Trapped (14 page)

Finally my brain feels tired, and my bare feet are cold and sore from walking back and forth over the hard tile floor. It feels like my mind is spinning in circles, and nothing seems to make any sense at all. I have no plan. So feeling defeated, I go to bed in the hopes that I can escape myself for a while.

But when morning comes, I get up with this weird but specific kind of clarity. Like I made the decision during my sleep. Although I actually made it around three in the morning when I was lying there wide awake. It all seemed crystal clear … and doable.

I've decided that the only way to end this thing is to simply steal the pills, give them to Dirk, and then I'll quit my job. I'll make up some good excuse for my parents and aunt and uncle, like I need more time to devote to my studies. That's believable. In fact, after this term, I can see that it's true.

Then after I hand over the pills, I will tell Dirk that I got fired. I'll even make it look like it's his fault because I've been suspected of stealing. But I won't act like I'm mad at him. My thinking is if he knows I'm not working there anymore, he can't blackmail me for more pills. And maybe he'll assume I don't have any money either. And if I get really lucky, he might even feel a tiny bit sorry for me.

Also, I'll make it clear that since I'm now unemployed, my finances are so tight that I won't be able to purchase any more test answers. But I'll do all this in a very sweet and congenial way. I'll even thank him for “helping” me. Kelsey had hinted that if I was nicer to Dirk, he might be nicer to me.

Somehow I have got to shake this creep off. And I figure if he doesn't see me as his free pass to illegally gotten prescription drugs, he might lose all interest in me. I can only hope.

. . . [CHAPTER 12]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“
Y
ou must be feeling better,” Mom says to me as I come into the kitchen fully dressed in the morning.

“Yeah.” I fill a commuter cup with coffee. “I'm fine.”

“That's a relief. I started to think of all the things you could be suffering from last night.”

“Just one of the perks of practicing medicine?”

She grins. “I guess so.”

“Anyway, since I'm not contagious or anything, I'm going in to work.”

“Oh, that reminds me. Last night Dad said you should tell Uncle Russ that you need next Saturday off.”

I nod. “Oh, that must have something to do with his winter clothes question.”

She grins as she pours cream into her coffee. “Yes, but we'll pretend we don't know, okay?”

“Sure.” Now I lower my voice. “Do you think he's taking us to play in the snow for the day?”

“I hope so.” She takes a sip of her coffee and sighs. “I've been dreaming of real snow lately.”

I give her a sympathetic smile. My mom spent most of her childhood in Minnesota, so she sometimes gets like this. “Oh, by the way, I have a date tonight,” I tell her.

She smiles. “That's nice. Is it with Bryant?”

I nod as I stir sugar into my cup.

“I like him. He seems like a genuinely nice boy.”

I shrug and put the lid on my cup. “I guess so.”

“What do you mean, you guess so?”

I take a test sip of my coffee. “Well, after what happened with Clayton, I'll make sure not to get too involved with a guy. I'd rather focus on my studies.”

She seems to consider this, then slowly nods. “Sounds like a wise plan.”

I take an apple out of the fruit bowl and shove it in my jacket pocket. “Yeah, that's what I thought too.”

“Even so, you can be friends with him,” she calls as I head out. “No harm in that.”

I yell good-bye and hurry out to my car. The wind is blowing and it's starting to rain. Not exactly the snow Mom is wishing for, but it does feel a bit more like winter. And it fits my mood better too.

I turn up my stereo, hoping to block out my thoughts with music. I don't want to think about what's going down today. I don't want to obsess over what I plan to do. I'd like to imagine that I'm simply sleepwalking or a zombie, just going through the paces … and then I want to forget about it.

That's probably because I rehearsed the whole thing, over and over, in my head last night. I woke up at three and realized I needed to get it down. As a result I'm wearing a hoodie today. One with deep, thick pockets. The plan is that the first time I see any OxyContin out — and if no one is around to see — I will walk past and pocket it. After that, I'll go clean the bathroom, and then I'll transfer the loose pills into my jeans pocket. I wore a looser-fitting pair of jeans expressly for this purpose, so no one will see the outline of pills in my pocket.

Then I will thoroughly cleanse (to avoid fingerprints) and dispose of the pill bottle, wrapping it in toilet paper like it's a used tampon. If someone else finds it later, which I think is unlikely, it won't matter. It will simply appear that a customer snatched it and emptied it in there. The trash won't be taken out until tomorrow.

I had considered taking some kind of substitute pills to work, switching them for actual OxyContin pills, and then giving them to the customer. But that worries me. What if the customer really needed them … and became sicker … and came back and sued my aunt and uncle? I couldn't live with that. This way just seems simpler. And it does seem feasible that someone could sneak in and snatch a prescription from the high counter where they are placed when finished. Of course, it would have to be a tall person.

And thankfully, although he talks about it all the time, my uncle hasn't installed a real surveillance camera. He has a good fake one up and is under the impression that it keeps crooks at bay. But after today, he might want to invest in the real thing. And I don't think that's a bad idea.

My heart is pounding hard as I go into the pharmacy, but I'm ready with a smile and a greeting. My aunt, decked out in a red-and-white Santa hat and completely oblivious to the diabolical plan up my sleeve, greets me back, telling me how my young cousins sneakily unwrapped a couple of the presents from beneath the tree.

She laughs. “Good thing their gifts were still stashed in the attic. All they got was a shirt for grandpa and a tool set for Russ. Then they tried to rewrap them. Like I wouldn't notice. When I brought it to their attention, saying that I have eyes in the back of my head, they almost seemed to believe me.”

I make a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I remember when my mom used to give me that line too. Eventually we figure it out.”

“Just wait until you're a mom. You'll use it too.” She hands me a Santa hat. “Here, let's be festive.”

Just as I'm putting it on, the phone rings and a customer comes in. It seems the morning has officially begun. Since it's full-blown flu season now, there are more customers than usual, and it takes a while before I can take a breath, get my bearings, and remember my plan.

Of course, it now occurs to me that there's always the chance no one will bring in a prescription for OxyContin today. Although I doubt it. I think it's one of the more common prescriptions. It's like all the doctors are prescribing it.

And sure enough, around eleven a customer comes in with a prescription for it. “It's probably going to be about an hour,” I quietly tell her. This isn't true, but it buys me time. “Do you have other shopping to do?”

“I sure do.” She pulls out a list. “With Christmas less than a week away, who doesn't?”

I smile and hand her a candy cane. “Here. In case you get low blood sugar.”

She laughs and thanks me. “I just might need that.”

I keep myself busy, which isn't hard to do, and after about thirty minutes, I see what I'm sure is the OxyContin prescription appear on the high shelf. But I go past a couple of times, looking closely, just to be sure. Meanwhile I wait on customers and try not to sweat.

Finally it's getting close to lunchtime, and I'm worried that I'm going to miss my opportunity. But Aunt Lindsey is still working away and in full view of the shelf so there's no way I can nab it without risking being noticed.

“I'm going to lunch in a few minutes,” I remind her, “in case you need a bathroom break first.”

“Oh, good idea. Thanks.”

And just like that she's gone. With trembling hands, I walk past the shelf, glancing around to be sure no one is looking my way, and in one swift move, I snag the bottle and tuck it into my pocket. As I walk back over to the cash register, it feels like I'm about to have a heart attack. My heart is racing and it feels like I can hardly breathe. I hope I won't pass out. How would I explain the pills in my pocket?

“Where's the first-aid aisle?” a middle-aged woman asks me. I try to calm myself as I lead her over, helping her find just the right elastic bandage for her husband's sprained ankle. “Why he thought he should be playing basketball like that at his age is a mystery,” she tells me as I ring it up. “But I think he got what he deserved.”

I just smile and nod, watching as Aunt Lindsey goes back behind her counter to work on prescriptions. “I guess it's good we don't all get what we deserve,” I say absently.

Of course, I'm thinking specifically of myself. If I got what I deserved, I would probably be doing time in jail or juvi hall. This thought alone fills me with a deep sense of dread. What if that happened?

“Time for you to go to lunch,” Aunt Lindsey calls out.

“Oh yeah.” I nod nervously. “Can I pick you up anything?”

“I'll call in a sandwich at the deli, if you don't mind. I didn't have time for breakfast, so I'm starving.”

“Do you want the first lunch?”

“No, I need to finish these orders first. You go ahead. I've got a granola bar to munch on.”

Still aware of the parcel in my pocket, I head for the bathroom. It's not unusual for me to take a bathroom break before lunch. I turn on the fan to muffle the noise, then pour the pills onto some toilet paper, which I wrap tightly around them, then tuck it into my pocket. Then I wash and dispose of the bottle as planned. Nice and neat.

I see my face in the mirror as I stand up straight, and it's flushed with excitement. Fortunately, my aunt didn't seem to notice. I remove the Santa hat, then go back out, hoping the woman with the prescription isn't back already. Thankfully, she's not. Now my only challenge is to pull off an innocent act when she returns for her pills. Can I do that?

I go outside and take in some long, cool, damp breaths. If I thought I was nervous about cheating on those finals, I'm sure this is way worse. And I still can't believe what I've done. It feels like my life of crime is off to a solid start, and I hate to imagine what else I might do now. I have a teeny-tiny thrill about pulling it off. But at the same time I'm really uneasy.

I go to the deli and order a bowl of turkey bisque soup, but all I can do is take a few bites. My stomach feels like it's full of hardened cement. I sit there by the window, watching shoppers hurrying along in the rain. Some are towing cranky-looking children behind. Some look merry, and others look harried.

Suddenly, a chilly jolt runs through me. What if someone has already figured me out? What if, unbeknownst to me, Uncle Russ really did install a surveillance camera and it's all been caught on tape? What if I end up going to jail? If I was worried about how my parents, friends, and teachers would react to the news of me cheating, how will they react when they find out I've stolen prescription drugs? How can I possibly explain my bizarre behavior? That I did it to maintain my grades? To get into Stanford?

I stand up quickly, realizing that I've made a horrible mistake. A huge and stupid mistake. Really, I'm too smart to do something like this. What was I thinking? It would be far better to just take the consequences for cheating than to be caught stealing drugs. Isn't it a federal offense?

I pick up my aunt's order and hurry back to the store. I know I'm early, but I don't care. I tell her that I thought if I cut my lunch shorter, she could take her break sooner.

“Oh?” She looks surprised. “Well, thank you. That was nice.”

I want to ask her if the customer who ordered the OxyContin returned yet, but that would be a dead giveaway. “I'm going to run and wash my hands,” I say instead. “They're sticky from lunch.”

“You can use this sink,” she calls to me, but I'm already halfway to the bathroom.

“That's okay, I'll just be a minute.”

The next thing I know, I'm digging through the trash, trying to find that prescription bottle. Finally I locate it and unwrap it from its cocoon of toilet paper. I replace the pills, slip it into my pocket, and reemerge.

“I'm going to the backroom.” She picks up the deli bag and peeks inside. “To put my feet up while I eat.”

I put the Santa hat back on my head, trying to act natural. “Okay.”

“Just yell if you need something.” She pauses for a moment, looking curiously at me, and suddenly I wonder if she knows what I did.

I ease out a nervous smile. “Okay,” I say again, wishing she'd just go eat her lunch.

“Are you all right, GraceAnn?”

Now I remember my flushed cheeks and wonder if I look guilty.

“You don't seem quite like yourself today. Is anything wrong?”

So, trying to cover my trail, I explain how I felt a little off last night and how my parents were pretty worried. “Dad even told me to take a sick day today.”

“Oh?” She looks concerned. “Do you need to go home?”

I shake my head. “No, I feel better. I think I'm just kind of worn out after finals week.”

“That's right. I forgot. How did it go?”

I shrug. “Okay, I guess.”

She chuckles. “Well, of course you'd say that. Still keeping up those straight As, I'll bet.”

“I don't know about that. But I'm trying.”