Chapter 11
The sound of the glossy magazine slapping down on the library table in front of Gemini made her jump and she looked up from the college book she was reading to glare at the friend dropping down on the seat opposite her.
“Are you trying to give me a seizure?” she hissed in a quiet voice and glanced around to see if anyone was looking in their direction.
“Nope,” Natalie replied and motioned her head down to the magazine. “I just thought you should see that.”
Gemini frowned as she glanced down at what appeared to be a sports magazine. She didn’t recognize the bare-chested man on the cover, but there was no denying that his impressive, muscular physique was an attractive sight.
“Yeah, OK,” she went on. “I didn’t know you were into sports, but it’s nice that you’re showing me the men you have your filthy, perverted fantasies about.”
“Shut up,” Natalie let out and looked around before going on. “I’m not into sports. This is my boyfriend’s magazine and I don’t have dirty dreams about hunky athletes, although now that you mention it, I wouldn’t say no if he wanted to take those tight shorts off and let me get my hands on…”
Gemini laughed quietly as she put her hand up to stop the comment going any further.
“I give in,” she commented. “Why are you showing me your boyfriend’s magazine?”
“Page seventy-five,” Natalie replied.
Gemini’s brow creased as she stared across the table, but her friend said no more and just nodded down towards the magazine. She reached out to pull it right in front of her then started flicking through the pages to get to the one she’d been told to look at.
“Fucking hell,” she exclaimed and the blush of heat spread across her cheeks when she realized how loud she spoke.
“I thought that’s what you would say,” Natalie replied.
Gemini’s brow knotted even more as she stared down at the glossy advert and she couldn’t tear her eyes from the picture of Darius.
“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Natalie went on.
“Well… yeah,” Gemini responded. “But how the hell did he end up starring in an advert for Casper Villiger?”
“I was hoping you might shed some light on that,” Natalie said. “That watch brand doesn’t just have anybody promoting their products. My boyfriend says they only give promotional contracts to superstar athletes or up-and-coming names that are expected to make it all the way to the top.”
“What makes you think I would know anything?” Gemini said. “I haven’t seen Darius since the massive bust up that pretty much split us up for good.”
“You haven’t tried to get in touch with him?” Natalie asked.
“Well, I did in the days just after the argument,” Gemini admitted. “But he never replied to any of my calls or the messages I left for him. It gave me the distinct impression that he really wasn’t interested any more and I eventually gave up.”
“So you don’t know how he ended up in the pages of an up-market sports magazine advertising a luxury brand of watch then?”
“No,” Gemini insisted. “The last time I saw him we were shouting insults at each other and he was just plain old Darius Darnell from our run-down neighborhood. Does it have anything else about him in the magazine?”
“No,” Natalie said. “The advert is it.”
“Your boyfriend is obviously a sports fan,” Gemini commented. “Has he heard anything about Darius?”
“No,” Natalie repeated. “He recognized the face, but it was me that put a name to it when he showed me. I thought you might be interested.”
Gemini stared at the full page advert and was astonished that she was looking at the person that used to be her boyfriend.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said.
“You’re telling me,” Natalie carried on. “A few months ago he was a student playing for his college team and now he’s gracing the pages of a glossy magazine modeling the watches of Casper Villiger. That’s one hell of a leap forward.”
“He did play in an exhibition game,” Gemini said. “That’s what our argument started about when we split up.”
“I remember that making the local news for like a couple of bulletins,” Natalie said. “It hardly explains what happened. Did his parents say anything to you?”
Gemini cringed and screwed up her face at the mention of Darius’s mum and dad.
“I haven’t really talked to them in a while,” she confessed. “I got in touch with them a couple of times after the argument with Darius and asked them to pass on a message for him to contact me. When he didn’t call, I guessed they were mad at me about my fight with their son and I never really tried to speak to them again.”
Natalie got to her feet as she spoke.
“Well, it looks like you missed out on life with a superstar basketball player.”
Gemini looked down at the page then flicked it over to see what was on the other side. It was an advert for golfing equipment and she guessed it was nothing important.
“Your boyfriend won’t mind, I hope,” she said.
“Won’t mind what?” Natalie asked then half-heartedly complained when the page was torn out.
She picked up the magazine when it was pushed across the table to her then walked off after they said their goodbyes. Gemini knew there would be no concentrating on the coursework she’d been doing and packed her books in her bag straight away. She left the college library to walk home and went up to her bedroom straight away when she got there. Her computer needed thirty seconds or so to boot up fully, but she opened a browser when the screen came to life and typed Darius’s name in the search box.
The surprise showed on her face when she got a few hits and saw they were Las Vegas newspapers. She opened a couple of them to read stories of a Darius Darnell putting in some starring performances for a basketball team called the Jackalopes, but there were no pictures with the articles and it left her wondering if it was just a namesake rather than the boy she grew up with.
She tried another option and brought up the website of Casper Villiger then clicked through the menu to try and find details of the men and women that advertised the brand. It got her some more pictures of Darius and a short resume that revealed the man playing for the Jackalopes was him.
“How the hell did you end up in Las Vegas?” she said as she stared at the screen.
Not that it was really any of her business now, but curiosity got the better of her and she couldn’t let the matter lie. She searched the internet for a while longer to see if there was more information on Darius, but didn’t really find anything other than the newspaper articles about his exploits for a Vegas basketball team. There was only one other way she could think of finding out more, but the idea of visiting his parents didn’t really sit well with her after not speaking to them for so long. She went to lie on her bed and tried to convince herself it was a bad move, but the urge to find out what really happened to her ex-boyfriend was one she couldn’t shake off.
Thoughts of the news bulletin about the robbery and accident came to her and she guessed she’d been mistaken about thinking Darius was one of the men in the CCTV footage. What she was finding out now certainly didn’t seem to fit in with that, although her mind was working overtime about what the truth was.
“What harm could it do?” she said as she thought about visiting Darius’s parents again.
She got up to put her coat and shoes on then left the bedroom and was at the bottom of the stairs just as there was a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it!” she shouted.
She walked along the hallway and saw it was her Aunt Kendra when she opened the door.
“Is your mum in?” Kendra asked.
“Yeah, she’s here,” Gemini replied. “I’m just heading out, but come on in.”
“Thanks,” Kendra replied and stepped past.
Gemini was about to head off, but thought she should at least show an interest in her family before she
did.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m OK,” Kendra replied.
“How is Phaedra doing?” Gemini went on. “I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“You and me both,” Kendra said.
“What do you mean?”
“That girl is a law unto herself,” Kendra answered in a resigned voice. “She called a few weeks ago to inform me that she’d met someone new and was moving out. That was as much as I got and she didn’t even bother coming home to collect any of her belongings.”
“Who’s she with now?” Gemini asked.
“That’s a good question,” Kendra replied. “I’m just her mother, so it’s not like she tells me anything.”
“She didn’t let you know where she was going?” Gemini said.
“She went to great pains to inform me that she is nearly nineteen years old now and capable of making her own decisions,” Kendra went on and let out a sigh. “I’m not exactly happy about it, considering her past choices when it comes to men, but what can I do? She made it pretty clear she didn’t want any interference from me.”
“That’s not right,” Gemini sympathized.
“No, it’s not,” Kendra agreed then just held out her arms and shrugged her shoulders as if she didn’t know what else to say.
“Well, mum’s in the kitchen,” Gemini went on. “I’ll see you when I get home if you’re still here.”
“Sure,” Kendra said then moved along the hallway in the direction of the kitchen.
Gemini closed the door as she left and set off along the sidewalk. The news of her younger cousin taking off with a new man didn’t come as a complete shock, considering the way she’d lived her life over the past few years. The fact that she did so without any of her clothes or other possessions did come as something of a surprise.
“Must have found herself a rich boyfriend,” Gemini let out under her breath as she pondered the information then put it out of her mind as she returned her attention to what she was about to do.
The pace of her walking grew slower without her even realizing it as she approached the house she knew so well. She stopped altogether when her hand was on the garden gate and considered whether she should actually go through with the visit. It made her hesitate for a while as she tried to gather her nerve to make a move, but the decision was made for her and she froze in place when Mrs. Darnell showed her face to put the trash out. The older woman caught sight of the figure lurking at the garden gate in the darkness.
“Who’s there?” she said.
Gemini inhaled deeply and opened the gate to step through.
“Hi Mrs. Darnell,” she started as she approached to show it was her.
She was expecting a frosty reception, but it never transpired and Darius’s mum didn’t appear to be annoyed to see her.
“Gemini,” she said and smiled. “Where have you been hiding yourself?”
“Oh, you know I’ve been busy at college and doing other things,” she replied.
“What are you doing here at this time of night?” Mrs. Darnell went on.
“I… well, I wanted to talk about Darius,” she said.
“Oh,” Mrs. Darnell replied and there was no missing the crestfallen tone of her voice. “You better come in then.”
The pair of them walked inside and sat at the kitchen table.
“I’d ask what you want to know about Darius,” Mrs. Darnell said to start the conversation about her son, “but in all honesty I’m not sure I’d be able to answer the question.”
“Where is he?” Gemini asked.
“In Las Vegas… I think,” the older woman said. “But I’m just guessing.”
The answer slightly shocked Gemini and it showed in her voice.
“You don’t know where he is?”
“Apparently that’s the way he wants it,” Mrs. Darnell said.
Gemini couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She pulled the page of the magazine from her pocket and unfolded it.
“I was shown this today,” she said as she put it down and flattened it out.
Mrs. Darnell let out a sigh, but said nothing as she stared at the picture of her son.
“I think he is in Las Vegas,” Gemini said. “I did a search on the internet when I got home tonight and found a few newspaper articles about Darius playing for a basketball team called the Jackalopes.”
Mrs. Darnell put out a hand to touch the picture.
“I guess he was right and we were wrong,” she commented.
Gemini understood straight away what the woman sitting opposite was talking about. They’d all thought that basketball was a hobby to be enjoyed, not a career to be pursued, and urged Darius to do what they thought was the right thing and concentrate on his studies. She remembered the night of the argument when she practically accused him of wasting his time with the sport. In the weeks after she’d concluded it was why he didn’t want to make up with her, but she never expected that he would try to cut his family out of his life. It really didn’t seem like him at all.
“How do you know he doesn’t want you to get in touch?” she asked.
“Wait here,” Mrs. Darnell said.
She got to her feet and walked out of the kitchen towards the lounge. Around a minute or so later she reappeared and placed a letter on the table. Gemini saw the Las Vegas address at the top of the page, but it was the name of the company that caught her attention. Kirks, Clifford & Mackenzie sounded like a law firm and it became clear that they were as she read the letter. Her astonishment grew and she looked up when she finished.
“Darius sent you a legal letter telling you to stay away from him,” she let out in an incredulous voice.
“We got it checked out,” Mrs. Darnell said. “It’s definitely genuine. We went along to a legal resource center and one of their people contacted that law firm. The information that came back was basically the same as the letter. Darius doesn’t want us to get in touch and we would apparently be taken to court if we did.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Gemini said. “I knew he was mad at me after we argued, but why would he cut off contact with you?”
“We weren’t told that,” Mrs. Darnell replied. “Maybe our lack of encouragement…”
Her words tailed off as she stared down at the table. Gemini reached across to squeeze her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Well, what’s done is done,” Mrs. Darnell commented in a sad voice. “Darius has made it all too clear that he doesn’t want us to get in touch and I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it.”
Gemini still couldn’t believe that. It wasn’t like the Darius she knew, but the letter sitting on the table in front of her seemed to indicate otherwise. She could see his mother was upset and felt guilty about coming to the house. It was too late to change that now, though, and she decided it would be better if she just left.
“I won’t disturb you any longer,” she said and got to her feet.
Mrs. Darnell followed suit and they walked over to the kitchen door.
“Don’t be a stranger,” the older woman said.
“I won’t be,” Gemini replied.
She heard the sound of the door closing as she walked away and thoughts raced round her head as she made her way home. It appeared that Darius was living out his dream, but the fact that he went from playing for a community college to starring for a professional NBA team in the matter of a few short months didn’t seem to fit somehow.
Gemini also still couldn’t quite convince herself that the man she saw in the liquor store robbery footage wasn’t her ex-boyfriend. She didn’t want to believe that Darius was involved in something like that, but everything that was going on seemed so strange.
“Just get some sleep,” she told herself when she got home.
That was easier said than done and she tossed and turned as her mind remained active. She could see the tiredness on her face when she looked in the bathroom mirror the following morn
ing.
“Good going,” she said to her reflection. “Now you’ll fall a sleep in a lecture and miss something important.”
She made the shower water cooler in an attempt to wash away some of the fatigue and was a bit fresher when she got out of the cubicle. When she returned to her bedroom, she dressed and brushed her hair then went downstairs to have some breakfast.
“Ready for another day?” her father said when he came in the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.
“Yeah,” Gemini let out without even realizing that her tone of voice made her sound slightly morose.
“Are you OK?” her father asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied quickly in a livelier voice and smiled at him. “Just thinking about the work I need to get done today.”
“That’s enough to depress anyone,” he teased her.
She made herself laugh at his joke then watched as he disappeared out of the door. It wasn’t college work that was playing on her mind and no matter how much she tried to take her thoughts away from the events of the previous day, it was proving almost impossible to do. She was unable to make sense of anything, and the more she pondered the situation the more she wanted to find out the truth of it.
By the end of the first lecture of the day, she knew there was no point in her being there. She caught herself not listening to what the teacher was saying on so many occasions that it began to annoy her, but she suspected it would be the same for the rest of the day. There was only one thing she could think about and she knew she needed to do something about it.
Skipping lectures was something she never considered and she probably boasted the best attendance record of anyone on her course, but on this day she made an exception. When her classmates walked in the direction of the next lecture, she made an excuse to go to the restroom. She locked herself in a cubicle when she got there and sat down to think. Finding out the truth of what happened to Darius wasn’t something she could do herself, but she was starting to form a plan of what might get her some information.
A few months previously the professor of the law class she was taking set a coursework task on the uses of private detectives in legal work. While she knew that most of her classmates stuck to the internet as a means of researching the subject, she went a step further and actually got in touch with a member of the profession. Mr. Hooper was a grizzled, middle-aged man who she’d actually been slightly scared off on their first meeting.
He turned out to be a friendly man that answered her questions and gave her an insight into the work he did for lawyers and attorneys. It got her an A+ for her coursework, but also someone that she now thought she could go to for help.
“Mr. Hooper,” she mused as she sat in the quiet of the restroom.
A few minutes later her mind was made up and she let herself out of the cubicle then walked to the door of the restroom. She cracked it open to take a peek and saw that the hallway outside was clear. There was a concern that she might bump into a member of the teaching staff on her way to the building exit, but she made it without incident and rapidly walked away from the college once she was outside.
Mr. Hooper was kind enough to give his time for free when she was doing her coursework project, but Gemini knew she couldn’t expect the same if she actually asked him to work for her. In truth, she didn’t even know if he would do it, but she stopped at an ATM on her way to the bus stop and withdrew one hundred dollars from her account. She couldn’t really afford to be wasting money, and seeing it in her hand was making her have second thoughts about going through with her idea.
“You’ll go crazy if you don’t know.”
Her words were true. A sleepless night and a wasted hour in a lecture this morning were enough to tell her that she needed to find out the story of Darius’s rise to fame, so she put the money in her pocket and carried on walking to the bus stop. The ride to get to the vicinity of Mr. Hooper’s office lasted around twenty minutes, and it was almost over when the sudden thought that he might already be out on a job came in her head. She briefly considered phoning, but in the end just got off the bus and walked the rest of the distance to his office. The blinds were closed when she got there, but she let out a sigh of relief when she tried the door and found it unlocked. It wasn’t a wasted journey and she saw the surprise on the older man’s face when she walked inside. His expression turned to a smile.
“New coursework?” he said and laughed.
Gemini shook her head as she walked over to his desk and sat down.
“Not this time,” she said.
He leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingers together in front of his face as he stared at her.
“So… what can I do for you then?” he asked.
“How much do you charge for someone to hire you?” Gemini asked.
“Well, it depends what they want and where I need to go to try and get the information they want,” he replied.
Gemini brought the hundred dollars out of her pocket and spread the bills out on the desk.
“What would that get me?” she asked.
Mr. Hooper didn’t even look at the money when he leaned forward to put his elbows on the desk.
“What’s this about?’ he asked.
“My boyfriend… well, my ex-boyfriend,” Gemini replied.
Mr. Hooper narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare at her.
“What about him?”
Gemini reached down to open her bag and brought out the page from the magazine. She placed it on top of the money on the desk and spread it out. Mr. Hooper let out a low whistle of appreciation as he looked at the advert then brought his gaze up to hers.
“He’s doing alright for himself if he’s getting promotional work for Casper Villiger,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Gemini replied. “But around three months ago he was playing for a community college team here.”
“That’s one hell of a rise to fame,” Mr. Cooper commented and the slight surprise showed on his face. “But what exactly do you want me to do about it?”
Gemini let out a sigh and gazed down at the picture of Darius when she started telling the story of the last few months. It was around ten minutes before she finished reciting everything that she knew and there was silence in the office as Mr. Hooper settled back in his chair and rubbed at his chin.
“It’s some tale,” he said after a short while.
“There are too many gaps in it that don’t really make sense,” Gemini said. “One minute we are a regular teenage couple at a community college and then in the space of a few weeks we argue, he disappears and then reappears as a basketball star in Las Vegas that wants nothing to do with anything or anyone from his old life.”
“Sending your parents a threatening legal letter telling them to keep away is certainly unusual,” Mr. Hooper agreed. “But it’s his right to do whatever he wants with his life.”
“I’m not disputing that,” Gemini said. “And I’m not looking to make any trouble for him. Things ended badly between us and I still feel guilty about the things I said. We both got upset and threw some harsh insults at each other, but…”
“You didn’t think it would spell the end of the relationship,” Mr. Hooper said.
“I guess not,” Gemini admitted. “We were together for a long, long time and I never really imagined my life without him in it. I’m not hunting him down to get us together again… I just can’t live with not really knowing the full story of what happened. I’m kind of sorry for his mother too. What she’s going through can’t be easy and maybe I can get some answers that would give her some peace of mind.”
“You might get some answers that make things worse for you and his family,” Mr. Hooper pointed out. “Not every investigation comes with a happy ending. To be honest, very few of them do, so you would need to be prepared for the possibility of some harsh truths.”
“If that’s what comes out of it, then so be it,” Gemini said in a determined voice. “Is there anything you can d
o for me?”
“Well, one hundred dollars is not a lot of money to carry out an investigation,” Mr. Hooper said.
“I can get more if...” Gemini started, but her words came to an abrupt end when he held up his hand.
“I’m not trying to scam you for more,” he said. “You’re a friend more than a client. I’m just trying to keep your expectations in check, so you don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Gemini nodded her head.
“I understand,” she told him.
Mr. Hooper reached for the notepad on his desk then picked up a pencil and sharpened it.
“OK, you need to tell me everything you can about Darius Darnell.”
“Like what?” she asked.
Over the next thirty minutes she answered the private detective’s questions as they ran through the events of the past few months in more detail. He also asked about Darius’s background, his friends and his family. When they were finished, he sat looking through the notes to see if there was anything he missed out on.
“I think I have everything I need to get started,” he said when he brought his gaze up to hers.
“How long will it take for you to investigate?” she asked.
Mr. Hooper shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s difficult to judge these things by simply looking at a set of notes on paper,” he replied. “I have a few ideas about how to get started and the length of time needed will become clearer once I get things moving. I’ll keep you in the loop if you give me your phone number. I’m not sure I still have it.”
Gemini told him and watched as he wrote it down in the notebook.
“Thanks for your help,” she told him. “I appreciate you doing this.”
“No need for thanks,” he said and smiled as he held up the money. “You’re paying for it and keeping me in booze and cigarettes.”
Gemini laughed.
“Isn’t it just the detectives in pulp fiction novels that live on nicotine and alcohol?”
“I like to do my bit,” Mr. Hooper said and got to his feet. “I’ll keep in touch, so you just get your butt to college and study. I need more practicing lawyers that want to use my service.”
“You might be waiting a while for me to get there,” Gemini replied. “The cost of going to law school isn’t exactly cheap. Getting there usually means rich parents or a scholarship.”
“You’re a smart girl,” he went on. “I’m sure you’ll make it.”
His comments just made her think of the night of the argument with Darius. His dismissive comment about her chances of becoming a lawyer stung when it was thrown at her, but she knew it was just a comeback to her harsh words about his chances of making it in basketball. They’d both said things in the heat of the moment and she knew she regretted her words. Whether her ex-boyfriend felt the same was something she didn’t know, but she hoped Mr. Hooper’s investigation would shed some light on that.
“I’ll hear from you,” she said when she looked across the desk at him.
“Sure,” he replied. “I’ll let you know if I find anything out.”
Gemini got to her feet to walk to the door and left the office. She considered returning to college to carry on with a day of classes, but in the end the idea didn’t really appeal to her and she decided to just go to a library near her home. It would allow her to hide for the day and see if she could concentrate on doing some work for the coursework assignments she needed to complete. Her mind remained on the meeting that just ended as she rode the bus to her neighborhood, and she couldn’t help wondering if she’d done the right thing.
“Too late now,” she muttered to herself.
She’d set the wheels in motion to hopefully finding out how what really happened to Darius and all she could do now was wait to see what came of Mr. Hooper’s investigation.
The End
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Hoop Dreams Page 12
