The Toybox

by Charly Cox

  If his intent was to get a reaction, he would have to try harder than that. At the top of the steps, the shorter of the two guys flickered his eyes from his friend to the badge resting at her hip to the car parked in the street before finally landing back on her, his mouth opening and closing comically as if he was practicing for the part of a fish in a play. She was going to go out on a limb and guess that, based merely on Angela Kazminski’s personality description, this guy was not the one they were here to talk to.

  Alyssa planted herself in front of the guys while Cord took up residence to the right of her, the two of them effectively blocking off the stairs. The shorter guy’s eyes refused to hold still as they bounced from the badges back to his friend who reclined with his chair tipped back, legs crossed at the ankles on the railing. Suddenly, the short, nervous one shot to his feet as if his chair had been set on fire, and Alyssa’s arm immediately snaked out, prepared to stop him if he tried to bolt.

  In contrast, the other guy yawned then shook his head as he studied Alyssa and Cord with bored indifference, or at least that’s what he wanted it to look like, but the way his eyes shifted ever so slightly to the badges, as well, told her he wasn’t as unaffected by their presence as he pretended to be. He tugged a piece of string from the holes in his jeans. ‘Can I help you, officers?’

  ‘Chance Williams?’

  Nervous Guy’s head wobbled on his neck as he shook his head no, reminding Alyssa of a Parkinson’s patient she’d once met on a domestic disturbance call when she was still in a patrol car. ‘Naw, man, I’m Darnell.’ He shot a sideways glance toward his friend who’d let his chair plop down on all fours as he planted his flip-flopped feet on the porch.

  ‘Yeah, I’m Chance.’ In a move that was disgusting and, she was sure, meant to throw her off, he let his gaze rove over her body, lifting his eyebrows and whistling in appreciation. Beside her, Cord stiffened. ‘Something I can help you with?’ If his tone didn’t imply that he thought he was cute and sexy, the way he narrowed his eyes and licked his lips sure did.

  The one named Darnell cleared his throat. ‘Uh, I think I’m gonna bounce, man.’

  Cord’s stare drilled into the kid. ‘How about you wait a few more minutes and answer a few questions for us first? Start with where you were this past Saturday.’

  Darnell’s head flopped back and forth, hair flying into his face like he was a live Bobble Head, except instead of being perched on someone’s dash, he was stuck on this porch. ‘Uh, I live down in Hobbs, man. I just came up last night to visit my cousin here. I was heading back today. Gotta work, you know.’ His left eye twitched, either because he was lying or nervous – or both.

  ‘What’s your last name?’ Alyssa asked.

  ‘Williams?’ He posed his response as a question.

  ‘Are you asking me? You don’t know what your own last name is?’

  Bright red circles stained both cheeks as he stammered, ‘Naw, man, I know. Williams.’ He nodded his head as if he was still trying to convince himself.

  Alyssa’s stare caused him to shuffle his feet back and forth. ‘Who can verify you were in Hobbs Saturday?’

  ‘My boss. I was working, so yeah.’

  ‘You always work on Saturday?’

  Another quick jerk of the neck. ‘Yeah. I’m off Sundays and Mondays.’

  ‘Where do you work?’ Alyssa’s eyes held steady even as Darnell’s landed anywhere except on her or Cord.

  ‘Dawson Construction. I’m learning to be an electrician. We worked until five, then a group of us hit up a bar.’ He fumbled in his back pocket before producing his license. ‘Uh, do you need to see my ID?’ Alyssa almost laughed.

  Instead she grabbed the license and handed it behind her to Cord so he could jot down the information. ‘Is the address on your license current?’

  Darnell’s head jerked forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘We’re also going to need a phone number in case we need to contact you later, along with your boss’s name and number as well as the boys you hit the bar with.’

  ‘Wh–wh –why do you need to get ahold of them?’ His eyes darted to the driveway where, Alyssa assumed, one of the cars there belonged to him.

  ‘To verify you were where you said.’

  ‘Oh, right. Sure, sure.’ Rubbing at his nose, Darnell pulled his phone from his pocket and opened his contacts. A minute later he rambled off the names and numbers of his boss and the three guys he claimed to have been with Saturday night, and the second Alyssa told him he was free to go, he wasted no time skirting past them as he scampered over to his car.

  Alyssa watched him back out of the drive before she turned back to Chance, who watched his cousin disappear around the corner. When he brought his gaze back around, he skipped over Cord to land on Alyssa, a smirk replacing the indiscernible expression he’d been wearing. Leaning back once more in his metal chair, he rested his left ankle on his right knee, the stress on his jeans causing the tattered holes to rip further. ‘If you’re here about that frat party, I didn’t see nothing or no one.’ He cleared his throat and then spit off the porch.

  ‘Nothing or no one, hmm?’ Alyssa said.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What makes you think we’re here about a frat party?’

  ‘You asked Darnell where he was Saturday night, so two and two together…’

  ‘Let me get this straight. You’re adding two and two together to reach the assumption that we’re here because of a frat party. Yet, you’re saying you saw “nothing or no one.” Is that about right?’

  One shoulder lifted and dropped.

  ‘Interesting.’ Without taking her eyes off the boy in front of her, Alyssa stretched her hand over to Cord. When she felt his phone in the palm of her hand, she glanced down at the public profile of Chance Williams’s Instagram account. Her fingernail clicked against the screen as she read: ‘Dude, you know it’s a bitchin’ party when you gotta boot and rally.’ As a parent to two teenagers, Alyssa understood a lot of teenage slang, so she knew that ‘boot and rally’ meant vomiting before continuing to party. She flipped the phone around. ‘This is your Instagram, right, and that’s you in the photo above the caption?’

  Another shrug accompanied his ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So, what you’re telling us is you attended a “bitchin’ party,” and you expect us to believe you don’t remember a single person who was there? Not even those girls you’ve got your arms draped over in this photo?’

  Cord cocked his head to the side. ‘College parties I attended were full of alcohol, too, but no matter how much I drank, I always managed to remember at least the girls. But hey, maybe you’re just not all that memorable, so those girls didn’t even bother to give you their names.’ He smiled like he’d solved the world’s most difficult puzzle. ‘That it?’

  He’d hit the machismo nerve in Chance Williams that Alyssa had known he would.

  ‘Man, you don’t know what you’re saying.’ He snorted. ‘I was with a lot of girls. You expect me to remember all their names? Things got a little blurry around the edges, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, if things are blurry around the edges, what about the middle? That blurry, too?’ Alyssa asked.

  ‘It’s all blurry, lady. When’s the last time you hit up a party?’

  ‘A frat party? It’s been awhile. But one thing I do remember from those days was that there were a lot of underage drinkers. You have many of those there Saturday night?’

  Chance flew out of his chair. ‘I never said that. You can’t go putting words in my mouth. Isn’t that like entrapment or something?’

  Even though he did his best to stare her down, Alyssa won out when he shifted his gaze away. ‘What exactly do you think we’re trying to trap you into?’

  ‘Contributing to the delinquency of minors!’

  ‘Oh, are you twenty-one?’ she countered. She knew he was because Hal had pulled a copy of his license. He’d hit the legal drinking age a month before Saturday’s frat p
arty.

  She knew she’d trapped him then, so she turned the heat up. ‘Listen, Chance, I don’t really want to launch an investigation into your fraternity party, round up a bunch of college kids for releasing a little stress. But if I did, I wonder what else I’d find?’

  Color drained from his face. ‘Man, why you trying to bust my balls like that?’

  ‘Truth be told, Chance, I don’t want to bust your balls at all. I have more important things to do, and right now, you’re wasting my time by forcing me to spin my wheels. So, you can either talk, or we can go about getting the information another way. Your choice, but you’d better choose fast before my patience runs the rest of the way out.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘One of the girls who was there Saturday night, Rachel Otis, never returned home from that party. What can you tell us about that?’

  In an instant, his smirk returned. ‘I don’t know a Rachel Otis.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. I was with lots of girls that night, and other nights, too. Can’t remember them all.’

  Maybe it was because she’d had to deal with Beau Cambridge and his father’s similar cocky attitude toward the female population, or maybe it was because she now knew about Cord’s sister, Shelley, but whatever it was, Alyssa was finding it more difficult to keep her patience in check.

  Within seconds, Cord produced the picture on his phone that Angela Kazminski had sent them and held it in front of Chance’s face. ‘Rachel Otis.’

  A count of ten passed before he said, ‘Yeah, come to think of it, I might’ve seen her. She barged in on me and her friend just as we were about to get it on.’ He gauged Alyssa’s reaction to his comment, but she kept her expression flat.

  ‘What was her friend’s name?’

  ‘Didn’t catch it.’

  ‘What happened when Rachel “barged in”?’ Cord asked. ‘Did that make you mad? Throw things off? Give the friend time to change her mind and back out?’

  Chance threw his head back and laughed. ‘Dude, two hot girls in the same bedroom with me? Naw, man, that didn’t make me mad. I invited her to join us.’ After another shrug he admitted, ‘She declined, then laid down on the bed with her friend, and they passed out. I left them there to sleep it off and hooked up with someone else.’ He threw a pointed stare Cord’s way. ‘And before you ask, no, I didn’t catch her name, either.’

  ‘Listen, Chance, a girl is missing, could possibly be in danger, so if you know anything about that, you need to start talking now.’

  ‘I told you, lady, I don’t know what happened to her. She passed out. I left. End of story.’

  ‘What about the other people who were at the party that night? The least of my concerns is whether or not a group of university kids too young to be drinking were celebrating the end of the semester,’ she reminded him. ‘Unless, of course, you refuse to cooperate, in which case I can make that someone else’s focus. So, before you decide to claim temporary amnesia, I want the address of the frat house, and then you can start naming names before the rest of my patience disappears into the wind.’

  Whether it was the tone of her voice or the way she stepped into his personal space, it worked. Fifteen minutes later, they had a list of ten names, four phone numbers, and two addresses. As they pulled away from the curb, Cord called Hal and rattled off the information Darnell Williams had shared, asking him to run a background check and verify the alibi he’d given. Then he called Joe and Tony, and after divvying up the names Chance had offered up, Alyssa plugged the first address into the GPS, and a minute later, they were on their way.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday, May 20

  Quick, shallow breaths were all Rachel allowed herself to take because anything deeper sent excruciating waves of pain coursing through every nerve ending in her body. Her throat burned, and her voice was hoarse from the screams that had served only to further fuel the men’s twisted excitement as they abused her in ways she didn’t know were possible.

  Her wide eyes strayed to the closet they stood near as they cleaned themselves off with the stack of towels nearby. Sweat trailed like miniature rivers down their bodies, dripping onto the floor and leaving small puddles of wetness beneath their feet.

  Rachel’s gaze followed the blond-haired man whose muscles rippled as he pulled his shirt over his head. A shiver raced down her spine, and she swallowed convulsively against the bile that rose up her throat at the image of those flexing biceps holding her immobile while his partner attached hot metal clips… She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the memory to leave her alone, but it continued to flash through her, and the only thing that stopped her from vomiting was the fear of drawing their attention back to her, having them decide they weren’t really done with her after all.

  Several minutes ticked by as the men, heavy breaths heaving in and out from exertion, joked back and forth, much of it having to do with what they’d try next time. At their words, Rachel turned her head and pressed her mouth against her shoulder in an effort to stifle her whimpers. But when a knock sounded at the door, a muffled, scratchy cry rumbled up through her chest before she could stop it.

  When they’d dragged her in here, she’d begged: please, don’t do this. Then, she’d prayed: please, no more. Though to whom she issued that prayer she was unsure, as the second she’d been tethered to this contraption, she’d stopped believing in any supreme being, much less the God her parents pretended to worship because it made them look better if they attended church services.

  A key jiggled in the lock, and the door opened to reveal a woman in her mid-forties, wearing her gray-streaked hair pulled back in a severe bun and dressed like she was ready for a night at the opera instead of entering a room where it was obvious a girl had been brutally and repeatedly victimized. The woman spared a brief glance at Rachel before addressing the men.

  ‘From the looks of things, the product meets with your satisfaction.’ Her voice was much softer than seemed right or natural in this setting, especially given that her cold gaze had once again returned to Rachel as her critical eyes swept over her body, as if she was mentally checking off items on her list. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers, the sound echoing in the room, and immediately two girls appeared.

  ‘Get her cleaned up and back downstairs,’ she ordered. To the men she said, ‘After today’s event, you’ll have to give her a day or two to recuperate.’ Both men argued, but the smile she bestowed on them halted their rush of words. ‘You don’t want her to wear out too soon now, do you? Not like the last one.’ She swept her eyes around the room before settling them back on the men. ‘From the looks of it, she’s going to be a favorite request for a while.’

  Tears leaked from the corners of Rachel’s eyes, surprising her because she didn’t think she had any left. Her stomach twisted in on itself when one of the men laughed. ‘Oh, you can bet on that.’

  The man who’d placed the metal clips on her stepped forward. Re-dressed in his business attire, he looked like someone leaving an important board meeting instead of someone who had just brutally physically violated a young girl. He issued a quick look at Blond Muscle Guy before speaking. ‘We’re willing to double the fee if you keep her on call for us.’ There was a grating, edgy, anxious sound to his voice, and Rachel knew she’d never forget it as long as she lived, even if she lived to be a hundred.

  Though the woman laughed, it was lightyears from friendly. ‘Gentlemen, even if you offered to triple or quadruple the fee, you’d still fall far short of the profit I plan to make on this cute little number.’ Then she turned and walked back to the door where she once again addressed the girls who now stood on either side of Rachel. ‘I thought I told you to get her cleaned up.’ Then she disappeared down the hall with the two men following on her heels as they continued to argue terms.

  Rachel swayed, stopped from falling only by the padded wristbands that held her chained and suspended with only the balls of her feet
touching the floor. On the verge of hyperventilating, her breaths heaving faster and spots flashing in front of her eyes, she reeled from the woman’s words which played on a loop in her mind until she felt the pressure on her wrists release, and she slumped to the floor in a heap.

  When she didn’t move, a hard, loud slap snapped her neck to the side. ‘Don’t make us carry you,’ hissed one of the girls. Up close, Rachel thought she couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. But she didn’t have time to wonder about it because a second later she was yanked up roughly by her arms and shoved forward and out into the hall where she was paraded naked until they reached a lavish restroom where the other girl, the one who had yet to speak, proceeded to run a bath.

  While they waited for the tub to fill, Rude Girl opened a cabinet and grabbed different items before placing them on a low shelf on the wall. Then she opened a door that revealed dozens of silk robes in various sizes and colors. Choosing one at random, this time a deep coral, she closed the door, tested the water, and then both girls helped her inside, but instead of allowing her to soak her pain away – or better yet, allowing her to drown herself – they each grabbed loofah sponges and roughly scrubbed her tender body from head to toe, not bothering to be gentle. Hoarse howls of pain, rage, and humiliation exploded from her, and if she’d been able to think about it at all, Rachel would’ve been surprised the two girls allowed it to continue.

  When they finished, they pulled her up as water cascaded down her body, wrapped a towel around her, and dried her off because Rachel’s body trembled violently, her muscles too weak to complete the job on her own. Her throat was on fire from screaming, and she felt that if someone stabbed her right now with a blinding white-hot knife, it couldn’t be nearly as painful as the way the rest of her felt. As the girls slipped her arms into the robe, all she wanted was to die.