He stuffed the phone back into his pocket, moved two steps closer to Danni’s door, and waited. She was either sitting there on her bed, feeling the panic mount, unsure of what to do next, or she was stuffing clothes into a bag. Maybe she was whispering urgently to Thomas Huston. Maybe she was calling him, asking what she should do.
DeMarco thought he heard movement inside. No heavy footsteps, no mad rushing about, but soft, quick steps, the clink of what might have been keys. He was aware then of a quickening of his pulse, that familiar excitement of the chase. But as soon as he recognized the heat of the adrenaline rush coming, he suppressed it, smothered the flame. This wasn’t some gooned-up punk he would have to throw against a wall and cuff; this was a frightened young woman, a girl he had yanked up out of her sleep with just the mention of a name. And the plaintiveness in her voice when she had said, Thomas? Is that you?—the memory of that voice brought a sudden heaviness to his chest, an ache that extinguished all traces of excitement.
The door opened quickly, startling him. She stepped out onto the balcony, saw him, and gasped audibly.
He smiled.
She looked away. Turned back to the door, pulled the door shut, nervously fitted her key in the lock. “I’m sorry. I have to get to work. I can’t talk right now.”
“Whispers doesn’t open for a while yet, Danni. A long while.”
She took a breath. Still facing the door she turned her head slightly, lifted her eyes to him. “I mean class. I have to get to class.”
She was dressed in yellow basketball shorts, a gray hoodie, low-cut Nike running shoes, no socks. She had probably rolled out of bed after his phone call, pulled on the shoes and hoodie, yanked her long brown hair into a ponytail. DeMarco imagined her jogging toward him through the mist as he sat alone on a park bench.
Softly he told her, “I’m not here to arrest you, Danni. Not if you’re honest with me.”
“I don’t…” She glanced down at the dirty blacktop of the parking lot. Green eyes wet with tears. “I don’t know anything.”
“Is Thomas Huston inside your apartment, Danni?”
“No! No, why? He’s never been in my apartment.”
“Then why don’t you and I just go inside and sit down and have a conversation, okay? That’s all it will be.”
Now she began to tremble. Tears streaked both cheeks. Her voice quivered when she spoke. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I know you haven’t.” He moved closer now, stood next to her, spoke very softly. “I know you wouldn’t. I just need to talk to you, that’s all. Five minutes and I’m gone.”
She sniffed back her tears, blinked twice. Then faced the door and again raised her key to the lock.
DeMarco watched as she fumbled to open the door. She looked barely into her twenties, five and a half feet tall, maybe a hundred fifteen pounds. A tiny thing, really. A child. His chest began to ache again, a heaviness of breath. His left eye watered.
“I’m going to move my car out of the driveway,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.” And he turned away quickly, quickly brushed the wet sting from the corner of his eye.
? ? ?
Underfurnished living room, tiny kitchen, a bathroom the size of a closet, a bedroom behind a curtained doorway. Furnishings were minimal, a futon for a sofa, two collapsible chairs, one green, one yellow, $12.95 each at Walmart. He guessed that she slept on a secondhand mattress on the floor in the bedroom, no dresser or chest of drawers, that she kept her clothes neatly folded in cardboard boxes lined against the wall. But everything was neat, no dust, no dirty dishes in the sink. The air smelled vaguely of strawberries. An unlit candle on the kitchen counter.
She sat on the futon, feet drawn up beneath her. He stood by the window, over which she had hung a vinyl blind and a sheer, cream-colored lace curtain.
“When was the last time you saw or heard from Thomas Huston?” he asked.
She chewed on her lower lip. Then said, “I guess it was a week ago this Thursday. Last Thursday night.”
“And where did this occur?”
“At Whispers.”
“Did you spend time with him there?”
“A little.”
“A private couch dance?”
“That’s what he paid for but…”
“But what?”
“That’s not what we did. We never did that.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Just talked.”
“In the room where the couch dances are held. You talked.”
“That’s all we ever did, I swear.”
“Okay. And what did you talk about?”
“He was writing a book about a dancer. So he would ask me stuff.”
“What kind of stuff, Danni?”
“Stuff a writer would want to know, I guess. Like how did it feel when I was up on the stage or in the champagne room with a guy. What I thought about when they were watching me. What I thought about when I went home.”
DeMarco nodded. “That’s only three questions though. And he visited Whispers five, six times, am I right?”
“After the first time it really wasn’t like an interview, you know? I mean…we just talked. He was a nice guy, he was very sweet.”
“Are you telling me that there was no physical involvement between the two of you in the champagne room?”
“There wasn’t. I swear. I sat beside him on the love seat. We just talked. That’s all we ever did.”
“And you never saw him outside of Whispers?”