Time Stands Still

Chapter 14

The next day, I was waiting at the high school for Caspar to come out. I was standing next to his car, so it was easy enough to find him. He spotted me and quickly ushered his friends away. Then his eyes glanced around the parking lot a couple of times before heading over to me.

"You have more questions for me?" He asked. He sounded confident but his tapping foot on the asphalt gave him away.

"I talked to Wendy. I'm pretty sure that she had nothing to do with it."

He nodded. "And?" His foot started to tap faster now.

"And she also said that she knew that your sister was possibly seeing someone and that you always took her to that person."

His eyes darted across the parking lot again. His foot had stopped tapping. I was happy about that. The tapping made me nervous. "Can we maybe go somewhere else to discuss this? I'm not really," he finished his sentence by waving his arms around him.

"Sure, where do you want to go?"

The foot tapping started again. I wanted to groan. "Uhm... what about Thanks a Latte? You know that cafe right?"

So a half hour later, we were sitting in the cafe with the cheesy name. The drinks were always nice here. I was never a big coffee fan because of the bitter taste, but here there were enough coffees with enough sugar that made them acceptable. Although they probably couldn't be considered coffee anymore.

"So what do you want to know?" He asked. His fingers were now drumming against his cup. I really wanted him to stop it.

"Well, you can start by telling me who you went to see."

He let out a sigh and took a long sip of his coffee. "I mean this is probably going to sound super lame, but I started a poetry club with some friends. I told my parents that it was volunteer work because they really hate things like poetry and art."

"And Zoey also went along?" I asked.

The finger drumming became more erratic. "Yeah, she did. We both lied to our parents a lot so I told her about this, you know... She was my best friend," he said in a slightly higher tone. He blinked his eyes a couple of times before taking a very long sip.

"So she met someone there?" I asked.

He stared at me for a few seconds before he shook his head slightly as if to wake himself up. "Yeah, she did meet someone, but I don't think that they were anymore than friends. They just really clicked."

"Do you think that he could have the journal?" I asked. "I mean not to find out her secrets but as a way to protect them," I added when I noticed the incredulous expression that had appeared on his face after my first question.

The finger drumming stopped as his gaze became blank. I watched him going through a variety of emotions and thoughts. "I guess that he could have," he told me.

"Could I talk to him?" I asked.

He looked thoughtful again. "I guess you can, but please don't accuse him of anything. He really doesn't deserve it."

"I promise that I won't."

Caspar finally gave me a name. Skylar Menning. He lived in South Park, a district that I was rather familiar with, but I knew that most people avoided it. It was definitely not a tourist attraction. Though by no means was it anything like some other bad neighborhoods in other major cities in the USA.

I decided to immediately go try to talk to Skylar Menning. I wanted this case done with as soon as possible. Caspar's sadness of losing his sister and best friend made me think of my brother. I didn't want to know how Clifford felt about losing his sister. It was better not to think about it all.