Candy Crush

by Tami Lund

  Five minutes later, a police car pulled to the curb. They watched as Hector belatedly realized what was happening and tried to run. The police officer shot out of the car and tackled him. By the time he stood up, Hector was handcuffed. As the police officer was walking Hector to the police cruiser, another cruiser pulled up and Daniel Franks climbed out.

  “I was just thinking it was nice that someone else finally responded to our call, and he shows up anyway,” Brandon commented, as they watched everything from the bedroom window.

  The two officers talked for a few minutes, and then the first responding officer passed Hector to Daniel and left. Daniel stood in the front yard, talking with Hector for several minutes. Then he put Hector in the back of his car and left.

  “How come he didn’t question us?” Gabriella asked.

  Brandon shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s weird. I don’t think that’s procedure.”

  “Maybe he decided he’d just call us tomorrow?” Gabriella asked hopefully.

  “Maybe.” Brandon looked thoughtful, and then he said, “Come on, let’s go back to bed. He’ll be locked up at least for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we’ll go down to the police station and find out what’s going on.”

  He stood up and pulled Gabriella to her feet. They climbed into bed and Brandon spooned his body around Gabriella, wrapping his arm around her waist and draping one leg across her thighs.

  ***

  She sank into his warmth, but did not sleep.

  Gabriella was too afraid to sleep. Miguel found her. She was sure that man had been Hector.

  Hector had been her main hanger-on, always available to accompany her wherever she needed to go. Eventually she realized this was more to keep an eye on her than to provide his company and friendship. Her feelings had been hurt when she realized that, because she had started to think of Hector as a friend, and then she found out he was simply her baby-sitter.

  She knew his features well. When he looked up at the house, she instantly recognized his face, with the eyes that had an almost Asian-like slant and the thick eyebrows and thin nose with a knob on the end. And if that wasn’t enough, the scar that ran the length of his left cheek had almost glowed in the moonlight. She remembered asking him about the scar once.

  “Tactical error,” he said, and then added, “The senoritas think it’s sexy.”

  She supposed some ladies might. She found it scary.

  Part of her was tempted to sneak out of bed and pack her bags and run again. But another, much more insistent part demanded, what about Brandon?

  The very idea of leaving him caused her to choke as the breath left her body in a big whoosh. In his sleep, Brandon stirred and tightened his hold around her waist. If she stayed, how would she avoid Miguel, who she was sure would cart her off to Dallas, against her will? If she left, she would be walking away from Brandon and all the happiness she had found in such a small time, in such a small town. It occurred to her that she was actually looking forward to winter. Those long, cold nights, curled up in front of a roaring fireplace, sipping hot cocoa and wrapped in Brandon’s arms. Not to mention the warm clothing she had already purchased for herself.

  Miguel had probably sent Hector ahead of him, either to search for her or to determine if their lead had panned out. If Hector were allowed to call Miguel, he would be on the next plane into town. Then the police could capture Miguel and deport him back to Mexico. And her problems would be solved.

  Gabriella sucked in a breath and thought the idea through. Tomorrow, she would go to the police station and make a full statement, explain everything about Miguel. She didn’t know exactly how these things worked, but she knew she had to put her faith into the authorities. That was their purpose, so regular citizens could feel safe in their own homes, in their own towns. The police would take care of her, she was sure of it. She wouldn’t have to leave Brandon. She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes, finding sleep at last.

  ***

  Gabriella was exhausted when she woke later that morning. She felt hung over. It had been the middle of the night when Hector was snooping around her car. By the time she’d finally drifted back to sleep, it had been nearly five a.m.

  By the time she shuffled downstairs to get a cup of coffee, Brandon was fully dressed, leaning against the counter, drinking coffee and eating a piece of toast.

  “You look beat, Sweet Pea.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Gabriella muttered as she tried to pour herself a mug of coffee. She sloshed half of it onto the counter. Brandon pulled the carafe out of her hands and filled the mug for her. He added creamer and wiped up the counter. “Thanks,” she muttered again.

  He pulled her into a hug and said, “Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll let Aunt Constance know you aren’t feeling well and you won’t be coming in to work today.”

  Gabriella considered the idea. “I wouldn’t mind going back to sleep,” she admitted, leaning heavily into his chest. “But just for a couple more hours. Then I’m going down to the police station and making a full statement on Miguel. I want him deported so I can get on with my life.”

  “I like that idea. Why don’t you wait till closer to the end of the day and I can go with you?”

  Gabriella shook her head. “No, I need to do this alone.”

  Brandon didn’t argue, which she appreciated. He really was a special guy. Her determination to finally do something that would close that chapter of her life rose exponentially.

  They lingered over a good-bye kiss, and then Brandon headed out the door and walked to work. Gabriella put the coffee on the counter, untouched, and went back upstairs to bed. She didn’t wake up again until noon, but she felt better and more determined than ever to help ensure Miguel was caught and deported.

  After a quick shower, several cups of coffee and a sandwich, Gabriella was ready to go. She wore jeans and a v-neck sweater with a camisole underneath. She flipped her hair back into a clip and added a minimal amount of makeup. Already she was more comfortable in her new casual persona than she ever had been as the always-perfectly coifed Barbie doll Miguel had wanted her to be.

  Gabriella walked in the visitor’s entrance of the local police station and stepped up to the bored looking officer sitting at the information desk. “I’d like to make a statement with regards to the man you arrested last night. His name is Hector Martinez and he was trespassing in my yard.” It wasn’t technically her yard, but she hoped that would not matter.

  The officer punched a few keys on his computer and glanced back at her. “We didn’t arrest anyone named Hector Martinez last night.”

  “What? That’s impossible. I saw your officer cuff him and drive away. Do you have a trespassing call in there? I think it was about two a.m.”

  He punched more keys and nodded. “Yep. Brandon Sarantos’ house. Says it was a false alarm.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Miguel Martinez is an illegal alien, here on an expired visa, and he is involved in illegal business dealings. His brother, Hector Martinez was in Brandon’s yard last night, looking at my car and walking around the house. I believe Miguel is heading here and I want you guys to capture him and make sure he is deported. I believe my life may be in danger if he comes to town.”

  The officer’s jaw went slack as he stared at her for several heartbeats. He finally recovered and said, “Could you please have a seat, ma’am? I’m going to call the chief and see how he wants to handle this.”

  “Thank you,” Gabriella said politely, and then she proceeded to ignore the chairs and instead paced the small lobby area.

  ***

  Two hours later, Gabriella sat in an interrogation room, repeating her story to a plain-clothed detective, who furiously scribbled on a yellow notepad, while a small recording device sat next to his elbow. As soon as someone did a computer search on Miguel Martinez, they had hustled into action. Miguel was wanted for questioning associated with several crimes in the Dallas area. He was also wanted by immigration for violating the ter
ms of his visa.

  The local police were in contact with both Dallas PD and immigration, and everyone was trying to figure out if Miguel was still in Dallas or on his way to Michigan or somewhere else entirely. The police seemed to believe Gabriella when she explained that Miguel was likely to come to Michigan if Hector had alerted him to her presence.

  Hector had completely disappeared off their radar as of three days ago. The assumption was he’d driven to Michigan instead of flown, in order to avoid the possibility of getting apprehended at airport security.

  The officer who responded to the call last night had been woken up and questioned. According to the responding officer, Daniel Franks, Assistant Chief of Police, had also responded and told him he would handle the situation. The officer didn’t want to question a commanding officer, so he’d handed off Hector and left. The report was later filed as a false alarm.

  Daniel had been scheduled to go on vacation effective Saturday, and he put in for a personal day so he could take Friday off as well. He’d told a few of the guys in the department that he was going out west to do some bird hunting. Multiple calls and texts to his phone had gone unanswered. A police officer was sent to his apartment but reported that it appeared to be empty.

  Hector also was nowhere to be found.

  When Gabriella left the police station, she felt a combination of relief and fear. Relief that she had finally turned her troubles over to the authorities, but the fear was that they might not be able to do anything. The local police appeared to believe her story, however, the fact that Hector disappeared and they had no record that he had even been apprehended last night was a little disturbing.

  Besides that, Gabriella knew that Miguel was powerful and smart and she suspected that if he did not want to be found, he would not be. She wondered what had possessed her to think she could hide from him.

  Gabriella drove back to Brandon’s house and then, because she felt stir crazy, she loaded Butter into the car and drove down to Main Street and parked behind the candy store. Her plan was to finish cleaning the storeroom and then walk over to the DDA office to touch base with Brandon and Constance.

  Gabriella opened the back door and Butter rushed through ahead of her. To take her mind off her troubles, Gabriella immediately began cleaning. She moved anything that was still on the floor and then pulled out the broom and swept the entire room. She filled the mop bucket with water and bleach and began methodically dragging the mop back and forth across the floor.

  She realized what she was doing: stress cleaning. Whenever she felt stressed, she cleaned. It was her thing.

  She thought of Brandon. I should tell him that whenever he wants his house cleaned, stress me out first. The thought brought a smile to her lips.

  She rinsed and twisted the mop and continued her back and forth movements, exerting more force than necessary just because it felt good to take out her Miguel-induced frustrations on the dirty floor.

  The mop was nearly ripped from her hands when it caught on something and didn’t pull free as Gabriella pushed it back the other way. She gave it a tug and nothing happened, so she walked over and bent down to inspect the floor. The mop had caught on a piece of plastic. It was white and blended so perfectly with the floor, one would not know it was there unless one was looking for it. It was in the corner where the boxes of overstock had been piled, likely for years and years.

  Gabriella tugged on the mop and it broke free from the strip of plastic. Curious now, Gabriella slid her fingers along the strip of plastic, and realized it formed a large square. She ran her hand over the floor enclosed by the plastic square and when she felt a part of the floor that was raised slightly higher than the rest, she paused and smoothed her fingers across the area, trying to determine what she had discovered.

  One particular black tile felt different from the rest and after digging around with her fingers, Gabriella figured out why: it was actually a metal ring of some sort. She pried the hidden ring away from the floor and tugged. The floor abruptly gave way, and Gabriella realized she had just found a trap door.

  “This wasn’t mentioned in any of the real estate info,” she muttered to herself. She pulled the door open and peered inside, but she couldn’t see any further than a few steps down the rough wooden ladder that was attached to the underside of the door.

  She scrambled to her feet and rushed out to her car to get the flashlight she always kept for emergencies. Her heart beat irrationally fast and she was desperately curious to see what was in the hidden cellar, although she wasn’t entirely sure why she felt this way. She hurried back into the storeroom and leaned over the approximately two-foot-by-two-foot hole in the floor. It was barely large enough for an average sized person to slip through. She turned on the flashlight and aimed it into the hole.

  She moved the flashlight back and forth, but she couldn’t really make anything out. She could tell that the room was probably no more than six feet high. Brandon wouldn’t be able to straighten up to his full height down there. The walls were dirt and she suspected the floor was too. The ladder was rough wood and Gabriella wished she had a pair of gloves with her, because she knew curiosity would force her to go down into that cellar to have a look around. She could hardly make them out, but there were boxes or something down there, piled on the floor.

  “Probably more overstock,” she muttered to herself, feeling annoyed. “More stuff to clean up. I can’t believe this place isn’t infested with mice or rats or something.”

  Butter hung over the edge of the hole in the floor, tail wagging, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Gabriella pushed her away. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned the dog. “You’ll never make it down there without falling.”

  She considered simply closing the trap door and walking away, pretending she hadn’t ever found it in the first place. But curiosity was a powerful emotion. If those boxes really were more overstock, she would need to deal with them, sooner rather than later. And if they weren’t boxes of candy – what were they?

  In truth, it didn’t seem likely that it was candy. Surely nature would have taken care of it by now? The candy store had been empty for at least two years before Gabriella bought it, and the amount of overstock piled on top of this trap door suggested that this door hadn’t been opened in many more years than that.

  She had to go down into the cellar, to determine just what was in those boxes.

  With a world weary sigh, Gabriella turned and placed her foot on the first rung of the crudely designed ladder. It creaked, but held her weight. Butter stepped up next to her and peered into the hole again.

  “Stay up there,” Gabriella commanded.

  When Gabriella reached the ground, she breathed a sigh of relief that nothing scurried out of her way. “No animals,” she called up to Butter, who was once again at the edge of the opening. At least now if she fell through the hole in the floor, Gabriella could catch her.

  Gabriella moved the flashlight back and forth across the small space. It was approximately half as large as the storeroom above, and the only thing down there was a pile of metal boxes.

  “Probably not candy,” Gabriella muttered to herself as she inspected one of the boxes. “Why would someone go to these lengths to store candy in such a humid place?”

  Each box was secured with a metal latch that had been rusted with time and humidity. Gabriella made a half-hearted attempt to open one of the boxes, but she knew it was futile before she even started. She was going to need something stronger than her own fingernails to free the rusted latch from its home.

  Before she climbed back up the ladder to search for a tool with which she could open the boxes, Gabriella tried to lift one of them, thinking she would prefer to investigate the contents while standing aboveground, but it was too heavy for her to consider trying to get it up the ladder.

  By the time she returned to the storeroom, sifted through the items on the shelves, unearthed a flathead screwdriver and then returned to the cellar, she was sweating
. As the cool, damp air hit her moist skin, she shivered and felt strangely ominous. Gabriella glanced up at the hole in the ceiling above her head and considered again just climbing the ladder, closing the trap door and pretending she never found it in the first place.

  Why was she suddenly so nervous?

  “Snap out of it. Gabriella,” she commanded out loud. “Just open the damn box so you can get back to Brandon’s house and take another shower.”

  She crouched next to the pile of boxes and used the screwdriver to dig at the rusted latch, until it finally popped free. She then had to shimmy the head of the screwdriver into the small crack between the lid and the box because it was too rusted to simply open with just a small tug.

  The lid abruptly flipped open, spraying Gabriella with shards of rusted metal. She squeezed her eyes shut and waved her hand in front of her face as she spit out a mouthful of the stuff.

  “Yuck.”

  She blinked her watering eyes open and lifted the flashlight, aiming the beam at the contents of the box.

  “Ohmygod!”

  Gabriella leapt to her feet and pressed a hand to her chest as she took several deep breaths, trying to get a grip on her racing heart. She aimed the flashlight beam at the box and looked again.

  “Maybe this is the reason someone doesn’t want me to open the candy store,” she mused as she looked down at rows of neatly stacked twenty-dollar bills, wrapped with rubber bands. She knew she shouldn’t touch them, but she did anyway, just to see how deep the stacks went.

  Gabriella lifted out ten stacks before she hit the bottom of the first box. The stacks were two across and four down. “That’s a lot of money,” she said to herself. “And that’s only one box.” She did a quick count. “Fourteen boxes. Holy… wow. That’s a lot of money.”

  Gingerly, as if she thought the stacks of bills might combust in her hands, Gabriella placed them back into the box and closed the lid, then stepped away until her back brushed against the unfinished wood of the ladder.