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Daniels’s hair was silver-white with a lined, tanned face. Thin as a rail, his clothes hung on him as if he had been heavier in the past. His jeans had a rip in the knee, and his t-shirt had a small stain on the arm. His eyes narrowed as he watched them approach, his lips curled into a sneer.
“What do you want?” he barked. “I paid the rent so stop bothering me.”
“We’re not here about rent or bills,” Cooper said quickly. “We’re here to talk to you. I’m Cooper Winslow, and this is my brother Zack Winslow. We just want a few minutes of your time.”
The older man’s gaze ran from Cooper to Zack and then back again, no less suspicious than when he’d thought they were there to collect money.
“You look like your mom,” he finally said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Your stepdaughter Sarah,” Zack replied. “We were hoping you could tell us about her high school years. We want to help find out what happened to her. She was our sister, after all.”
Zack was convinced they were going to be turned away, but then Daniels gave a curt nod and stepped back so they could enter the apartment.
The home was small but clean and neat. There were stacks of newspapers here and there, but everything else seemed to be put away. An old desktop computer sat on the kitchen table, an open can of soda next to it.
“Sarah was your sister,” Daniels said as they all sat down in the living room. “Your daddy was her daddy, although he didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want to ruin his reputation as a family man. As if anyone bought that in the first place. I knew all the way back before I ever got with Tracy that Joel Winslow was running around on your mom. There were several women, and there’s probably more kids, too. I bet he’s paying off half the county.”
Zack didn’t doubt that Tracy wasn’t the only one, but even his dad had to sleep and work occasionally. Half of the county was probably an exaggeration. Hopefully, anyway.
“Was there anyone in Sarah’s life that would have wanted to hurt her?” Zack asked. “Was she having trouble with anyone? Arguments or issues? Other than Ethan, who did she spend most of her time with?”
“Sarah was a sweet girl, but naive as hell,” Daniels growled. “She thought that everyone was wonderful, but I knew that the world was a dangerous place. I tried to talk to her, but she’d tell me that I was mean and terrible. She’d run to her mom and complain, and then Tracy would be upset. All I did was try and give that girl some discipline and boundaries. Tracy let her run wild. She was gone from the house almost every day, coming home in the middle of the night even when she had school the next day. She was drinking, for sure, and more I bet although I could never prove it. She was having sex, too, with that Ethan guy. I found birth control pills in her dresser.”
“You looked in her dresser?” Cooper asked.
Daniels threw his arms in the air, becoming agitated.
“I was trying to look after that girl. I could see that she was getting into things that she shouldn’t. Drinking, smoking, sex. That’s not something a teenage girl should be doing. Tracy kept saying that Sarah was almost an adult, and that she’d be out of the house after graduation, so it didn’t matter.”
Damn, that was cold. Had Sarah’s mom been planning to simply kick out her own daughter?
Cooper beat Zack to asking the question.
“Sarah was going off to college then?”
“I dunno,” Daniels shrugged. “But Tracy said that’s when the money would stop coming in from Winslow.”
This was fucked up ten different ways. Zack couldn’t say that he blamed Sarah for never wanting to be home. If he’d grown up with these parents, he wouldn’t want to be there either.
“Did Sarah know that my dad was her father also?” Zack queried. “If not, was Tracy ever going to tell her?”
“Tracy said she was going to tell Sarah when she turned eighteen,” Daniels replied. “Sarah didn’t know. Tracy told her that the money came from her own deadbeat dad. That man never had two nickels to rub together, and eventually Sarah started to get suspicious. She asked a lot of questions, but she never knew. I guess your old man felt guilty when Sarah died because he paid Tracy for years. Or maybe he was so goddamn rich he didn’t even notice.”
“Now that I believe,” Cooper muttered under his breath just loud enough for Zack to hear.
“Do you know where she went when she was out? Who she hung out with?”
“With that no-good boyfriend, I guess. I don’t know. I’d ask, and she’d tell me it was none of my business. That’s how the youth in this world act these days. We’re heading for the destruction of society if you ask me. People don’t know how to act or be responsible. It’s probably a good thing that the giants will eventually take over. They’ll straighten this all out.”
Wait…the giants?
“The giants?” Cooper echoed. “You’re not talking about the football team, are you?”
Daniels frowned and shook his head.
“What football team? No, I’m talking about the giants. You have to know about them. Your dad has been working with them his whole life. How do you think he has some much power and money? It was given to him by the giants. Of course, the government doesn’t want you to know about the giants. They’re hiding them, but they’re there and they’ll take over. You’re either going to be on their side or the losing side.”
Were the giants some sort of…euphemism? And Joel Winslow was in league with them? Since their dad had inherited his wealth, did that mean that their grandfather and all the greats had been working with the giants as well?
