“
And I was the bait you needed,” I filled in slowly.
Levi nodded, looking almost repentant, “I knew that you would be the perfect person to lure Toby to right where I needed him. He had talked about you incessantly for the past six months. He described how smart, witty, beautiful you were, I didn’t think he’d actually be right about that, until I met you myself. Bryce helped me to find your car, and then we followed you to the 7-Eleven that night. Bryce hid in the car while I browsed the isles watching you. I could tell by the way you spoke to that kid, with such confidence and certainty, that you would be difficult to persuade. And then when you ratted him out, I knew I’d need to set some groundwork.
“
I gave Toby the tickets to the concert and told him to invite you. Then when you guys got there I spent the day texting him, telling him he should ditch you and meet up with me. I called him a pussy when he wanted to bring you with him. I said that I didn’t want to spend the day with some uptight looking girl. I knew he’d pick me over you and he did, easily. I gambled that you would be infuriated by the end of the day, but just to add the icing to the cake, I texted him at the end of the concert and told him I’d seen you waiting out front of the stadium, by the parking lot. That is why he wasn’t there to meet you,” Levi paused again, and looked at me, as if trying to read my mind. I kept my face still and calm, but on the inside I felt myself growing sick with the realization that the last two months of my life had been built on a series of lies.
“
And then I saw you at the top of the hill. You looked so small and anxious, but incredible. I remember giving you my sweatshirt and pulling the hood up over your head. My thumb brushed the side of your cheek, and you almost shuttered. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. The whole ride, as I drove you home, I kept looking at you in the rearview mirror, thinking about how I wanted to touch your sweet face again.
“
I should have figured something else out at that point, another arrangement that wouldn’t have involved you. You weren’t supposed to remember what happened that night. The original plan was to put Roofies in your water as I drove you up to the benches. That way by the time Toby got there, you’d be so out of it that you wouldn’t remember anything the next day, and that would be the end of our contact. But I was utterly intrigued by you, I wanted to experience your reaction, and besides I knew I needed to see you again,” Levi put his face in his hands, “And now everything is spinning out of control. Mitch and Marcy still insist they have no idea where the map is and my father has lost his patience. He’s ordered the Delanceys to get Bryce next,” Levi’s voice broke as he said this.
“
Tell him you won’t do it!” I demanded.
Levi looked at me, his face grave, “It’s not a choice Chelsea.”
I wracked my mind for a suitable argument and then I remembered, “Levi, you told me once that you aren’t scared of anything. But that’s not true is it? You’re scared of your father, otherwise you would figure out a way to stop him.”
Levi shook his head, “I didn’t used to be afraid of anything, but that was before I fell in love with you. It’s not about me anymore. He knows he can threaten you and I’ll do whatever he wants,” his face grimaced, “Chelsea, you don’t know what he is capable of. What he’s threatened to do to you.” A flash of horror ran across Levi’s face stopping our conversation in its tracks. The irony of the situation was beyond obvious. Mr. Bennett was using me in exactly the way his son had used Conner. Talk about karma. Unfortunately, I could take no satisfaction in Levi getting what he deserved, because that lesson would end in the unspeakable for me.
“
There’s one thing that I don’t understand Levi,” I said, “How did you get the message that I’d left Ray Higgins?”
“
We figured that the police might go looking for Toby at some point. We needed to cover our tracks. One obvious place they would look for his father’s contact information was in his school records. So I forged the emergency card and put it in his file. The San Diego number was rerouted to my cell phone. Your voice was the last one I’d expected to hear calling that number,” he sighed, “That’s when my father said I’d better rein you in or he’d have to deal with you personally. By the way, he doesn’t know that Conner had anything to do with that call to Raymond Higgins. I figured that was the least I could do.”
“
Thanks,” I muttered. My mind was overloaded with the information it had just received. It was like trying to run too many programs at once on a computer. I could feel my brain beginning to halt, the files sluggishly closing down one at a time, “What about the map? If your father found it would he leave Bryce alone?”
Levi shrugged, “That’s the thing, I don’t think the Fanning’s have any idea where that fucking map is. But it doesn’t matter to my father. He’s going to make someone pay for his loss.”
“
What’s the plan? How are they going to take Bryce?” I asked quietly, I didn’t want to hear it, but I needed to know.
Levi looked at me bleakly and shook his head, “Don’t know yet. Something involving Camille. My father is handling this one.” I could feel the conversation coming to a close. I was sure I had a laundry list of questions, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I curled myself up into a ball in Levi’s arms. Levi had gone from being the antagonist to just a supporting player in this drama. And although I would never be able to trust him, I took some comfort in the fact that he wanted me alive. How pathetic is that?
I closed my eyes, listening intently to Levi’s slow, even breath. He was calm again. I imagined he felt the relief that often precedes great confessions. The last thing I heard before my body relented to sleep’s nagging tug, were Levi’s apologies. A long string of: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
35
Thump, thump, thump,
I could hear them, the pounding of angry footsteps coming closer and closer as I ran.
Thump, thump, thump,
my heart beating frantically in my chest, my legs heavy underneath me, as I commanded them to move. I was in a dark, narrow hallway. I could see light at the end. I moved as fast as I could, desperate to make it to the light, hoping, praying that what I saw was the sun. If I could just make it outdoors, I would be safe. I was suddenly there, at the end of the hall, but it wasn’t an exit. I found myself in the stark white room. The bed, the one single calla lily, the slamming of a heavy door, I’d seen this all before. I knew who would be standing behind me when I turned, so I refused to move. I planted my feet firmly in the ground, bracing myself. Kill me, I thought, just get it over with. The pain in my back began. This time it felt like my spine had been tied into a perfect Boy Scout square knot. I writhed in pain, but forced myself to stay rooted.
Three days slowly passed. It was as if my life was on somebody’s TIVO. They’d left the room to get a snack and pressed the pause button; only in the meantime they’d decided to go out to dinner and had forgotten all about the show waiting patiently to be restarted. Neither Levi nor Camille said a thing about Bryce after that night at his house. The monotony of my daily life was resumed, while in my mind I found myself completely fixated on Bryce’s whereabouts. Had he been abducted yet? Would they bother keeping him alive or would Mr. Bennett demand quicker action?
During the day Levi was his old confident and authoritative self, but at night, when he climbed through my window and fell asleep in my bed, he was different. He’d fold me in his arms, tightly gripping me, in the way a child hangs onto his teddy bear, for dear life. Levi had always seemed so grown up to me, more like a man than a teenager. But just under his cast-iron, enameled exterior, was a fragile kid, scared and shivering against my body. One thing became abundantly clear, Levi could trust no one, except for, and this is the insane part, me.
My parents, having considered their first experiment in leaving me alone to be a bang-up success, decided to go on another camping trip, this time for a few days in the Sierra foothills. So once again I was left to fend for myself. Approximately ten seconds after their car pulled out of the driveway my cell phone began to buzz.
I answered it quickly expecting Levi or Camille, “Hello?”
I could hear coughing and then, “Yo Chelsea, this is Kat from Yogurt Heaven,” she took another drag off her cigarette, “Marcy said you’d offered to help shut down the shop.”
“Sure,” I said, “What do you need me to do?”
“Could you come by today and just trash stuff?”
I agreed easily. What else did I have to do? I figured it would help keep my mind from focusing too carefully on the unbearable reality of my life. I got ready quickly, skipping my requisite shower and throwing my hair into a loose bun on top of my head. I was at the mall before the doors were even open to the general public.
My task was simple: put everything that wasn’t bolted to the walls or the floor into one of three gigantic trash barrels. The Fanning’s didn’t have any use for the polar bear posters or stale Butterfinger balls. Kat helped for a while and then took her cell phone to the middle of the food court where she proceeded to have a raging fight with someone she referred to as her life partner.
I took down everything I could reach from the floor and then climbed onto the back counter to begin peeling down posters. First to go was a gigantic photograph that had always bothered me. It was of a swirling speckled mass of purple yogurt inside a waffle cone and covered with turquoise green sprinkles. The infuriating thing about that photo was that none of the items it featured were actually available in the store, meaning I was constantly having to disappoint people with my apologetic confessions of false advertising.
Next to go was a framed image of the Yogurt Heaven mascot, the angelic polar bear. I have to admit, I took obscene pleasure ripping that one from the wall. I tossed the frame into one of the trash cans, but something caught my eye. My heart dipped as I moved slowly to recover the frame. I looked closely at the cardboard matting on the back of the frame, and there was no mistaking it, in Toby’s boyish handwriting was one single word,
Mom
.
I took the frame into the office, closing the door behind me and leaning against it. I carefully pulled the backing off of the frame. Staring up at me was a folded piece of paper. It looked old, and worn, and brown around the edges. I carefully unfolded it with trembling hands, my heart beginning to bounce crazily in my chest cavity, comprehending what I’d found.
In a combination of symbols and ragged handwriting was the motivation for Toby’s death, the map. The realization hit me: Marcy had never gotten the map from Raymond Higgins. Toby must have intercepted it without her knowledge. He probably didn’t want to put his mom in the danger that he knew would follow that cursed map. So he hid it. And there it sat, all summer long, concealed under a lame cartoon polar bear.
I quickly refolded the map into a tiny square and pushed it into the safest place I could think of at the moment, between the padding of my push-up bra. I grabbed my backpack and walked as calmly as I could manage into the food court, my eyes scanning the crowd for possible Delancey Boys that might be trailing me. I waved goodbye to Kat, who looked more than mildly disgruntled by my hasty exit.
My mind was running at double speed now. I had the answer to all my problems, I just had to figure out exactly how to best utilize the map to my advantage. I had to think like a Bennett. Every angle must be considered carefully. I couldn’t blow this one. Everything would have to go perfectly.
I spent the rest of the day locked in my room. Using a stack of paper, I made copious notes, going over everything I knew, and putting together a flawless plan. I approached it like I would a logic puzzle I’d been assigned in math class. By the time the sun began to set, I was finishing the final draft of my plot. My hand ached from all my frenzied writing and rewriting, scratching out and erasing. I looked over my plan one final time, committing every detail to memory. This has to work, I thought, it is going to work. I took all the papers and put them in the bottom of my dad’s Weber and set fire to the pile. I watched the flames as they ate away at my plan, until nothing was left but a pile of gray ash. I prayed this was not an ominous foreshadowing of things to come.
36
I was in my kitchen, cleaning up a pan of purple wax when I heard Levi walk through the door and up the stairs. He was on his phone listening attentively to whoever was speaking on the other end. He smiled weakly at me as a greeting and sat down at the counter.
After switching off his phone, he glanced up and asked, “Candle making?” referring to the four misshapen globs of wax cooling on a sheet of newspaper.
“
Yup. It’s Hannah’s birthday next month. I figured I’d better start early; mailing things by boat is slow going,” I said watching him fiddle with the wick of one particularly abstract candle form. I smiled to myself. If only he knew what was hidden in the center of that very candle.
“
I had no idea you were so multitalented,” he said sarcastically.
“
I’m full of secrets,” I winked.
“
I’m sure you are,” he said yawning.
“
Long night?” I asked. Levi looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Big, dark circles had formed under his deep blue eyes and his face was pale and drawn.
“
Yeah. And tonight is going to be even longer.” I was relieved by this admission. I needed the time to myself to put my plan into action.