foyer caught my attention, and I stood when I saw Ryan waving me over frantically.

"What is it?"

"Scott, my producer? He had his security company go through the footage, and look what he found."

I glanced back and was glad to see that Dane was still playing guitar, not paying attention to us. I leaned in and looked at the laptop Ryan was holding up.

"Fuck me," Denny said, as we all watched the creepy motherfucker go from camera to camera along the perimeter, smiling and waving.

"When was this?" I growled.

"The night you got here, just before you arrived."

Which meant the guy was potentially creeping around while I was sleeping in my truck with my dick in my hand.

"Then there was this," Ryan said, as the cameras caught him again, passing by late the next morning…

"When Dane was in the pool. Goddammit, he was watching."

"Thankfully, the gate out front caught this when we left for the Rainbow."

The video showed us getting into the trucks, both of us pulling away, and a few short seconds later, a motorcycle appeared out of the bushes across the street from the gates, and the guy sped off after us.

"At least we know what he's driving now, and we can get plates off that image," Ramos said. "That should at least get us a name."

"It also means he knows where all the cameras are, probably followed us back up here. He probably knows we've got people on the property. He's likely not going to come here." Denny cursed, and Ryan closed the computer.

Gene sighed. "I still say we go through with our plans for the news clip. We sleep in shifts tonight. Can you give Mr. Cross our numbers so he can get them to security? I want to be alerted if so much as an unusual bird flies by or a spider makes a web in this yard."

"I'll take care of it," Ryan said as he returned to the kitchen. Kal was in there, banging pots and pans around. I could tell he wasn't happy with any of this either. He and Ryan began arguing in hushed voices.

"You want us to break it to Da—Dee Dee?" Denny asked.

"I don't know. He's had so much to process today."

"Why don't you see if you can get him to eat something and get some rest?" Gene offered. "Poor man won't sleep if he knows the guy was fucking watching him."

"It's more likely to piss him off," I said, watching Dane play. "He's angry already."

"That could help," Denny said. "It'll definitely help him get through tomorrow."

"I'm going to leave Diane's assistant a message, let her know I want to come by tomorrow."

"Good plan," Denny said. "Let us hold the fort down. You and Dane get some rest."

"Thanks guys," I said. "I'm sorry about earlier?—"

They both hugged me and told me to shut the fuck up.

Some things you could count on, and these two men were solid.