Gap Year - 104. Chapter 104

May 2, 2004

Malibu, CA

Will

We sat in the great room of Darius’s house. He wasn’t really into decorating, so it pretty much looked the same as it did when my mother lived here, with a large cushy sectional sofa dominating the room. I’d have to mention that to Stef and thus unleash a maelstrom on Darius, I pondered mischievously. I found being in this house disturbing, which is probably why I didn’t come over here much. In fact, the only reason I did was to use the gym, because we’d set that up here to maximize the space in the other house. “Do you guys have anything to eat?” Zach asked. Travis’s eyes bulged in anger at being delayed in finding out who killed Curtis. “I’ll lay this all out for you, but I’m starving.”

“Be right back,” I said. I went into the kitchen in our house and started rummaging around, grabbing a bunch of snack food, when Consuela came in wiping her eyes. “I am so sorry I woke you up.”

“You are hungry?” she asked.

“I kind of am, but a friend of mine came to visit and he’s starving,” I said. “We’re next door.”

“Go,” she instructed. “I will make you something.

“Travis is probably hungry too, and my father could probably eat too,” I said, getting an eye roll from her. “Thank you so much.”

“You are welcome,” she said. I grabbed a bag of chips and dragged it over to the other house, where everyone was waiting impatiently for me.

I tossed the chips to Zach. “Consuela is up and she’s making real food. This will tide you over.”

“Thanks,” he said.

Travis looked at me hopefully. “I told her you’d be hungry too.”

“Cool,” he said, gave me a slight grin, then we all focused on Zach.

“After Will and I talked, I thought about things and got worried about Taylor,” Zach explained. “She was really upset when I left.”

“What did you say to her when you were there?” Travis asked.

“Like I explained to Will, I went over and confronted her about sleeping with Curtis, and told her that she had to pick one of us. She chose him,” he said, and got a little teary-eyed.

“She was probably doing you a favor,” Travis said, and got a glare from Zach.

“No, she wasn’t,” he insisted strongly.

“So you were worried about her and you decided to go back there,” Dad summarized, to keep the two of them from fighting.

“Yeah,” Zach said. “She wasn’t acting like herself. It kept bothering me.”

“So what happened when you got there?” I asked.

“I walked in and heard noises in Curtis’s office, so I went in there and found him beat all to shit,” Zach said. “I’m no doctor, but I’m betting he had a broken rib, maybe a broken nose, although it was so bloody it was hard to tell.”

“No sympathy from me,” I stated, getting a nod from Travis.

“He was laying on the floor, so I went over and helped him up,” Zach said. “As soon as he got up, he pushed me away and limped over to his desk.”

“Where was his guard?” Travis asked.

“I have no idea,” Zach said. “That was weird, because I have never visited the Buck Mansion when there wasn’t security.”

“That’s because there’s always security there,” Travis stated. “I wonder if the guard was taken out, or bribed to leave?” I looked at my father, because we both knew that Jake had dodged the guard, but we were under the impression he was on a break. My father just shrugged, so he obviously didn’t know why the guard was missing either.

“Don’t know,” Zach said. “He went over to his desk, and I was just staring at him, wondering what his deal was, when he pulled out a gun and aimed it at me.”

“He was going to shoot you?” I asked, horrified.

“He told me that I wasn’t good enough for his daughter, and he’d put up with me for long enough. He said that he knew I was a huge fag, and that Taylor deserved so much better,” Zach said. “I told him that I loved her, and that I was totally devoted to her. He told me I was a lying piece of shit.”

“No surprise there since you were both competing for the same woman,” I said. He largely ignored me.

“He told me that he was going to kill me, and then he would claim that I was the one who beat him up and he shot me in self-defense,” Zach said. “He said this was a fantastic opportunity to remove me from Taylor’s life.”

“Sounds like him,” Travis said, shaking his head. “Even when he was down, he was still scheming and plotting.”

“He clearly didn’t shoot you,” Dad said. “What happened next?”

“He aimed the gun at me and cocked it, and I stood there staring death in the face,” Zach said being dramatic. “I looked at him boldly, determined to watch my own death unfold, when Taylor came in and told him to put the gun down. She was aiming her own gun at him when she did.”

“Taylor threatened to shoot Curtis?” I asked, stunned.

“She did,” Zach said.

“I kind of thought this story would end with a struggle where you ended up shooting him,” I said to Zach. “So who shot him?”

“Taylor,” Zach said. “After she told him to put the gun down, he shook his head and told her he was going to kill me, and it was for her own good. He re-aimed his gun at me and smiled. She told him that she was going to shoot him if he didn’t drop the gun. He looked at her, stunned, then focused on me again. She screamed at him to drop the gun. He looked at her and shook his head again. When she cocked her gun, he looked at her, his mouth open in surprise.”

“And then she shot him?” Travis asked.

“She did, and she was a good shot. It was amazing. I had no idea she was like an expert marksman,” Zach said.

“She likes guns,” Travis said, rolling his eyes. “She used to go to the range and practice a couple of times a week. I think she was fucking the dude who was her coach.”

“Whatever,” Zach said jealously. “The bullet went through his mouth and blew out the back of his head.”

“That is good shooting,” I said. Travis and my father nodded in agreement.

“As soon as Taylor saw that she’d killed him, she started to freak out, but I managed to keep my shit together,” Zach said, being cocky. “I grabbed a kleenex, took the gun from her hand, and wiped off her fingerprints. I took Curtis’s gun out of his hand and put it back in his desk drawer. Then I put her gun in Curtis’s hand, aimed at his plant, and fired again.”

“You were trying to make it look like he killed himself,” my father concluded.

“Yeah,” Zach said. “After that, Taylor completely broke down. She went over to him and started sobbing, begging him to forgive her and shit like that.”

“Shit,” I said, as I visualized how hard that would have been on Taylor. “She must really love you.”

“Taylor doesn’t know what that word means,” Travis spat. Zach got ready to lose it, but we were all stopped when Consuela came through the door to Darius’s house. Dad jumped up to intercept her before she came in so she wouldn’t see Zach. He took the tray, thanked her, then closed the door behind her as she left. He came into the great room carrying a tray of cheeseburgers, along with condiments.

“Food,” I said, our signal to take a break and eat. We sat there wolfing down burgers: Travis, my father, and I each had one, while Zach ate three. “Dude, when did you last eat?” I asked.

“This morning,” Zach said. “Tough to eat when you’re a wanted man.”

“No doubt,” Travis said with a sneer.

Zach sighed and stared at him. “Look Travis, I know you hate Taylor, and you obviously don’t like me, but I do love her. Think about how you’d feel if I sat here and slammed Will, or questioned whether he loved you or not.”

“I’m sorry my manners aren’t up to snuff,” Travis said in a bitchy way.

“Well, they’re not,” Zach said, in just as bitchy a tone.

“So what happened after Taylor shot Curtis?” I asked.

“She sat there and held his hand while he died, or so it seemed, then she completely lost it. She started crying hysterically, then started picking shit up and throwing it around the room. I tried to stop her, but instead she just threw shit at me,” Zach said.

“That must have been very traumatic for you,” Dad said sympathetically. He was probably remembering his mother and how insane she’d been. I was feeling bad for him when I remembered that my mother was pretty messed up too.

“Yeah, wasn’t my best day,” Zach said. “I managed to pin her down and call an ambulance. She’s fucking strong, so the whole time we waited, we were basically wrestling. When they got there, they put her in a straitjacket and sedated her.” He wiped a tear from his eye.

“I am so sorry,” I said. Travis looked like he could give a shit less.

“They wouldn’t let me ride to the hospital with her, so I followed the ambulance there,” he said. “When I got there, they told me she wasn’t allowed to receive visitors.”

“Makes sense, even though it sucks,” I said, even as I remembered how JJ and Jeanine had been, and also Marie. “Didn’t the cops show up?”

“The EMTs called them when they got there, but we were out of there before they showed up,” Zach said.

“When did you find out the LAPD was after you?” Dad asked.

“Last night,” Zach said. “Friends of mine in the dorms, and on the team, told me that a couple of them were looking for me, and asking if anyone knew where I was. I left my Durango on campus and hitched a ride with some buds to Santa Monica Pier.”

“That’s like six miles from where we picked you up,” Travis said. “No wonder you smelled so nasty.”

“Better that than getting thrown in jail,” Zach said. “I started walking and it took a long time because I had to be careful not to be spotted. By the time I got to Topanga I was pretty exhausted, and I knew I needed your help.” He’d directed that last line at me.

“There’s a good chance that the sheriffs will show up here looking for you,” Dad said. Zach got a panicked look on his face. “It will be alright.”

“If you say so,” Zach grumbled.

“I want you to call this lady,” he said, and gestured to me. I handed Zach the attorney’s card. “That’s her personal number. Do it now and see if she answers.”

“Alright,” he said. He made to do that, but I stopped him with my words.

“What makes you think you’re the scapegoat?” I asked Zach.

“If I don’t take the fall for this, who will?” Zach asked, then his eyes moved over to Travis. “Taylor?”

“Big won’t want that to happen,” Travis said, but there was something in the way he said it that convinced me there was more.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I demanded.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Travis asked, at a volume that was almost a shout.

“I was under the impression that the three of you had reached a détente of sorts,” Dad suggested, then focused on Travis. “I sense real animosity from you. Was that not the case?”

I was wondering if he had the balls to respond to my father like he responded to me. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t. “I need to hit the bathroom.”

I stared at him, incredulous and angry, as he walked over to the bathroom by the kitchen. “Why don’t you go upstairs, lock yourself in that room, and call the lawyer. We’re going over to the other house and hopefully we can stall the sheriffs if they show up with a search warrant,” Dad said to Zach.

“Alright,” Zach said. “Thank you both so much for helping me out.”

“We’ll do our best,” Dad said.

Zach took the chips, while I lugged the tray with the condiments and dirty plates back to our kitchen. I walked back only to find Travis walking through the passageway with my father behind him, locking the doors as he went. “You want to tell me what this is all about?” I asked him, only my tone was much gentler than it had been before.

He nodded, so Dad led us into his office. “I’m conflicted.”

I was going to dive in and demand answers, but I could tell this was really bothering him, so I adopted a more thoughtful attitude. If I were in this situation, where my sister's boyfriend was pitted against my family, I’d be pretty conflicted too. Well, actually I wouldn’t be conflicted at all; I would always pick my family, but if I were Travis, it would be a closer run thing. “I can see that,” I said.

“I’m not as in tune to your feelings as Will,” Dad said. “Can you explain it to me?”

Travis nodded and sighed. “Big actually gives a shit about Taylor, so he doesn’t want her to be charged with Curtis’s murder.”

“Did you know that she shot him?” I asked.

“No, but Big’s been all cagey about this, and when Zach explained what happened, I could see what direction Big was going,” Travis said.

“How would Big have known it was Taylor who shot him?” Dad asked.

“He must have looked at the tapes,” Travis said. “Curtis’s office has a video and sound recording system.”

“How did he not see Jake when he was there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Travis said. “I don’t know if the system was delayed or if it was completely turned off.”

“I’m guessing that, regardless, Big will try to make sure any recordings are gone,” Dad said.

“From Big’s perspective, Zach is the perfect fall guy,” Travis said. “He’s got a reputation as a hothead, he was there, and he had a motive.”

“What was his motive?” I asked.

“The story will probably go that Curtis was going to out him, so he took preventative action,” Travis said. His speech was stunted to show how uncomfortable he was with this whole thing.

“In other words, he’s a disposable person,” I said, so disgusted with all of the Bucks except Travis.

“Yes,” Travis said.

“Because if Taylor takes the rap, the only way she gets off is to admit that she was abused by her father for the past seven years,” my father noted.

“That would be pretty embarrassing for the family, and for me,” Travis said nervously.

“Especially if the part about your mother’s sleeping with her father-in-law came out too,” I said.

“Curtis will look like one of the vilest creatures who lived, which he was,” Travis said. “Taylor will seem so twisted she will be cut off from everyone she knows. And I’ll probably be the same, but I don’t care about it that much.”

“I can’t see how you could have an acting career if it was that bad,” I said.

“Is that a thing?” my father asked Travis.

Travis looked embarrassed. “Tell him,” I instructed.

“I met with an acting coach, and he said I had real potential,” Travis said. “I liked it.”

“That’s great,” Dad said enthusiastically.

“Not if my career is killed before it starts by my fucked-up family,” he said bitterly.

“What if the LAPD could be convinced it was a suicide?” Dad asked hopefully.

“There’s a $100 million life insurance policy in an irrevocable life insurance trust that benefits Big and Taylor,” Travis said. “It’s less than a year old, so if it’s suicide, they don’t get the death benefit.”

“I can see where that would motivate them,” my father observed ruefully.

“So that’s your dilemma,” I said, so annoyed at this situation. “You either go along with this plan to frame Zach, which you know is wrong, or you sacrifice your reputation and your career.”

“That probably seems like such an obvious choice to you,” Travis said, his tone almost accusatory. “But sometimes bad things happen to bad people, and in my mind, Zach is a bad person.”

“I..” I started to object.

“Look Will, you still have feelings for him, something that freaks me the fuck out, but to me, he’s basically the dude who raped me for the past year,” Travis spat angrily. “So don’t expect me to worry about his ass at all.”

I sat there stunned at how pissed off he was, but fortunately my father picked up the conversation for me. “Unfortunately, Big isn’t calling all the shots here. Zach is my cousin, and I am not going to watch him go to jail for something he didn’t do.”

“What if Big has a video of Jake beating the shit out of Curtis?” Travis asked, making sure not to sound menacing himself. “Would you trade Jake for Zach?”

“Are you threatening me?” my father demanded, which showed how upset he was at Travis’s statement.

“No,” Travis said, and looked at me desperately.

“Dad, Travis was just trying to explain the risks to you,” I said calmly.

“I’m really sorry, Travis,” my father said, and was totally remorseful.

Travis smiled. “I think it’s kind of sweet, because it shows how much you love Jake. Jake is important to me too. I don’t want to see anything happen to him. That’s another reason why saving Zach is dangerous.”

“I need to think about this,” Dad said. “Let’s talk in the morning.”

“Night,” I said. Travis and I got up and left his office, then went back to our room without saying anything. “You must think I’m an awful person for even thinking about this.”

“I don’t think you’re an awful person at all,” I said. “I’m just worried how damaged we’ll be if we end up on opposite sides of this thing.”

“You mean you’d hate me forever?” he asked, all outraged.

“Seriously?” I asked him, and I was even angrier than he was. “You think that?”

“Well you said we’d be damaged,” he objected, but it kind of came out like a whine. That was especially grating since I was in Malibu less than fifty feet from Robbie’s old bedroom.

“Think about it and tell me how we just skate through that conflict,” I snapped, then went into the closet where I started stripping off my clothes. I desperately needed a shower if only for the psyche-cleansing power of water. I headed to the shower and stopped myself. Travis was clearly struggling with whether to throw Zach under the bus or to do the right thing. This was not the time for me to be stupidly bitchy. I walked back out into the room to find him sitting on the couch, staring off in a daze.

He saw me and started laughing. “Dude, you are hella sexy.”

“I am,” I said, being cocky. I sat down on his lap, facing him. “Want to take a shower with me?”

“I thought you were mad at me,” he said in annoyance.

“I’m tired and crabby, and I’m worried about all of this shit, but I am not mad at you,” I said.

He pulled my face to his and gave me a sweet kiss. “Good.” Then he got up, and I thought he was going to knock my ass on the ground, but he held me as he did and pivoted me sideways so I landed on the couch. We took a shower, and he made love to me, then we went upstairs and climbed in bed.

“There has to be a solution to this problem,” I said, even as my brain labored to figure something out.

“The easiest thing to do would be to get everyone on the same page to convince the LAPD it was suicide,” Travis said. “Assuming we can even do that.”

“The only thing stopping us from doing that is the $100 million life insurance policy,” I mused, and then our brains seemed to see an out almost simultaneously.

“If I paid Taylor and Big the $100 million, they may go along with it,” he said.

“I think that in this case, it would be fairer if we split it,” I said. “Let’s go bug my father.”

We jumped out of bed, threw on fresh sweats and t-shirts, then went up to his room. I knocked but there was no answer, so I knocked more loudly. When he still didn’t answer, I went into the room and found that he wasn’t there. “Could be in the dungeon,” Travis joked, gesturing at the door.

I chuckled. “Let’s check the rest of the house first.” We went downstairs and finally found him in his office, totally focused on his computer. “You’re up late.”

He looked at me and blinked as he pulled himself out of his computer haze. “Couldn’t sleep,” he quipped. “What do you want?”

“We think we may have come up with a solution,” I said.

He looked at me skeptically, as if the two of us couldn’t possibly dream up a way out of this, which just about set me free, but then he mellowed. “Let’s hear it.”

“Maybe it’s possible to get everyone on board to say that Curtis killed himself,” I said. “The only real holdout to that is the $100 million insurance death benefit.”

“We were thinking that if Will and I each ponied up $50 million, we could get Big and Taylor on board,” Travis said. I appreciated that Dad paused to consider our idea, and even nodded to indicate it sounded reasonable.

“That idea has some merit, assuming we can convince the LAPD that he did it,” Dad said. Just then the doorbell rang, followed by loud knocks on the door. He got up and hurried to the door, but I got there first and looked through the peephole.

“Sheriffs,” I said to them.

“I want you to hurry, run next door, and tell Zach your plan, then sneak back here using the stairs from the beach,” he told me. “Travis, go up to your room and pretend to be asleep.”

“Got it,” Travis said, but before his words were completely out of his mouth I was already running to the passageway and locking the door behind me. I did the same thing for Darius’s house, then tore up the stairs to JJ’s old room. I burst in without knocking, scaring the shit out of Zach.

“What the fuck?!” Zach asked.

“Listen, I have to make this fast,” I said. “The sheriffs just showed up at our house and I’m betting they have a search warrant.”

“Fuck,” he said, and started to panic.

“Here’s our plan,” I said steadily. “You set this up so it looks like Curtis Buck killed himself. We’re going to try and back you up on that and make sure that’s how it ends up.”

“What about the life insurance money?” he asked.

“You know about that?” I asked, wondering who told him.

“I know about it,” he said in an annoyed way. “No way Big is going to let that kind of cash get away from him, and Taylor probably won’t either.”

“Travis and I are going to offer to cover it,” I said.

“You guys would do that for me?” he asked, and got a little teary-eyed.

“Well, there are other people involved in this too, but let’s go with that,” I said with a smile. “So what are you going to tell them when they question you?”

He pondered that for a few seconds, and I remained patient, even though I wanted to scream at him to hurry up. “I’m going to say that I walked into Curtis’s office to find him crying and depressed. I’ll say that he pulled out a gun, ranted about how he totally fucked up his life, then shot himself in the head in front of me.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “I have to go.”

“Thanks,” he said, but I was already out of his room and tearing down the stairs. I went out onto the beach, then walked over to our stairs and walked up slowly, going through the door just as a sheriff was walking by.

“Where did you come from?” he demanded rudely.

“Fuck you,” I snapped.

“Will, just answer the question,” my father said calmly.

“I went down to the beach to let the sound of the waves soothe me,” I said.

“What happened to upset you?” the sheriff asked in a pleasant way, as if I was going to reveal something about Zach to him.

“I was out there earlier when some asshole cop harassed me and ruined my whole evening,” I said. He glared at me, I glared back, then I started walking to my room.

“Where does this door lead?” I heard the sheriff ask my father.

“To the side of the house,” Dad said. The sheriff opened the door and saw the pathway to the other house.

“Is that your house too?” he asked.

“It is not,” I heard Dad say. It was convenient that he’d given it to Darius and he could answer that honestly.

I went up to our room and found Travis standing by the windows. “Hey,” I said gently, and put my arm around him.

“You made it back,” he said.

“I did,” I said. “Sheriffs have a search warrant and they’re going through the downstairs. Have they been up here yet?”

“No, I’m just standing here waiting for them to come bursting through that door,” he said apprehensively. Somehow his tension fueled my inner imp.

“You feel like freaking them out?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and looked at me oddly.

“Fuck me on the couch, right now,” I said.

“Dude,” he said skeptically, but I smiled at him. He thought about it and smiled back at me.

We stripped off our clothes and started making out, then once he was hard and I was ready, he slowly slid into me. “Let’s make this last,” I said, getting a smile from him. We’d fuck until Travis was about to blow, then he’d slow his pace to calm down, then we’d go at it again. We did that four times, and we were so close that I was kind of bummed that we’d blow before they got here.

There was a knock on the door, then it opened and two sheriffs walked in. “Time to blow this load,” Travis said. He started fucking me with a real purpose, while he stroked my cock in time to his thrusts. I glanced toward the door to see the sheriffs looking completely shocked, although it looked like one of them was sporting an erection. “Gonna cum!” Travis shouted.

“Me too!” I yelled, and gave myself over to the force of the orgasm. I heard the door close as they left, and as soon as I finished blowing my load I started laughing.

“Put on quite a show,” Travis said, laughing at me.

“Turned on at least one of those sheriffs,” I said. We lay there, and there was another knock on the door.

“Sheriff’s department,” said a firm voice. “Is it alright if we come in now?”

“Enter,” I said. They came in to find me laying on my back with cum sprayed all over my chest, while Travis sat between my legs.

“We’re searching the house,” one of the sheriffs said. “We have a warrant.”

“Go ahead,” I said, and waved my hand as if to give them permission.

“Uh, can you put some clothes on?” the one who’d gotten an erection asked.

I got up and walked towards him, my big dick dangling as I did. “I can tell you really don’t want me to, but I will anyway.”

“Thanks,” he said in annoyance, while his partner chuckled. Travis and I went into the bathroom to get cleaned up, then we came back out and got dressed.

They finished going through my room and left, but the sheriff with the erection hung back for a bit. “For the record, that was really hot,” he said, winked at us, then left. He probably heard us laughing as he walked down the stairs.