Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(59)

“Her?”

O’Keefe blew out a breath, shot a glance at Stamford. “Gretchen Johannsen.”

“Gretchen? You and Gretch? This is news.”

Coloring a little, O’Keefe shrugged at Stamford’s grin. “We’re just sort of … testing the waters.”

“You’ve been swimming in the same pool since you were ten. Gretchen’s one of the old neighborhood gang,” Stamford continued, then stopped, lost the easy smile. “Sorry. It’s not important.”

“You never know what is,” Eve countered. “When did Ms. Mars first contact you?”

“I really don’t know who or what you’re talking about.”

Eve stared straight into his eyes. “Mr. Stamford—Wylee—I admire the way you field a ball like your glove has radar, and your power—and brains—with a bat. From my perspective you bring integrity to your game, so I’m going to give you just a little room. I’m going to assume you’re lying to me for the same reason you let Mars blackmail you.”

“You can’t—”

“Quiet,” she snapped at O’Keefe, “or the room gets a lot smaller. We have her electronics. We have your name among her list of victims. She made you a victim by exploiting something you’d pay to stop her from exposing. Maybe you got tired of paying, maybe she asked for too much, maybe you just snapped. Maybe you decided to kill instead of pay.”

“I was at my parents’.”

“A lot of people admire you. Some of them might kill for you. Like your old friend here. Or Jed. Maybe Gretchen.”

Wylee’s eyes turned hard, his face into polished stone. “You don’t drag my friends into this.”

Loyalty, Eve thought, and continued to use it. “Then stop lying to me or I won’t have a choice. I need you to tell me the truth. The faster and more detailed that truth, the less chance there is I’ll have to discuss any of this outside this room or bring your friends, your family, into it.”

“I don’t want my family to know.”

“Wylee—”

“No, Bri, enough. It’s enough.” He braced his elbows on his thighs a moment, scrubbed hard at his face. “I don’t want them to know what you found on her lists, in her fucking files.”

“Then lay it out for me, and I’ll do everything I can to protect your privacy. As long as it’s the truth.”

“I’m not sorry she’s dead. That’s the truth.” He shoved up, paced the narrow area between benches. “She came up to me a couple years ago, at a sports banquet. She gave me her card, and on the back was a name, and her private number. The name, the number, and an order to contact her.”

“What name?”

He shut his eyes. “Big Rod. I had to get up and make a speech. I felt sick, but I had to get up and make a speech. All those kids … I was a kid. I was just a kid.”

And she knew, by the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice. The child in her knew the child in him.

“Give me his full name.”

“Rod C. Keith. My hero.” He all but spat the word. “My mentor. Guardian angel of the neighborhood kids—that’s what people called him back then. If you needed someone to play catch, shoot hoops, go long, you could count on Big Rod. You could hang out at the youth center for hours. He’d listen to your dreams, push you to get good grades, and sharpen your batting stance.”

“How old were you when it started?”

His eyes, haunted now, met hers. “Twelve. Maybe it started before, just subtle things. I trusted him. I loved him. My family trusted him. They loved him.”

He paused, breathed in and out, slow.

“Sure you can go watch the game on screen with Big Rod. No problem having some catch with Big Rod. I’d feel special when it was just the two of us in his place.”

Wylee closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stared blindly at the wall of lockers.

“I felt grown-up when he said I could have some of his beer—and we wouldn’t tell anybody. He gave me half a beer before the first time. I was dizzy and I didn’t understand, and it was Big Rod. He said it was a rite of passage. And after, when I was sick, he said I was his number one. His number one, and if I said anything, I’d be nothing. If I said anything, nobody would believe me. If I said anything, something bad might happen to one of my sisters. And…”

He sat again, let his hands dangle between his knees. “I don’t want to talk about what he did, and what I let him do for almost a year until he found another number one.”

“You didn’t tell your parents.”

“No. I was ashamed and afraid. I’ve never told them. I don’t want to tell them now.” He lifted his head to look at Eve and his hands balled to fists.

“It’s over. He’s dead. I didn’t kill him, but somebody did. They found him beaten to death in an alley a couple blocks from the youth center. He got a hero’s funeral, the son of a bitch. I was in therapy by then. I put my family through hell first. Stealing beer, buying street illegals. Sneaking out of the house at night whenever I could, but I couldn’t get away from feeling his hands on me, so I broke into Mr. Aaron’s house.”

When his voice cracked, Eve gave him a moment. “Your neighbor,” she prompted.