The Price of Candy (15 page)

“I didn’t do it, and nobody saw me do
it.”

She didn’t know what that meant. “It’s not
allowed. Do you know that?”

“Stop it. I didn’t chuck it in her!”

“Sure you didn’t. You knew she was forbidden,
but there she was like low-hanging fruit.”

“I don’t know what that means. I know there
wasn’t any little man on my shoulder telling me it was fucking
wrong.”

“He should have shouted you’re a fucking
creep.”

“I was real excited looking down at her.
Getting dark by then, about like it is here now. I could see her
stretched out there and she was every girl I’ve ever wanted to
touch. All of them right there. My whole body throbbed. I couldn’t
stop...you know...I juiced out just looking at her. Not as good as
the real thing, but still exciting. After doing that, I felt bad
and was afraid someone would know what happened so I’d better get
out of there fast. After I’d driven away and no one saw me, I
thought, wow, was she really spread out there like that? I started
feeling good like everything was okay. I got excited again and
that’s when I thought about going back.”

“You shouldn’t have gone back, Toby, that was
wrong. You knew it was wrong. That’s why you feel so bad about what
you did. You must let me go, so you’ll start feeling good
again.”

“Wish I could start over with all of it. You
should do things when you have the chance. Smart guys don’t pass up
something handed to them.”

Which was it? Did he feel guilty because he
did it, or regret not taking advantage of his chance? “Toby, did
you go back or didn’t you?”

He wasn’t listening. The fantasy was still in
his head. After a moment he continued, “You know the movie I really
like. Totally cool. I have it at home. Got it from a guy. I watch
it on my computer. It’s about this guy he’s in this club, see? He
starts talking to this super hot girl. When she’s not looking, he
puts this pill in her drink. This hot-looking girl’s drink at the
bar. They don’t tell you what the pill is, but I got it right away.
You get it? Isn’t that cool? And they tease you about whether she’s
really going to drink it. You know, she puts it to her lips and
something interrupts her and she sets it back down. They do that a
couple times. Every time I watch I’m yelling, drink it baby, drink
it! Eventually, she does drink it. Then he takes her home. She’s
out of it so he can do anything he wants.”

“Like the woman on the beach.”

“Exactly. But that’s all they showed. Instead
of really showing something, they fade out. The rest of the movie
totally sucked. I never play the rest of it. Like it was some big
deal in the girl’s life and she’s like in shock or something for
the rest of her life. Always has to take some kind of medicine.
That’s what the movie was supposedly all about. I didn’t get all
that. Sure, I suppose it wasn’t cool for her, but messed up for the
rest of her life...gimme a break. I guess they have to put in that
shit. Sometimes I dream about getting some of those pills. I’d pay
a million dollars for just one of them. Once I got that pill in my
hand, I’d start looking for the hottest girl in the world. Magic
fucking pills, huh?”

Talking about the movie had excited him. She
had watched his expression change. Now he seemed unconcerned with
how she felt sitting there or how she responded. He no longer saw
her as a person, just a bundle of female goodies sitting before
him. Like he said, the bad guys in the movies always have a mad
gleam in their eyes. Toby now had that look. The look that said,
smart guys don’t pass up something handed to them. Now frowning.
Now breathing heavily. His eyes all over her, looking straight
through her clothes. What was his next move? She stammered, “Tell
me about another good movie, Toby.”

One of his hands was now at his crotch
adjusting himself. Her legs were still under his chair. Maybe
there’s enough room for her to bring her legs up together and smash
him in the groin. What would that do? Stopping him for a few
minutes wouldn’t be enough. Just make him angry. It’d have to be
viciously hard to disable him long enough for her to get away.

Then he scooted his chair closer. No way
could she get her legs out now. His eyes narrowed. One hand went
back to squeezing the bulge in his crotch. With the other hand, he
reached out and fumbled around her breasts. She had expected that
eventually, but it still surprised her and she flinched. He was no
longer thinking with his brain. He was excited and now had enough
nerve. This was it. She was there for the taking.

Is this what it’s like when you know you’re
going to die? She imagined them calling Triney to investigate. He’d
stand there with his notebook looking down at her wasted body
outlined in chalk, and in a loud voice he’d vow to all the police
personnel now busy at the scene of her death that he was going to
get the bastard that did it.

No! It’s not going to be like that. She knew
she was smarter than this. At that moment, a wild thought flashed
across her mind. In a sudden burst she screamed at Toby, “You
little moron, you dumb fucking moron! You’re just as goddamn stupid
as your moron father!”

He jerked back instantly. He cringed down in
the chair. Started trembling. Closed his eyes tightly. He raised
his arms to protect his head.

After a minute, he lowered his arms slowly.
Still shaking. His face red. His forehead moist with sweat. “Get
up,” he ordered.

“What are we doing?”

“We’re leaving.”

She didn’t like this. She wasn’t going to get
into his vehicle. He’d have to strangle her right here.
“Where?”

He kicked the chair away and pulled her to
her feet.

“For chrissake, Toby, untie me. We’ll walk
out of here and I’ll forget the whole thing. You can go home and
watch that movie again.”

He was silent.

“You’re not taking me to the beach, Toby. Get
that out of your head. I won’t go!”

He pushed her ahead of him walking through
the dark kitchen and out on to the back porch. She stopped abruptly
at the edge of the porch steps.

He came up beside her. “Go on, don’t
stop.”

She yelled, “My feet!”

When he looked down, she threw her entire
weight against him and he stumbled backward off the porch. She
jumped off the steps. She started running down the driveway her
arms still tied behind her. If she could at least get to the
street, she could start screaming. She heard his footsteps on the
gravel behind her. He was repeating her name. He caught her. She
felt the yank as he grabbed the back of her shirt. He jerked her
backwards down hard to the gravel. She screamed. She kicked at him
and squirmed around trying to maneuver her tied hands under her
feet to get them in front of her.

“Sandy, I can...,” he sounded strangely
calm.

That’s when she saw the flash of light and
heard the loud pop. Too loud and much too close. Her ears rang.
Something warm and sticky sprayed across her face. He staggered and
leaned against the side of his vehicle. She stared as his face
morphed into a weird contorted mask. His heavy limp body fell
forward across her legs. His blood blossomed out wet across his
shirt and dripped down on her legs.

Sandy didn’t move, at least not at first. Was
another shot coming? She stayed curled up in the driveway, her
shoulder against the SUV’s rear tire. Blood dripped from Toby’s
lifeless body down across her legs and formed rivulets on the
gravel. She was relieved when she began to hear voices, then some
yelling, then in the distance the wonderful wail of a siren.

She moved enough to look down at Toby.
Harmless now. A confused and dangerous young man who now would
never master his demons. She had survived. She was alive. She
stopped shivering and let out a deep breath. She put her head down
on the gravel and began to cry.

A hand touched her shoulder. She jumped. The
feeling of sudden terror surged through her. She screamed out,
“Someone help me!”

The man crouched beside her. “Sandy...it’s
Kevin.”

She stared at him, blinked her eyes. “What
did you do?”

“I just pulled up. Are you hurt? Looks like
you’re legs are bleeding. Who’s that guy? He’s really bleeding.”
Kevin untied her hands and then moved over to the body and placed
two fingers behind Toby’s earlobe. “He’s dead. You’re not bleeding.
I think that’s his blood on you. He’s been shot. Did you shoot him,
Sandy?”

“Kevin, what are you doing here?”

Flickers of blue and red lights grew stronger
until broad sweeps of revolving lights splashed across the scene. A
crowd of the curious collected in the street. They gathered in
excited clusters trading their guesses about what had happened.

“Are you okay? Can you move both arms and
legs?”

She nodded.

All the uproar, sirens, and flashing lights
were a repeat of the scene a few days earlier when Abby shot Bruce
Banks at that exact same house. Once again, the police radios were
squawking things indecipherable. Again, deputies were again
encircling the area with yellow barrier tape.

A paramedic arrived and pronounced Toby dead,
then moved over to Sandy and started wiping the blood splatter from
her face. Kevin stayed beside her.

“My God, Sandy, what happened here? Is that
the Toby guy? Did you go inside? Did you find anything about
Jamie?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Abby showed up at the hotel for dinner, but
was suspicious. Very defensive, just waiting for me to set her off.
When I mentioned Jamie, she yelled something about sick of hearing
about kidnapping and stormed off. I called you immediately, left a
message on your phone. Afraid she was heading right back here, I
tried to get here first to warn you.”

She recognized Triney’s unmarked vehicle
pulling up and parking. A deputy hurried over to him and started
gesturing explaining the scene. He pointed over at Sandy and
Kevin.

She was rubbing her bruised wrists when
Triney walked over. “You need medical attention, Sandy?”

She shook her head.

“So what happened? Do you know who shot
him?”

“That’s Toby Towalski lying there, the guy we
were looking for. I don’t know who shot him.” She didn’t want to
admit being in Abby’s house illegally. She could say that she went
to confront Abby about the kidnapping when Toby suddenly
intercepted her, forced her inside, and threatened her. Toby wasn’t
in any position to contradict her. No, that was phony and she
didn’t want to lie to him. Maybe he wouldn’t ask too many
questions. Maybe he wasn’t too concerned with that angle. The info
Toby had divulged concerned Privado Beach, which was a city police
case. Triney’s concern would be who shot Toby out here in his
county territory.

“Why are you here?”

“I came here looking for Jamie. Toby must
have followed me.” That much was true, but misleading. He appeared
to believe her but she couldn’t go on. They were beginning to build
a rapport; she couldn’t lie. The good part of all this was she was
still alive; the bad part was she’d been discovered rummaging
illegally through Abby’s house. She’d have to take her lumps for
that.

“Triney, here’s how it went. Abby wasn’t
home. The place was dark and empty. I knew where the key was
hidden. I entered and was still inside when Toby came in after me.
He threatened me with a knife. Someone shot him as I was trying to
run away.”

He held a steady look at Kevin. “And what
were you doing while this was going on?”

“I didn’t see anything. It was all over when
I drove up.”

“Okay. Sandy you go wait in my vehicle. I’ll
be over there in a minute after I talk to Kevin.”

The smart detective was going to get their
statements separately so he could compare statements. She was glad
she’d told the truth. She walked over and sat in the front seat of
Triney’s vehicle.

She remembered turning off her phone when she
went in the house. She reached in her pocket for her phone and was
surprised to feel the two wrapped toothbrushes. She examined the
drying blood splotches on the lower legs of her jeans. Fortunately,
the splatter hadn’t reached her pocket. She’d forgotten about the
toothbrushes, but they were not contaminated. She pulled out her
phone. There was a missed voice mail from Kevin. She clicked on it:
Sorry about Abby tonight. She wouldn’t stay away for dinner with
me. Couldn’t keep her here. I hope you can get out of her house
before she comes back.

Such a foolhardy way of obtaining DNA. Such a
reckless way to search for Jamie. She couldn’t believe she had
entered someone else’s house as casually as she had. She was
preoccupied with locating Jamie and felt so cocky when she got the
idea: go in, look around, a piece of cake. She would have to face
the consequences, and there would be consequences.

Although the offense might seem minor, in her
case it would be sufficient for Moran to arrest and jail her. She
was already out on bail for the conspiracy murder charge. She
realized this violation would be enough for Moran to revoke all
bail for the duration of Abby’s trial. This could mean confinement
for two or three years. So there goes law school.

In addition, Abby would bring charges against
her as soon as she found out. And when they processed her at the
jail they would empty her pockets and find two stolen toothbrushes.
They could add petty larceny; she had to smile at that. She had
told herself she was looking for Jamie. Going in that house had to
be the dumbest thing in her lifetime. It takes only one “You
dumbass” to wipe out years of “You clever girl.”

Through the windshield, she could see Toby’s
body being zipped into a black bag and carried off. Someone should
call his stepmother. Sandy guessed she’d find out soon enough.
Triney was still talking with Kevin and writing notes on a small
pad.