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Fall Out Of Love ft. Carlie Hanson by Salem
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NOW
"Chad Danforth," the detective began with a slight clearing of his throat, shuffling through the papers he'd grabbed out of a manila folder, while keeping his eyes on the athlete. It hadn't been his intention to bring Chad in earlier than necessary but it was clear that putting Troy Bolton in charge of finding Kelsi Nielsen to bring her in for questioning had been a horrible idea, really. Barely ten minutes had passed before the detective made the decision to find somebody else, anybody else—lo and behold, they found Chad not even two minutes later, rummaging through the Evans' kitchen for something to eat, probably preferably greasy to nurse his obvious hangover. "What can you tell me about your relationship with Ms. Evans?"
Chad's eyebrows furrowed for a moment, mouth 'Ms. Evans?' to himself, before a lightbulb went off in his head, "Oooh, you mean Sharpay, right?" He nodded furtively. "I've never really liked her, always thought she was a major bitch in high school, you know?"
"Language, Mr. Danforth," the detective warned.
"Sorry." He said, though he didn't look like he meant it. "Anyway, Sharpay was always known as the Ice Queen at our high school. She made everyone so miserable, probably because her own life sucked." —Chad rolled his eyes— "She had a thing for Troy, I think—asking him specifically to sing with her, when she usually performed with her twin brother, in our school's winter play and wanting him to do her family country club's talent show one summer. Set him up to get a scholarship for U of A, hooked him up to play the RedHawks, shit like that, like she could bribe him into saying yes. She, uh, didn't take too kindly to his rejection."
"Mr. Danforth, we're here to talk about—"
"No, no," Gabriella interjected, shooting the detective a sharp look that Chad didn't understand. "I want to hear more about Troy and Sharpay's history."
"She seemed to forget all about him by the time senior year started up, she was more concerned with getting into Julliard. The only time they interacted was during rehearsals for the Spring musical, which Taylor and Kelsi convinced all of us to join as some kind of 'one last hoorah' thing. Though, she was a little peeved that Ryan and Kelsi were awarded the Julliard auditions and scholarship, which I don't really get because her family's beyond rich? Not like they needed the scholarship money," —there is a childish snort from had here— "and to be honest, I would've really preferred for Taylor to not strike up a friendship with her, either. Sharpay was toxic from the start. How you go from being relentlessly bullied by someone to being their 'best friend' is beyond me." Gabriella noted his use of air quotes, and raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother interrupting, at least not yet. "I never for one second believed that Sharpay really cared about Taylor, and vice versa. It was probably a matter of convenience or something. Kelsi was super pissed when Taylor asked Sharpay to be her Maid of Honor at our wedding, I heard that Ryan said Kelsi almost wanted to drop out of the wedding altogether but he apparently convinced her not to. And, my God, I couldn't believe the amounting of flirting Sharpay did the night of the wedding—I was halfway sure I got trapped on some trashy dating show or something. I wanted to vomit when she was all over Troy. Sharpay has—sorry, had—no respect and no boundaries. It's no wonder she cheated on Zeke with Troy—" Chad's eyes go wide, as if he realized that was something he shouldn't have said, then awkwardly cleared his throat.
"I don't even know where to begin," the detective groans, dragging his hands down his face in exasperation.
"Mr. Danforth, you aren't—why do you think the friendship between Ms. Evans and Ms. McKessie—"
"Taylor's last name is Danforth," Chad interrupted, a little too harshly. "We aren't officially divorced. She's legally still my wife."
"Why do you think their friendship wasn't what they made it out to be?" Gabriella's tone hinted at annoyance but her features remained ever delightful.
"It just never seemed right to me, is all. I never understood it." Chad shrugged.
"And then... you mentioned Ms. Evans cheated on Zeke Baylor with Mr. Bolton, correct?" Gabriella leaned forward, gently resting her chin against her hand.
Chad's eyes flickered to Gabriella, there was a slight narrowing around the edges, but he only let his gaze linger for a moment.
"Yeah." He looked a little uneasy now, choosing to look in the detective's direction but almost as if gazing over his shoulder, it must not have been known by many—if any—people, and Gabriella found that most interesting. "I, uh... I'm ... I was sort of friends with Zeke, we went to high school together. He played basketball with me and Troy—Zeke had the biggest crush on Sharpay, she rebuffed him time and time again, nobody really understood why he had a thing for her. But, uh, anyway... Zeke told me he had a feeling that Sharpay was seeing somebody behind his back, and then not too long after they break up she's sleeping with Troy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out."
Gabriella pursed her lips together—she didn't quite see it the way Chad did, because while Troy had talked about his relationship with Sharpay he had seemed to consider the idea she lied about when her and Zeke broke up, it could also be entirely possible there was another person Sharpay had been involved with—just speculation. She didn't want Troy to be a suspect in his dead girlfriend's murder, he just didn't seem like the type, and if he did do it, lying about when things ended with Zeke really doesn't give a good enough motive since that was months ago, at least in Gabriella's opinion.
"How did Ms. Evans and Mr. Bolton seem this weekend?" The detective asked, steering the conversation back to things that mattered—like the mystery surrounding the events leading up to Sharpay's death.
"I dunno, I try to spend as much time as far away from her as possible." Chad sounded a little snotty here, and used the opportunity to gathering her hair to twist it into a messy bun on top of her head in order to discreetly roll her eyes. The detective didn't bother hiding it.
"If you didn't like Ms. Evans as much as you have insinuated, how did you come to receive an invite this weekend?" The detective wondered, which brought up a good point.
Chad was silent, looking a little surprised that the detective had asked him that, which then morphed into embarrassment—but it disappeared before it could settled on his face. "Troy invited me."
Gabriella hesitated; out the corner of her eye she saw that the detective was also sneaking a peak at her—she recognized that sharp look in his eyes. They were thinking about the same thing that Taylor McKessie had briefly shared with them during her interview: her soon-to-be ex husband once showing up unexpectedly at her house and things, in Taylor's words, went awry. The expression on Chad's face made him look guilty of pulling that stunt yet again, but there was no tangible proof he'd come to Sharpay's unannounced, and that also didn't mean he was the one to hurt Sharpay.
"We heard that Troy and Sharpay might have broken up prior to her death, do you think that it's possible?" The detective baited, straightening out his posture.
"I did hear Sharpay yelling that night but I couldn't tell ya if it was at Troy, she's always sometimes yelling." Chad shrugged, subtly avoiding making eye contact with either one of them.
THEN
three days ago.
"I'm going to Sharpay's tomorrow—"
Troy was in the middle of telling Chad while carelessly throwing a bunch of clothes into a duffle bag, his shoulders hunched and tense—as soon as those words left his best friend's mouth is when Chad immediately began tuning him out, choosing to focus on the sound effects blaring from the TV while he played Call of Duty. Listening to the gunshots and the characters' chatter was significantly better than listening to Troy talk about anything related to Sharpay Evans.
It was bad enough he'd had to deal with the materialistic bimbo when he and Taylor were still living together, he hated whenever she came around because she hogged all of Taylor's attention, which, back then, both pissed him off and relieved him at the same time, all things considered. He also blamed Sharpay for being the reason Taylor left him, not that he could really prove she had anything to do with their pending divorce, but he just had a feeling she somehow managed to get into his soon-to-be ex wife's head, filling it with all sorts of crazy shit that finally led her to leaving him, for good. When Taylor kicked him out of their house, which she owned, he thought he would at least be free from all things Sharpay related, but of course, Troy had to go and start banging her—had to start a relationship with her. Inviting her over, sometimes, having her invade their personal space. Which he still didn't get after all these months, since they used to be really good friends with Sharpay's most recent ex-boyfriend, Zeke Baylor, and from the way Zeke spoke, and from the way Chad saw things as they went on, it seemed like Sharpay was still dating Zeke when she started sleeping with Troy. At least, that's the story he was going to stick to, because how could he even bring that up to his best friend? "Hey man, you know when you and Sharpay first started getting together, I'm pretty sure she lied to you and was still hooking up with Zeke, too, but who am I to judge or even know the real story, right?"
Yeah, no thanks.
"—Taylor—"
"What?" Chad's head swiveled around, his brain catching up with reality as soon Troy mentioned his ex wife.
Troy gave Chad a strange look, but didn't comment anything other than repeating what he'd just said—the gist of what Chad understood was that Taylor will also be at Sharpay's this weekend, who in turn invited Kelsi along, which really puts a damper on what Troy had planned for his girlfriend, but, like, Chad really didn't care about that part or anything else after.
NOW
There were several things that Gabriella didn't quite understand about the matters of Sharpay Evans' death, and one of those things revolved around how the rest of Chad's interview had gone, before there was a tiny knock on the door to interrupt; the detective seemed a little confused on who it could be, but Gabriella was willing to assume it was either the victim's parents or—
"Um, hi, sorry," the person said, their voice both chipper and forlorn at the same time, as they nudged open the door to the parlor where the interviews were being conducted. Kelsi Nielsen was revealed to be standing in the doorway. Gabriella let her gaze slide over to Kelsi, while the detective chose to keep his eyes on Chad. "I just ran into Troy and he, uh... he said you guys wanted to speak with me?"
"Yes," the detective said, sounding a little grandeur, his stare hardening, and clasped his hands together. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Danforth."
"Always a pleasure." Gabriella smiled tightly; but it was when she looked back over at Chad that she noticed the way he was staring at her . . . so . . . intently. In fact, he'd developed a habit of it throughout the course of their interview, but so that it didn't seem so obvious. Staring at her when she wasn't looking in his direction, averting his gaze as soon as her attention was on him. Had the detective noticed it? She didn't know what it was that made her notice it now, but, it was kind of weird?
Chad was silent as he got up from the chair and loped toward the door—he stopped right before the threshold, however, glancing over his shouldder to narrowing his eyes at Gabriella. "Do I know you from somewhere?" He sounded so skeptical but so sure at the same time, but Gabriella could only shake her head, swallowing thickly. The longer she stayed in his presence the more she understood, sort of, why Taylor was divorcing him. There just wasn't something . . . honestly, she didn't even know how to explain it. But Chad only shrugged, exiting the room entirely, closing the door behind him a little harsher than necessary—she chose to believe it wasn't intentional.
As Kelsi made her way over to them, Gabriella took these few moments to mull things over, trying to figure out where the lies ended and the truth began—Taylor had insinuated that something happened between Troy and Sharpay this weekend, Chad kind of backed that up by saying he heard the latter yelling, but Troy dismissed that entirely. Taylor said Sharpay was her best friend, while Chad and Troy weren't entirely convinced. Chad hates Sharpay, in so many words, and tries to avoid being around her but jumps at the invitation to join him to spend the weekend at her house? She didn't even want to start on the whole Zeke Baylor thing; the only way they'd get to the bottom of that was to speak to him directly but really, does that—does he—have anything to do with the investigation? Absolutely not. Taylor said Sharpay didn't seem like herself in the week leading up to her death, which makes Gabriella start to wonder if there could be something that they are missing? Who could possibly know what pieces would fill in the blanks, other than Sharpay herself? Her brother, maybe? She made a mental note to have Kelsi bring Ryan Evans in next once they were done speaking with her, then she wanted to take a break from talking to these people, maybe wander the grounds, see if she could find anything about Sharpay somewhere in her parents' house that might get her to understand things a little better.
If she came up short here then she'd have to make a trip to Sharpay's house, do a little digging around there, and honestly just hope for the best.
author's note: i feel the need to mention that right now they are in the Evans' mansion in New Mexico, two days have passed since Sharpay was murdered in present day. She died Friday night, it is currently Sunday late afternoon when they are all talking to the detective and Gabriella. Taylor, Chad, Sharpay, and Troy all live in California. Kelsi and Ryan live in New York City. Everyone traveled to where the Evans' family held the funeral for Sharpay. Ryan was NOT in California at the time of his sister's death and you will learn that it is something he deeply regrets, which is why he called Gabriella to come help figure out who killed Sharpay, especially because he knows that police officers can be paid off by the right person for the right amount of money so that evidence can go missing. Keep a look out because a few more characters from the movies are going to be brought into the story and pay very close attention to the next couple chapters.