David Baldacci - Daylight

Ty nodded dumbly. Gerald helped him to his feet and looked up at Pine.

“Peanut ain’t here.” He turned to the others. “Anybody here know where Peanut is?”

Pine looked over the crowd one by one until a young man around eighteen stepped forward.

“Seen him over at Duke’s,” said the man. “Before I come here.” Pine glanced at Gerald. “Duke’s?”

“When you leave here, go right, three blocks, then go left. It’s a . . . store.”

“What do they sell?” she asked.

“It depends,” said Gerald. “It just depends on what you want. But if I were you, I wouldn’t be buying.”

CHAPTER

46

DUKE’S WAS A STOREFRONT that looked abandoned, just like every other storefront around here. Pine peered through the glass doors, but it was too dark inside to make out anything. She rapped on the glass. Then she rapped again.

“What do you want?”

She looked up to see a man staring down at her from the second-floor window.

“I’d like to talk to Peanut. I heard he was here.”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“A guy over at Calhoun’s.”

“And you are . . . ?”

The man was in his forties with wiry dark hair and a stern, suspicious countenance. As he leaned out she could see he was wearing a compression-fit sleeveless athletic shirt showing arms and shoulders that were both heavily muscled and tatted.

“Just a friend. I met him over at the school.”

“Peanut don’t go to school.”

“But his friend Jerome did. I’m trying to find out what happened to him.”

“Then you a cop?”

“I have some pictures to show Peanut. He agreed to look at them.”

The man disappeared from the window.

A minute later the shop door opened and there stood Peanut.

“You got them pictures?” he said.

“Yeah.” She looked over his shoulder to see the man standing about ten feet farther back in the room.

Pine said quietly, “So what sort of business goes on here?”

“This and that.”

“Right. Is that guy in there Duke?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know much. Works fine for me.”

They got into the car and Peanut was shown all the photos one by one. At the end he said, “He ain’t in there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Real sure. Ain’t nobody in there look like he did.”

Pine sat back, enormously frustrated. She looked at Blum. “We keep running into dead ends and I’m really getting sick of it.”

Peanut said, “See, what I can’t figure is, why Jerome do it at all. I mean, why he let a man do that to him? Give him a gun and set him up, ’cause that had to be what went down. And then he get shot on top of it. Why do shit when you know you gonna die? Why not say no and take your chances?”

“Maybe Jerome didn’t know he was going to die,” replied Blum.

Pine glanced at Peanut. “You said you haven’t been friends with Jerome for a long time?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Would you know about any close friends he might have?”

“Not really. Maybe somebody at school. Why?”

“Because in the alley that night he told me, ‘ We’re in deep shit.’ I’m just trying to think of someone they could have threatened to get Jerome to do what he did.”

“Shit, lady, only ones he might do that for is his family. Nobody closer than that to him. They all real tight.”

“You know, I think you might be right about that. Thanks, Peanut.”

He opened the door. “And, yeah, that’s Duke in there.”

“This and that?” said Pine.

Peanut smiled. “Little’a this and a little’a that.”

“Give me your cell phone number in case I can get some more pictures to show you. I won’t have to look you up in person.” He did so and then climbed out of the car.

After he went back into the shop Blum said, “Where are we going now?”

“Back to Blake’s house. I’ve got a hunch and I’m praying that it pays off, because if it doesn’t we have less than zero right now.”

CHAPTER

47

DID YOU FIND PEANUT?” asked Cee-Cee Blake when she answered their knock.

“We did. Turns out he really couldn’t help us, but I was wondering if we could speak to your daughter.”

Blake looked confused. “To Jewel? Why?”

“We wanted to ask her a few questions about her brother.”

Blake shook her head. “She’s really upset. Can barely get her to eat anything. And she won’t come out of her room.”

“We will be very gentle, Cee-Cee. We have experience speaking with young people. And I really think it might help with finding out what happened to your son.”

“Well, okay. I guess you can try. You want me to go with you?”

“Just to introduce us. Then we’d like to speak with her alone.”

“No guarantee she’ll see you, though, and I ain’t gonna make her.”

They followed Blake up the stairs and down the short hall to a bedroom door. She knocked.

“Honey? It’s them two ladies from the FBI again. They want to ask you some questions about your brother.”

“No!” a voice screamed out. “Tell them to go away.”

Before Blake could answer Pine stepped forward and said, “Jewel, it’s really important.”

“I said no.”

“I’d like to know why your brother did what he did.”

“Go away.”

“Because I think he did it to protect you.”

Silence.

Blake looked astonished. “What the hell do you mean by that? Protecting Jewel? From what?”

They turned when they heard the door start to open. And then there was Jewel, tall and beautiful and well-developed for her age, with long dark hair swirling around her shoulders. She had on pajamas, with characters from Mulan on them. Her eyes were reddened and swollen.

“It’s okay, Momma, I’ll talk to the lady.”

“You sure, baby?”

Jewel nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Blake gave Pine a disapproving look. “Well, okay, but don’t take too long, honey, you need to rest.”

She slowly walked back down the stairs.

“Can we come in?” asked Pine.

Jewel stepped back and let them pass through.

The bedroom was cluttered, with clothes on the floor, books lying around, an iPad on the unmade bed, and a smartphone on the nightstand. And used tissues littered over seemingly every available square inch. The walls were painted with a mural of what looked to be female superheroes.

“Who did that?” asked Blum, motioning to the wall.

Jewel rubbed her nose. “Me and Jerome.”

“It’s really excellent. You’re both wonderful artists.”

“Jerome ain’t anything anymore ’cept dead.”

Pine leaned back against another wall and folded her arms over her chest. “That’s what we want to talk to you about.”

Jewel slumped on her bed and looked down at her bare feet. Pine began. “A man met with Jerome at his school. After that meeting Jerome was totally changed. Then that same night he ends up in an alley holding a gun. And then he’s shot by a cop who might not be a cop.” She paused and glanced at Blum, who was standing rigidly by the mural wall.

“Jerome said something to me right before he died, Jewel. Do you want to know what he said?”

Jewel didn’t look up, but she nodded. “What’d he say?”

“He said that no one would believe him when I asked what he was doing there. Then he said something else. And that’s why we’re here to see you.”

Jewel looked up now. “What did Jerome say?”

“He said, ‘ We’re in deep shit.’ Why would this man be able to make him do something that would end up getting him killed?” She stopped and looked at Jewel, who seemed to be withering to nothing under the gaze. “It must’ve been someone very important to him. Like maybe you , Jewel?”