Messed Up (36 page)

“
You don’t give up, do you?” I smiled at her.

“
I don’t want to be rude,” she said taking another sip.

A couple minutes passed, with only the sounds of gunfire and computerized screaming to break the silence. I began considering if there was anything more boring in the history of the world than watching other people play video games. I decided to make a mental list just to keep myself occupied. I got to item number three, reading the financial section of the
New York Times
, when I noticed Levi shoot Camille a meaningful glance. She took a breath and another gulp from her flask and moved to sit on the couch just behind where Bryce was positioned on the floor.

Camille began nonchalantly tracing the back of Bryce’s neck with the tip of her finger. Bryce’s body stirred just enough for me to understand that he was as surprised by this turn of events as I was. Camille wore a bored expression on her face as she stared blankly at the TV screen, her finger drawing little figure eights in Bryce’s jet black hair. She saw me looking at her and rolled her eyes.

The neck tickle slowly advanced into a full-on back rub, Camille’s hands crawling up under Bryce’s tee shirt, her body moving to the floor behind him. It was clear Bryce had lost all his concentration for the video game, his alien warrior being mauled by a small army of space drones. Levi let the game go, tossing his controls to the floor as the words,
Game Over
, appeared on the black screen.

“
What do you guys feel like doing?” Levi asked looking at Bryce.

I watched Camille’s hands move to Bryce’s stomach as she said, “How about we go in the hot tub?”

“
I don’t have a swim suit,” I blurted out. The sudden affection between awkwardly gawky Bryce, and Playboy perfect Camille was making me uncomfortable. I was positive that the last place I wanted to be was in a body of hot water with the two of them half naked.

“
You can borrow one of Shawn’s” Bryce offered, speaking to me for the first time since we’d been there.

“
Awsome-o!” Camille exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm, “Show me the way,” she said grabbing my hand and dragging me after Bryce who led us down the long hallway to Shawn’s room. The door was barely shut when Camille’s mood shifted from excitement to resigned apathy in an instant.

“
Bryce?” I asked, my brow furrowed in confusion.

“
Just following orders,” Camille said, digging through a drawer of Shawn’s undergarments.

“
What exactly are you being asked to do?” I could hear my voice becoming shrill with anxiety.

“
Talk about played out,” Camille commented holding up a rainbow striped one piece, ignoring my question.

“
Camille,” I pulled her by the shoulder so she would look at me, “What do they want you to do?”

“
Just play nice with him. Pretend I’m interested,” she laughed, “As if, he’s totally tool to the hundredth power.”

“
Why?” I demanded.

She shrugged, “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

My mind flashed to the conversation I had overheard between Mitch Fanning and Alistair Bennett:
I wonder who would be better collateral while I wait, huh Mitch? Your first born son, or your sweet little girl?
The decision had been made, Bryce was next. “Camille, you can’t do this,” I whispered frantically, “They are using you for something terrible!”

She laughed weakly and began pulling on a black bikini, “Why don’t you tell me something a fucking two year old couldn’t deduce?”

“
Don’t help them! They are going to hurt him!” I begged, feeling my heart begin to race. Camille walked toward the door. I grabbed her wrist, stopping her, “You can’t do this!”

“
WTF! Give me a fucking break!” Camille exploded suddenly in an angry whisper, turning so her face was inches from mine, “Maybe you are special, Chelsea. Maybe Levi wouldn’t break your fucking arm for not obeying him. I don’t have that luxury, and I’m not going to put
my
ass on the line for some loser I don’t even know.” Camille stormed out of the door not looking back at me. I knew she was right, what choice did she have? My options were limited as well, but I was determined not to be implicated in another plot against a Fanning boy.

I found Bryce, Camille, and Levi in the hot tub, each with a glass of wine, laughing lightly. Camille was seated on Bryce’s lap, looking up at him with big interested eyes as he described his father’s impressive collection of race cars. It was like a promotional photo from a hotel brochure.

“
I’m going to take off,” I told Levi in a firm voice. It felt strange to speak to him with such conviction, “I’m really tired.”

Levi looked at me skeptically for a moment, and then smiled gently, “Come in for a little while Punky, and then I’ll drive you home.”

I inhaled, “No. I’m ready to go now. I can walk. It’s not far,” I glanced at Camille and Bryce. They’d stopped talking and were looking at Levi, anticipating his reaction. Everything seemed to freeze for a long and silent moment. Then Levi climbed out of the hot tub, I felt myself flinch at his sudden movement.

“
You really think I’d let you walk all by yourself?” he said in a kind voice, grabbing a towel, “Bryce, drive Camille back to Chelsea’s when you guys are done.”

I followed Levi out of the house and to his car, neither of us speaking. I wasn’t sure what to expect. He didn’t seem mad, which was part of the problem with Levi. I never knew exactly when he was going to snap.

We drove back to my house and went to my bedroom without incident. I’d gotten into my pajamas and found Levi in my bed, waiting for me. His face still looked calm, but there was something else there, in his expression, something I couldn’t quite read. Was it sadness?

I climbed in next to him and leaned my head on his chest as I turned on the TV and began flipping through the channels. I could feel my eyes getting heavy as they focused blankly on the screen. I guess I really
was
tired. Sleep was just about to take me, when I heard something strange. At first I couldn’t place the sound, my mind was already halfway to a dream state, but then I heard it again, a sniffing sound. I looked up at Levi and realized that his cheeks were streaked with wet tears.

I stared at him, baffled. What was going on here? Wasn’t he supposed to beat me up first and then feel remorse? I had to literally shake my head to get my brain to function properly, “Levi,” I said quietly, “What’s wrong?”

He buried his face in one of his strong hands and shook his head, despondent. I repositioned myself next to him, pulling him into my chest. For the second time that day I felt like I was mothering my young, protecting a child from the cold and dangerous world. I could feel him release slightly at my embrace, his body beginning to convulse subtly with tiny sobs gently against me. I stroked his hair, and kissed the top of his head, smelling that distinct clean scent that had once seemed so impossibly perfect, and would forever bring memories of Levi flooding back to me whenever I smelled it later in life.

I held him like that for a while, the tears eventually subsiding, but he didn’t move away. Finally I asked again, “What’s wrong Levi?”

“Everything,” he said simply.

I moved my body so I was sitting directly in front of him. I took his hands in mine and repeating the words my mother would say if she were his therapist, “Start from the beginning.”

He took a breath and his eyes met mine. They looked so miserable, hopeless, “Remember how I told you about Charles Hawksley and his missing fortune?” I nodded my mind flashing back to the first time I had heard that name when Levi had taken me to The Valencia, “Well,” he continued, “It turns out that one of his assistants, a boy from St. Jacobs, had hidden a copy of the map at the school, just before Mr. Hawksley had him locked away in one of those cells, never to be seen again. No one knew for certain that the map existed, but it was legendary amongst the Delancey Boys. When my father went to St. Jacobs, he became obsessed with finding it. He spent his entire time in high school using his power and influence to search out the map. At the end of his senior year, just before graduation, he got a hunch that it was buried under the confessional in the cathedral. Apparently Charles Hawksley had paid for the cathedral to be built and it was my father’s hypothesis that the assistant had hidden the map in its cement foundation during construction. So, my father with the help of the Delancey Boys burned the cathedral to the ground.

“He burned down a church based on a hunch?” I clarified. I found myself yet again taken aback by how evil Alistair Bennett truly was.

“That’s right. The plan was to set the fire, let the building burn to the ground, then go back the next night to find the map. But, by the time the sun went down the following evening, my father knew something had gone wrong. His second in command, the person who had helped him devise the whole plot to begin with, had gone missing. His name was Raymond Higgins…”

“Toby’s dad!” I interrupted with a gasp.

Levi nodded somberly, “Toby’s dad,” he repeated, “My father went to the site; it was still smoldering from the fire, and found a hole in the cement foundation, just below where the confessional had once stood. Inside the hole was a steel box, but the box was empty. My father raced to Higgins’s house and found that his room had been torn apart; his clothes and suitcase were missing.”

“Toby’s dad, Mr. Higgins, stole the map?”

“Yes, right out from under my father’s nose. He was furious at the betrayal and vowed to make it his life’s work to find Higgins and the map. Over the next thirty years the map and its capture have never been far from my father’s mind. Of course he occupied his time with making money in other ways, but the map became his obsession. It seemed for a while that Higgins would never surface, until Mitch Fanning came along with a description of a kid who resembled Raymond Higgins.

“How did Bryce’s father even know your dad?” I asked.

“Mitch Fanning had been a Delancey Boy with my father and Raymond Higgins and knew about my father’s obsession with finding the map. He had even gone on a couple errands for my father in pursuit of the map. Nothing he’d done had come to fruition. Then one day he began coaching Bryce’s soccer team and he met Toby, who looked remarkably like his father. Mitch followed my father’s orders and began to become friendly with Marcy, in hopes of confirming their unlikely suspicion about Toby’s paternity.

“
The Peace Corps,” I interrupted, “Marcy met Toby’s dad when she was in Ecuador in the Peace Corps. She told me all about it that day at the concert,” the dots were beginning to connect in my confused brain.

“
Raymond Higgins was basically in hiding in Ecuador. He and Marcy had connected immediately as they were both from Santa Juanita and both homesick. This connection led to love, marriage and eventually Toby. Their marriage lasted less than a year, at which point Marcy took Toby back to the states to live with her family in Santa Juanita. That is the last contact she had with Raymond Higgins.”

“
So how did Mitch end up marrying Marcy?” I asked.

“
Mitch was happy that he had been able to help my father pick up Higgins’ trail in Ecuador, and he felt confident enough to start dating Marcy, who he had grown attracted to. They eventually fell in love and got married. My father made sure to keep a close eye on Mitch and Marcy. He instructed me to become Bryce and Toby’s friend, especially Toby. He suspected that if Higgins’ were ever to resurface he’d probably come looking for his son, and therefore I needed to be in position, as Toby’s best friend if he should ever be contacted by his father. Mitch and Marcy and their four kids were poised to live happily ever after, until my father’s private investigator tracked Raymond Higgins to an apartment in San Diego.

“
At that point my brother and I, along with a couple Delancey Boys were dispatched to San Diego. I’m not sure how he knew we were coming, maybe he’d seen the PI trailing him, but when we arrived at Higgins’ apartment we found that he’d beaten us to the punch. I walked into his bathroom and found his body hanging from the ceiling.” Levi took a couple long deep breaths, his eyes closed. After a couple long moments he continued, “We ransacked the place searching for the map, but it was nowhere to be found. We were just about to give up when James found something interesting on Higgins’ computer. There was a deleted file containing a letter to Marcy Fanning. The letter seemed to indicate that it had been sent with the map. His instructions were to find the gold bars and put the money into a trust for Toby, his only child. He made it clear that she was in grave danger if anyone learned that she had the map, namely Alistair Bennett.

“
My father could almost taste the money by that point, he was so close to the fortune that he’d been coveting all these years. The only person standing in his way was Marcy Fanning. Mitch Fanning promised to get the map for my father, begging him to leave Marcy out of it. At first my father figured he’d waited this long, what would be the harm in a couple more weeks? Unfortunately, Mitch couldn’t find the map and Marcy claimed to have no idea what he was talking about when he confronted her,” Levi paused and looked at me apologetically. I could feel what was coming next, “And that is where you came in,” he said slowly.

“
My father believed, and still does, that Mitch and Marcy were trying to keep the fortune for themselves. So as a
gentle
reminder of who is in charge, he decided that he’d kidnap Toby and use his life as incentive to hand over the map. It fell on me to design a plan that would get Toby alone so some Delancey Boys could take him.”