Pete’s hat still sat on the desk where Danny had placed it after proclaiming that this was the actual hat once worn by Pete. Danny had seen it in Pete’s house so many times, and had even jokingly donned it more than once. The hat might now be dirty and fraying, but it was the same color, size, and shape. And Danny’s initials were inked on the inside brim just where Danny had written them. He remembered the day he did it. He had saved much of his earnings from doing chores for Pete to give the man something back, and he wanted to ensure that Pete would think about him. Pete’s eyes watered with joy when he accepted the gift and that gave Danny a small taste of his power over the man.
Putting the hat on himself, Danny expected to feel something cosmic. Instead he only questioned how Josh came to possess Pete’s hat.
All his life Danny kept lists. There were lists of books he owned, experiences he had, futures he envisioned, and people who mattered. Sometimes he ran through those tallies in his head, and recalled why and when each entry was inscribed on the roster. The harshest of those accountings identified those who harmed him: his mother, his father, Pete, Oliver, all the boys at the resort. Today, he was adding Josh to that list.
He began his inventory in one corner of the room—the one with the horror figure in the doctor’s coat. He planned to work completely around the space by going counterclockwise. He placed a pad of paper on the desk on which to write a short description of each item encountered—whether a photograph, a book, a knickknack, or whatever. There was no rationale for such a list other than to pull order out of disorder.
By the time he completed a full circle of the room, leaving only the desk and its contents, Danny felt he had learned nothing. While everything seemed to speak of Josh, most of the items were little more than decorations chosen for an image. Taken together, they shimmered with only a mere suggestion of Josh. None of the book titles had anything to do with Josh’s interests. Only a few personal photos were on the wall: a picture of Josh’s parents’ farm back in Thread and another of the house where Danny once lived. Oddly, there was even a framed postcard of the resort where Danny first met Oliver. But there were no framed certificates, newspaper clippings, or photos of Josh with others. Nothing in the room spoke of the man’s accomplishments.
It was time to tackle the desk. Danny was worried over what he might find, such as a drawer containing some disgusting cache of pornography, but as he opened the bottom file drawers, all he found were business files. He pulled out the first hanging folder, which contained within it another series of folders, each labeled with titles like ‘Project Rough Rider’ and ‘Project Big Stick.’ Sitting down in the large leather chair, he spread the folders across the leather-topped desk to read them.
Hours later, and still only a third of the way through, Danny was bewildered. He couldn’t follow everything he read, but it was clear that a number of projects were being hidden from everyone at Premios, including Orleans and the investors. As near as he could tell, the real purpose of Premios was a scam. Josh was setting the stage to abscond with personal information from the users of the site so that the data might be manipulated in various ways for illegal purposes.
Josh was a crook.
There was no other way to put it. The entire company existed only to hide a double strategy. To be certain he would have to read through everything. Already Danny wondered about the real story connecting several events over the past several months: the hacking of Premios on New Year’s Eve, the embezzlement of funds from Lattigo, and the murder of Chip Grant. Was it possible that Josh was involved with all these crimes? Not only involved, but the ringleader? And was someone else connected? Was that who attempted the home burglary?
Once again, the phone was ringing. Danny decided to answer it. He had gone as far as he could by himself, and he knew he could no longer deal with his discoveries alone. He stepped out of the vault, across the wine cellar and back into the game room. He picked up the phone, and then walked back to Josh’s space.
“Danny, is that you?” It wasn’t Kenosha, but Orleans.
“Yes.”
She was frantic. “I have to talk to Josh. I’m certain you know where he is, or how to get in contact with him. I need him now. It can’t wait.”
Danny wondered how much Orleans might suspect about what he had just uncovered in the files. Would he dare tell her? “I don’t know where Josh is. What’s so important?”
“It’s happened again,” she said. “Another investor is dead. Oliver Meyers was murdered in his townhouse in Chicago. The police say it’s a robbery gone bad. But I don’t believe that. Someone is targeting us. Somebody is out to destroy Premios.”
But Danny wasn’t listening. By accident he had just pulled an unexpected latch in the desk and opened up a secret drawer. Inside were an automated tape machine and a stack of cassettes.
The Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier stopped moving. From her bench on the palisades high above the beach and hundreds of yards from the amusement pier, Cynthia couldn’t discern if there were people stuck in the cars. All she could see was a wharf crowded with people and the breaking waves of the surf that hit the sandy beach below.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” said Jesus Lopez. He sat next to her on the bench, and he was right on time.
She didn’t bother to look over, and she wasn’t quite sure why she had agreed to meet, but he had been so insistent. After multiple emails and more than one phone message, she finally suggested they meet in a public park in mid-afternoon. It wasn’t that she felt a need to be cautious, or that she was unwilling to drive across town to his college campus. Instead she wanted to stay close to shore, to see and hear the ocean. A distant horizon combined with the constant beating of waves kept her fears at bay. Whatever Lopez had to say—and she held little hope that it would be positive—she was certain she could deal with it better if facing the sea.
“Why did you need to see me?” she asked. “If you know something, why wouldn’t you go to Danny?”
“Because I don’t trust him.”
For the first time she looked look over. Lopez was gaunter than she remembered him.
“That’s funny. Danny doesn’t trust you either.”
“Do you know that Oliver Meyers is dead?” he asked. “They found him murdered in his townhouse in Chicago last week.”
That was old news to Cynthia. Colby Endicott called her the day he found out. Terrified, he tried to convince her that someone was killing off the funders of Premios. Cynthia found Colby’s ravings tedious. Oliver’s murder was clearly a case of a burglary gone wrong. All of Oliver’s best contemporary art pieces had been taken from the walls. Despite that, she did ask Denkey to investigate the coincidence of another death, but he reported that the Chicago police agreed that it pointed toward thieves.
“And I suppose you know that Josh Gunderson is missing?” Cynthia batted that question back. She was hoping that she might actually learn something, since Danny refused to talk about Josh’s whereabouts. What little Cynthia knew was from information relayed by Orleans. Things were insane; maybe Lopez was right. Not for the first time, Cynthia decided to quit her short-term lease and head back to the Midwest. She truly was alone on the West Coast.
Looking out over Santa Monica Bay with its many sailboats, Lopez sat quietly and didn’t respond for a long beat. With the sun still high overhead, the water sparkled. Cynthia wondered again what was on his mind. Finally, he spoke.
“Of course, I know about Josh’s disappearance. And Colby told me that he tried to warn you, but you dismissed him. Can’t you see there’s a pattern? It began with your husband. Then Oliver. Now Josh. Everyone connected with this firm disappears. I submitted my resignation. I want nothing to do with that company.”
Ignoring the last part of Lopez’s statement, Cynthia instead focused on his insinuation. “Do you think Josh is dead?” she asked calmly, not that she cared if he was or not, because being part of Danny and Josh’s life was too much a burden to carry, and she needed to drop them all.
“I don’t know, but these events can’t be coincidental. You remain an investor, inheriting your husband’s share. You should be concerned. You could be next.”
Cynthia was unwilling to buy into conspiracy theory. “It’s a random set of coincidences. Is that why you wanted to meet me? To warn me away? Are you working as Colby’s surrogate? Trying to scare me so I flee back home to Wisconsin?”
Lopez looked shocked. “It’s not about you. It’s about Danny.”
Suddenly, Cynthia was fed up. This man had no right to be concerned about her old friend. “You want to talk about Danny. Okay, here you go. Why write a book based on his teenage experiences? And without his knowledge. Don’t you know how it’s eating him alive? I can’t even pretend to say that I know the details of what happened to him that summer. But one thing is certain: he’s happy that Oliver is dead—because Danny blames him for the book, and he blames you too. You turned his life into a horror story. He’d probably be happy to see you dead as well.”
“And you wonder why I said I don’t trust him.”
Cynthia felt as though he goaded her into that outburst, and she wanted to wipe away his smug smile. It was simply too much. She had read The Dumping Ground out of curiosity. While she acknowledged that it was well written, it also proved quite moving. In some ways she couldn’t help but think of Danny as she read every scene. When they first worked together as teenagers, she always considered Danny brittle, and she treated him gently because she valued that delicacy. But the novel forced her to think that maybe Danny was tougher than she realized. Maybe an element of steel was hidden in his tall lanky frame.
Cynthia thought carefully about what to say to Lopez. “To me, you’re the one who’s not to be trusted. You chose to write that book. Why shouldn’t Danny hate you for it? What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t my idea.” Lopez almost whispered those words. Cynthia wasn’t certain she had heard correctly because the afternoon breeze was starting to blow in from the sea.
“Not your idea. Then whose?”
He chose not to answer. “I told you I’ve severed my relationship with Premios,” he said without prompting. “I don’t think it’s the right place for me or my students to be working. It’s not a healthy environment. I’ve also encouraged Colby to dump his investment before it’s too late.”
Back in Lattigo, Cynthia’s financial team was recommending the same. They calculated the odds of the company surviving the year as less than ten percent. She felt no loyalty to the firm, but she doubted there was anyone likely to want to buy her shares.
In ten minutes, she could walk to her condo and watch the ocean from her balcony. She could sink back into the blank canvas of a sea view. She decided to make a joke of it, and quickly find a way to escape this conversation. “I hope you’re not suggesting I buy Oliver’s stake.”
“Everything Danny touches get corrupted,” Jesus said “It’s taken me too long to realize that.”
That line of thinking was ridiculous. Of course it would be cathartic to blame Danny for everything: for Chip flying west to investigate the firm, for all the steps that led to his murder, for her being alone, and for everything that she did not like. But there was no proof of that and it belied years of friendship.
She swiveled back to the book conversation that Lopez dodged. “You said it wasn’t your idea to write about Danny’s summer. Then whose idea was it?”
“Josh’s, of course. It was at the dinner meeting when I thought I was introducing Josh and Oliver to one another. Well, I soon realized they had known each other for years. They started talking about the summer when Oliver and Danny worked together.”
“Josh talked about that?”
“Completely,” Lopez replied. “He joked about how hard Danny fell for Oliver and how Oliver misused his infatuation. The conversation clearly made Oliver quite uncomfortable. To defuse the situation, I joked that I thought it sounded like the kind of twisted love story I’d write. Oliver was horrified at the suggestion and demanded I never follow through.
“But weeks later when Josh stopped by, he encouraged me to pursue the idea. He claimed that it would be good to force Danny to face the reality of that summer. He maintained that whatever happened, Danny needed to learn to talk about it. People get mistreated all the time, he said, and they just need to get over it.
“What can I say? I was intrigued by the idea. Once planted, the seeds germinated, so I took Josh up on his offer. He proved to be a man of his word, and provided the background, even reviewed the draft early on. It’s as much his story as mine.”
Cynthia vowed she would never let Danny find out. While she truly believed that Danny loved Josh, she often questioned if the reverse were true. A dangerous idea flittered through her mind—what if Danny discovered the genesis of The Dumping Ground and murdered Josh in anger? Maybe Josh wasn’t missing, but dead.
Lopez seemed compelled to seek some sort of absolution. “I tried to present the hidden side of a person like Danny in the novel because I think these quiet types are capable of anything. Danny is smart and wily. He’s also fiercely protective. I think there is every possibility that he is the monster within Premios. That’s why I’m encouraging you to leave.
“Can’t you see now why I didn’t want to talk to Danny?”
Cynthia felt soiled by even entertaining the possibilities of his claims. It was such utter nonsense. Only a man who wrote novels with themes and plots as horrible as Lopez’s could conceive such lunacy. But once stated, the idea burrowed into her mind like a parasitical worm, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to purge it.
Lopez stood up to leave. “Tell me, Cynthia, how well do you know your old friend Danny? Do you know that it was his suggestion to Chip that he meet with me that morning? And although I have no evidence to support this idea, I’ve always had the distinct impression that Chip was expecting Danny to pick him up that morning.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Beginnings
Josh missed Dr. Van Psycho, the mannequin that he kept in the corner of his secret office. The figure always made it easier for him to begin his taped self-reflections. He could never have bared his soul to a real doctor, but he trusted his imagined movie psychoanalyst. While he never actually saw the Augustus Cambrian movie that featured the character, when the renovation crew discovered the hidden chamber that still contained a few of the old movie artifacts including the Van Psycho pieces, he found it oddly exciting and it gave him the idea. Apparently Cambrian sold off most of whatever else he stored in the room over the years, and Josh arranged to sell at a private auction what little remained, but something about the Van Psycho model with its deformed and scarred face spoke to him, and he kept it. Over time the piece almost became a companion. But his therapy sessions were over.
Josh found it an easy decision to restore Cambrian’s hideaway. He never thought twice whether he should inform Danny about the spot. Josh liked keeping hidden aces up his sleeve. One never knew when the going might get tough. As time went on what surprised him was how much an old movie prop could pull on him. Growing up as a single child, Josh knew his parents never appreciated his special nature, and he learned to keep a lot of his thoughts to himself, so it felt good to have someone finally who could listen and not judge. Josh never wanted to be judged. Who was good enough to do that? But he liked telling his story.
From a small child on, Josh always felt different. He wasn’t like other kids in school or for that matter like his parents. Other people always felt such a need to consider the feelings of those around them. He never understood that. What did it matter whether you were liked or disliked? What mattered was the game.
What Josh found enormously beguiling was testing the limits. He had a special knack for it. From an early age, he discovered the art of amusing others. No matter the situation, he could be funny when he wanted, charming as needed, even appearing as the perfectly behaved child when it was useful. Such skills came in handy when meeting new
people. By the time he was in primary school, he sensed that Ma and Pa saw through his act. They stepped around his behaviors gingerly, almost afraid of what he might do, but they were never worried about what he might say to others. Every word he uttered was always appropriate. But in their eyes, his overall behavior was another matter. At first he didn’t care, but sometimes some of the teachers at school started to show that same look as his parents. He hated that look.
Maybe that’s when he first started testing people. He wanted to know how far he could push them in the direction he wanted before they rebelled. Often he didn’t even care about where he pushed them. It was enough to get the ball rolling and see what it might smash. Usually, people never caught on to his manipulations. They just weren’t that smart.
His games made life worthwhile. The truth was that there wasn’t much that was interesting on their worn-out farm sitting at the edge of the swamp. Pa tried dairy farming but the land wasn’t rich enough to host sufficient milk cows to make it worthwhile. Besides that, the twice daily milkings made for a damn hard life. As he got older, Josh realized that his father wasn’t particularly fond of hard work. At one point, the man raised enough money to dig out and flood some of his low grounds as cranberry bogs. But that didn’t turn out very well either. The freeze got the first crop. The second year, the market was glutted and the prices were low. The family survived only because Ma always worked in town and Pa knew how to be tight with money. When it came to avoiding dispensing cash, he had a powerful ability; the man just never learned to apply himself to earning it. Josh wouldn’t begrudge his old man for that. At least he always kept the life insurance up.
Most years there weren’t many chores for Josh to do. It left a lot of free time to amuse himself. He didn’t care much for reading and there weren’t any other kids within walking distance, so early on he experimented with his parents, pushing them to see what he could make them do and how they might react.
He probably started this behavior as a toddler, but Josh treasured a vivid memory of what he considered his first deliberate provocation. Ma loved her fresh raspberries. There was a thick bramble of the berries planted just past the clotheslines back by the wood patch. Come mid-summer the bracts would be thick with ripening fruit. Josh liked berries almost as much as Ma, especially when she used them to make a custard pie. It was his favorite dessert.
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