Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [124]
Precisely why the girl didn’t tell you, Decker thought. “So Cameron was around twelve when all this happened?”
“Yes,” Darla said. “We were in seventh grade. At one point, they were all living in the house together—her parents and the boyfriend and the girlfriend. It was really hard on Cam. I think that’s when she started smoking pot. I told her to stop, that drugs were the work of the devil, but she didn’t listen. Pot was her refuge.”
Marie said, “You should have told us immediately. We could have helped her.”
Dominick said, “Even if the law wouldn’t intervene, the church could have helped.”
“I realize that now, Papa, but I was a little kid.”
“You still are a child,” Quiller pointed out. “If you tell the truth, I’m sure the law will take that into consideration.”
“I am telling the truth,” Darla said. “It is not only evil to lie, it’s too hard.” She wiped her eyes. “I figured the best thing I could do for Cameron was to be a friend and try to bring her back into the church.”
“Okay,” Decker said.
“The home situation lasted around a year and a half. Then right around eighth grade, Cam’s parents decided to get back together.”
Darla put her hand to her mouth.
“Something major happened, though. Cameron wouldn’t tell me, but I’m sure it had to do with her mother’s boyfriend. She went from hating him to liking him. They became real . . . close. You’d have to be an idiot not to know what was going on.”
The tears began to fall.
“She changed. Cameron had always been an okay student if she worked hard. But she stopped working. She’s smart but not smart enough to keep her grades up and do drugs at the same time. She started flirting with the smart boys to get help from them. That’s how it started with Dylan. Despite what you think of Dylan, he’s really smart.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Decker said.
“He was kind of a nerd when she met him. He was smitten with her. All through ninth grade, he’d follow her around like a puppy dog. She introduced him to sex and drugs. Then somewhere during tenth grade, things reversed. Dylan started, like, working out. He grew taller. He also became real buff.”
“Steroids?” Wynona asked.
“Yes. Steroids, too. Dylan became popular with guys as well as the girls. He started cultivating this bad-boy image. He attracted a loyal band of followers. Drugs were a real big part of it. Dylan had money. He bought drugs and started giving them away for free. Then later he started charging for them, not too much at first, just to cover his own expenses. He said he wasn’t making any money. Then later on, he started charging more money, especially for crystal meth.” She looked away. “Once you’re hooked on meth, it’s hard to turn back.”
Her eyes got wet.
“Cameron knew I didn’t have enough money to . . . get what I needed. She gave me some, but she said there were other ways I could earn the money.” She looked down. “So I did whatever she told me to do. I really needed the stuff.” Her lower lip curled under and her face broke down. “It was all very humiliating.”
She started to sob. Her mother put her hand on her head and leaned over and kissed her cheek. “God will love you if you truly repent.”
“I do, Mama, I do truly repent. I just need a little help.”
Quiller said, “You can see that the girl needs rehab, not jail.”
“Jesus loves us all, Darla, saints and sinners,” her father told her.
Wiping her eyes on her sleeves, Darla said, “Amen.”
“You must confess your sins.”
“I will, Papa, I promise I will.”
“If you sincerely repent, God will forgive you,” Marie reemphasized. “But part of atonement is admitting all your sins. You must tell the detectives what happened this morning.”
Amen to that, Decker thought. He said, “We got up to the part where you slept over at Cameron’s house because you were working on a project together.”
Darla nodded and wiped her eyes. “Cameron was in a bad mood this morning. She met this boy . . .” She looked at Decker. “His name was Chris but then this morning, he said his name was Gabriel and that his father was like the real Mafia.” She looked to Decker for confirmation,