Toby shifted in his seat, worried. What should he do? Should he go in? Warn them somehow? Honk the horn? But what if he was wrong? What if it was really Keenan and Pedro who had managed to get the drop on Dawson and they were stuffing the drugs and money into their bags at that very moment? He could screw the whole thing up by deviating from the plan. Toby’s hand moved to the door handle as he contemplated getting out of the car and rushing inside. No, he thought. Don’t be impulsive. Stick to what Keenan said. Just be ready to drive when they come bailing out that door. Any second now—
Pop! Pop! Pop! Three gunshots. Toby froze, horrified. What the hell just happened in there?
Toby’s foot hovered over the gas pedal, ready to go. He looked to the door. Nothing. No Keenan, no Pedro. Dammit! Where were they? Had they been shot?
A moment later, the door flew open and Keenan came running toward the SUV. His left sleeve was soaked; blood running down his hand and onto the bag he held in a white-knuckled grip. Toby, with adrenaline coursing through his veins, slammed the SUV into drive as Keenan jumped into the passenger seat.
“Go! Go! Go!” Keenan yelled.
“Where’s Pedro?!” Toby shouted, not sure what to do.
“He’s dead! Just go!”
Toby smashed his foot down on the gas and the SUV squealed off around the building, kicking up gravel in its wake.
Pedro clutched his chest and felt the sticky wetness of his own blood. He could barely move, not because of the pain but because he couldn’t feel anything below his chest. Breathing heavily, he saw Dawson’s hulking figure lean over him and found himself staring straight into Dawson’s cold, hard eyes.
“Pedro,” Dawson hissed. “Where’d he go with our money?”
Pedro, unwilling to rat out his friend, just looked past Dawson at the dusty rafters on the ceiling, imagining ways that this could still end with him alive. Dawson pressed the gun harder into Pedro’s cheek.
“I don’t know,” Pedro gasped, his breathing labored.
“Pedro,” Dawson said, his voice low and steady. “You’re about to die. Now you can tell me where your friend went and die knowing that your wife and daughter are safe . . . or you can refuse to tell me and die knowing you’re the reason Maria and your little mija left this world in a horribly painful way. And I can assure you . . . I’ll let them know you chose that for them.”
Pedro’s gazed moved to the window. He knew the SUV was long gone. Toby and Keenan weren’t coming back for him. This is the end, he thought as they drifted in and out of focus, and then he imagined his daughter and her puppy playing in the yard. He knew Dawson meant what he said. There was nothing else he could do to save his own life, but maybe he could give his wife and daughter one last gift that they’d never know he gave them. And so . . . he whispered Toby’s address.
Dawson, satisfied, straddled Pedro, pointed his gun in the dying man’s face, and pulled the trigger.
Candace finished her email to her mother and sat back, rereading it. She’d ended it with I love you and I’m sorry. It was a long email, rambling in some places, and she’d told her mom things she knew she needed to say: her feelings about the divorce, that she’d met a great guy and what he meant to her, and how she’d found Callie and Vance. She even told her about how Callie gave her the invitation to her sixth birthday party. She signed the email Candy and then hit send. There was nothing she could do to change it now. The email was in her mother’s inbox, waiting to be opened.
Candace sat back and thought about Avery. Candy had been kind of a bitch to her, putting her in the middle with all of this runaway stuff. Since she was on a roll with her apologies, she figured maybe Avery deserved one too. Candace dialed her friend’s number, but when Avery’s voice mail came on, Candace looked at the time. That’s right. We’d be in World Affairs right now. . . . What a boring class. She pictured Avery taking copious notes as their teacher droned on about current events and geopolitics and a bunch of other crap that Candace couldn’t care less about. Avery could be nerdy at times, but the image of her looking from the teacher to her notebook to the board and back, intently focused on ensuring she copied down every detail, made Candace smile. She loved that little nerd. She hoped their friendship wasn’t over.
Candace ended the call and sighed. Maybe I should write her an email. Or buy her something. What do I buy the best friend that I’ve been a shit to? I know! Candace had an epiphany. On their last shopping trip Avery had found a pair of earrings she really liked from a boutique store on Melrose. They had sparkly blue stones and—
Suddenly, the front door flew open and Toby pulled Keenan inside.
“What the . . . ?!” Candace jumped up, reacting to the blood-soaked hoodie and Keenan’s disturbingly pale complexion. Keenan, now shivering, dropped the backpack on the floor. Toby locked the door and helped his cousin to the sofa.
“Oh my god! What the hell happened?” she screamed to Toby as he ran into the kitchen.
Candace just stood there, staring at the blood that was pooling on the carpet under Keenan’s arm. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
“Candy!” Toby bolted from the kitchen with a towel in his hand. “Put pressure on that!” he bellowed as he wrapped the towel around the gaping hole Candace just noticed in Keenan’s arm. Candace heard him but she was having trouble comprehending. All she could see was blood. Holy shit! There’s so much blood!
“Candy! Did you hear me?” Toby yelled. Candace managed to nod. What was going on? Where had they been? Was that a bullet hole? A million questions flashed through Candace’s mind and she couldn’t ask any of them. Everything was happening so fast.
Seconds after she placed her hand on Keenan’s wound, the towel was already soaked crimson. When she pulled her hand away from the towel and looked at the sticky, thick blood that covered her palm, Toby grabbed her wrist and placed her hand down hard on his cousin’s arm once again. Keenan winced in pain.
“Like this,” Toby said with authority, and pulled out his cell phone.
“Call Cheryl,” Keenan groaned. “She can sew it up.”
Cheryl? Who’s Cheryl? What the fuck is happening?
“You need a surgeon, not a nursing student!” Toby countered. “We gotta get you to a hospital, man.”
“Did he get shot?” Candace finally asked, her voice shaking.
“No way,” Keenan breathed, ignoring her question. “I told you no hospital.”
“If we don’t do somethin,’ you’re gonna bleed out!” Toby yelled back at him. She watched as Toby hesitated, unsure what to do.
Candace looked back down at Keenan’s arm and the blood that was oozing up through her fingers. She felt sick and scared at the same time.
“Toby,” she uttered. “I think we need more towels.” She wasn’t sure what had gone down, but if there was one thing she knew for a fact, the blood-soaked towel that was on Keenan’s arm now wasn’t enough. The initial shock was over and the limited amount she’d learned during her health class’s first aid unit was coming back. If someone is bleeding badly, put pressure on the wound and elevate it above the heart.
“Holy hell, it hurts,” Keenan grunted as Candace gently lifted his arm over his head and onto the cushion. As Toby rushed down the hall to the bathroom for more towels, Candace turned her attention to Keenan’s pained expression. She didn’t know what to say.
“Call Cheryl,” Keenan ordered her as he pulled his cell phone from his hoodie with his good hand. “Her number’s in there.”
Candace took his phone but she was shaking so badly, it was hard to scroll through the numbers.
“She’s smart. She’ll be able to fix this,” Keenan explained in a voice low enough that Toby couldn’t hear. Candace managed to scroll through the names on Keenan’s phone until she reached the Cs and saw there were two Cheryls.
“There’s two. Which one—” Candace gasped and stopped midsentence when she looked up to see Dawson’s huge six-foot-four-inch frame standing only a few feet away at the end of
the hallway. She had no idea who he was or where he came from, but he was pointing a gun straight at her.
Keenan turned to see what had frightened her so badly. He immediately jumped to his feet in an attempt to get away but Dawson fired, hitting Keenan in the neck. Candace screamed in horror as Keenan slumped back against the wall, dead before he touched the ground. Just like that. Keenan was gone.
Frozen, she looked back at Dawson, who leveled the gun at her.
“Holy shit, holy shit,” she uttered.
Candace didn’t even know she was speaking until she heard her own voice. “Please, no, no, no,” she begged. Candace raised her bloody hands trying to shield herself from the bullet she was sure was about to barrel into her. Her eyes flooded with tears and Dawson’s image turned fuzzy.
Then something unexpected happened. Dawson suddenly pitched forward. He dropped his gun as Toby blitzed him from behind. The two men fell to the floor, fighting for control of the gun. Candace had no idea what to do. She needed to help Toby somehow; she needed to stop this man who had just murdered Keenan. She spun around looking for something to hit him with but there was nothing.
“What the hell’s going on?” Candace was shocked to hear Vance’s voice on the other side of the front door.
“Candace!?” Her mother’s voice! Her mother—not Callie, but Shannon—was with him! Thank god! She desperately needed their help but had no idea how to get to them. As she raced to the window to signal she was inside, she heard the gun go off. It was deafening. Candace threw her arms over her head and cowered behind the chair. As Vance and her mom continued to bang with their fists on the door outside, it dawned on Candace that she didn’t know yet who’d been shot.
Oh god, please don’t let it be Toby. Please don’t let it be him. . . .
From her position on the floor, Candace could see the hulking monster that had broken into their house stand up. She gasped and threw her hand over her mouth.
No, no, no . . . he shot Toby. . . .
She watched as he looked at the door. She could tell he was considering blasting through it, shooting anyone who stood in his way.
Please, no . . . please don’t hurt them.
The killer turned and ran down the hall from the direction he came. She could hear the heavy pounding of his feet against the old, creaky floorboards until they suddenly disappeared altogether.
“Candace!” she heard her brother call once more, before a loud bang sent the front door flying open. Vance had kicked it in. Her mother and brother halted abruptly, shocked to see Keenan dead on the floor and Toby, barely breathing, lying a few feet away.
Candace jumped to her feet and ran to Toby, who was gripping his chest. Blood was soaking his shirt. Candace made eye contact with Vance and her mother before falling to Toby’s side.
“Oh god! Toby!” she screamed, and pulled his head onto her lap.
Vance lunged past them and ran toward the back of the house to make sure the intruder was gone. Her mother pulled out her phone and quickly dialed.
“Mom!” Candace gasped, relieved her mother was there. She had no idea how she’d connected with Vance but it didn’t matter. There were two people there who could take control of the situation. Candace, overwhelmed with emotion, couldn’t think clearly.
“Help him, Mom,” she pleaded. “Don’t let him die.”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” her mother assured Toby. “Just hold on.”
Candace gazed into Toby’s eyes. She could see the fear and pain.
“Don’t worry,” she said, trying to calm him. “The ambulance will be here soon. We’re going to get you to the hospital.”
As her mother talked to the 911 dispatcher, Candace looked up to see Vance come into the room from the hallway. He walked over to Keenan and put his fingers on his neck to check for a pulse. Candace observed the defeated look on her brother’s face when he couldn’t find one.
As Candace glanced back down at Toby, she could see the blood was coming quickly, squeezing out of his chest with every labored breath, and he was on the verge of losing consciousness. She caressed his cheek, trying to comfort him, until she saw the blood begin to spray from his mouth in a light mist with every pained exhalation.
“Ambulance is on the way, buddy. Stay here. Keep lookin’ at me,” Vance implored, trying to get Toby to focus on him instead of the pain. Tears poured down Candace’s cheeks.
Toby’s eyes rolled back; his brain losing oxygen from loss of blood. Candace saw it and it sent another rush of panic through her.
“No, no, no!” she sobbed. Her mom put her arm around her as she finished answering the questions the 911 operator asked.
Candace noticed Toby’s hands begin to shake and she grabbed one, squeezing as hard as she could. She could tell he wanted to say something to her but couldn’t get the words out. As she looked into his eyes, she saw his gaze turn upward and his hand slipped from the wound on his chest. Candace let out a primal wail as Toby’s body relaxed for the last time. He went limp in her arms.
Candace choked back her sobs. She felt her mother’s hands gently pull her away from Toby. Candace gripped his jacket, unwilling to let go.
“Candy,” her mom said. “Sweetie . . .”
Consumed with grief, Candace let Toby’s hand slip from her fingers and she fell into her mother’s embrace, barely able to breathe.
“It can’t end like this, Mom!” she cried. “I love him! I love him! He can’t die!”
Burying her face against her mother’s shirt, Candace wept uncontrollably until the paramedics arrived and announced both Toby and Keenan dead at the scene.
Eighteen
Picking up the Pieces
“Candy?” The door to Candace’s room opened abruptly without a knock. Candace rolled over and saw her mother standing in the doorway, her features tense. Candace rubbed her eyes and tried to push the nightmare of Toby’s death from her brain. Every time she slept, for the past eleven nights, she’d been taken back to that horrible moment when Toby exhaled his last breath. The therapist her parents had found for her told her that those dreams would eventually go away, but they hadn’t yet.
“What?” Candace sat up, knowing from the tone of her mom’s voice that she had something important to tell her.
“The detective just called. She said they’ve made an arrest and they want you to come down to the station to identify him.” Candace’s heart leaped into her throat and she thought for a moment she might throw up. Part of her was elated that they’d actually caught the guy who murdered Keenan and Toby, but the other part of her dreaded seeing his hulking, ugly face ever again. Every time she pictured him, it was the moment he’d pointed the gun right at her. He’d had a vacant look in his eyes, almost nonhuman. Candace never wanted to see that look again.
“I really don’t want to do this,” Candace said, even as she stood up and began to pull on a pair of shorts. “I mean, I know I have to, but . . . I just . . . I just want to get it over with.”
Her mother nodded, understanding. “If it helps put him away for life, we need to do it.”
“I know,” Candace said, feeling more confident about it as she twisted her long hair up into a messy bun. “Did she say how they found him?”
“They actually caught him three days ago trying to cross into Mexico with a fake ID. I guess it took a few days to transport him back up here.”
She could just picture that creep nonchalantly sliding his fake passport to the customs official, a smug grin on his unshaven face. She wished she could’ve seen how his expression changed when the official came back and slapped cuffs on him. That asshole must have been so surprised. Even better was the image in her mind of the killer sitting in a sheriff’s bus, shackled at the ankles and wrists as he was driven through the harsh desert back to LA.
As Candace turned her attention back to getting dressed, she could see her mother studying her face, worried about her. “Mom. I’m okay. Really,” Candace assured her as she slipped on a pair of fl
ip-flops. “This is what I’ve been asking the universe to give me ever since it happened. Let’s go.”
At the police station, Candace and Shannon were met by Detective Lorraine Peters who, despite her small stature, led them down the corridor with an air of authority.
“So this is a typical lineup just like you’ve probably seen on TV a million times,” the detective said, the badge on her hip pocket catching the light each time she turned and glanced back at them. “Five guys who all look kind of similar and you tell me the number of the one that did it. We’ll all be behind one-way glass, so he won’t be able to see us.”
“Okay,” Candace said, and followed Peters into a small dark room. The five men were already lined up, single file, waiting. Candace recognized the shooter immediately. He’d cut his hair differently but that was all. He had that same vacant look as he held the number 2 in front of his stomach and seemed to be gazing up at something past them. “Number two,” she said with certainty.
“How sure are you?” the detective asked, and scribbled something down on a slip of paper.
“One hundred percent. That’s the guy.”
Peters smiled and handed her the slip to sign. The whole thing took less than a minute.
“That’s all we needed,” Peters replied with another smile. “This’ll all be handed over to the DA now, so don’t be surprised if someone from his office calls you.”
“Do you think it’ll be hard to get a conviction?” Candace’s mom asked.
“Good lord, no,” Peters retorted. “We have so much on this guy . . . and don’t forget, it’s not just two murders, it’s three. We matched the bullets from all three victims to the same gun Dawson had hidden in his trunk when he tried to cross over. With your eyewitness account and all the physical evidence, he’s going away for a long time.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Candace’s mother said, relieved.
“Yeah,” Candace added with sincerity. “Thank you.”
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