Stealing Candi Read online

  “You better look harder,” he says. There’s warmth in his voice, but warning too. Fuck. My body is distracting my brain with its reactions. Is it possible to be afraid of a man and attracted to him at the same time? What am I thinking? Of course it’s possible. It’s practically mandatory. I watched my older sister date guys with motorcycles and anger issues for years before she left home. Drove my parents crazy.

  I thought I was different than her. Maybe not. Maybe I was just slower to develop a taste for bad choices.

  He’s looking at me, waiting for me to reply, his dark gaze setting my soul on fire. Goddamn. I don’t know how to react to this man. I mean, I do, but my body wants crazy things, things my mind knows better than to even think about.

  “I’m pretty sure I can look as hard as I like, I’m not going to find them. Someone took them, probably. It was a party. There were lots of people there. Any of them could have snaked a box or two.”

  “You need a reason to take this serious? Is that it?”

  His eyes narrow just a fraction, his voice lowers into a rough purr, and my pussy tightens. Goddamn. I want him to give me a reason for so many things.

  I’ve stayed away from guys in college. They haven’t really interested me. I thought it was because I was focused on my studies, but now I’m realizing it was because none of them made me feel like my blood was on fucking fire.

  “I don’t have your whiskey bottles. I’m sorry I took them, but I lost them now, so…”

  “So…?” He gives a little shrug. “So you think that’s going to be the end of it?”

  “I’m sure it’s not. We should be able to get some cash together to pay you back for what we took soon.”

  His lips twist in a sardonic smirk. “That so?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “You have until the end of today to get those boxes to me, Candi.”

  “Or…”

  He just smiles and turns away.

  Well. Fuck.

  “Who was that!?” Steffy strolls up to me. “He looked hot!”

  I’m about to tell her, but something stops me. She doesn’t need to be worried about this any more than she already is. I started this, and it seems to me be this nameless guy is blaming for it. I don’t want to see any of my friends get hurt more than they already have been.

  “I don’t know,” I say vaguely. “He wanted to know where the science wing was.”

  “And you didn’t get his number!?” Steffy shakes her head at me and hands me half a donut. “Missed opportunity.”

  “Hah, yeah.” I agree.

  I’m not hungry. I can’t eat the donut. I can barely sip the coffee. He says I have until the end of business today to find those bottles, but that’s obviously not going to happen. They’re just gone. Maybe I could go to the frat houses and see if any of the guys have them? That’s something anyway, a start.

  I don’t have any classes today after this one until 3 p.m. That gives me the middle of the day to go around, dig hungover frat boys out of bed and see if they took our stuff. I don’t know what I’ll do if it turns out one of them did. Hopefully get it back. This still doesn’t feel like something I can really call the police for.

  We’re walking to the lecture hall now, Steffy chatting away about something. I’m not really paying attention.

  “Oh my god. I know,” I murmur at what seems to be an appropriate point. We get to the hall and take our usual seats. I open my books, it’s just an automatic reflex at this point. I don’t know how I’m going to concentrate today.

  “So that was crazy, huh?” Steffy whispers to me as class starts. She’s talking about what happened last night.

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, what the fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  In spite of everything, I’m trying to take notes while she hisses conversation at me. I actually want to pass this class. I need to keep my grades up, not get put on academic probation. Something Maddy and I have in common is not coming from quite as much money as Steffy and Miranda. Steffy and Miranda have intergenerational fuck you money. My father earned all of his, so if I start failing, my parents are going to want to know why.

  “Maybe we should move out of the house,” Steffy suggests.

  “We can’t. The lease isn’t up until the end of the year.”

  “It could be a gang pad by then.”

  I don’t reply to that. For one, my professor is talking about the finer points of Mycenaean artwork, and for two, I’m worried that her hyperbolic comment might not be as off base as she probably thinks it is.

  “Where are you going now?”

  Steffy is right by my side as we leave class.

  “I was going to go around the frats…”

  “Nice. I like it…”

  “To see if they have those bottles.”

  Her face falls. “We can’t go around all those houses asking the guys there if they stole our liquor.”

  “Why not?”

  “I mean, it’s kind of crass.”

  “Any less crass than actually coming to our place and stealing from us?”

  Steffy wrinkles her nose. I know why she objects. We didn’t pledge sororities, and I think she’s regretting it. I am too, a bit. Being off campus and having to walk or take the bus kind of sucks, and I’m pretty sure gang members wouldn’t dare roll up on a Greek house, whereas our place in the suburbs is apparently fair game.

  “You don’t have to come,” I tell her. “I’ll go by myself.”

  “You’re not going by yourself,” she says. “We have to look out for each other. Even if we’re doing stupid things.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  We head off to fraternity row, where there are six different frat houses. They’re massive and well kept, with nice gardens. The fraternities makes sure that the place gets cleaned up after party nights. Last night was a big one, judging by a red party cup stuck in a bush - along with a pair of feet.

  “Hey.” I nudge the bush. A young guy with long curly hair pokes his head out. He has the face of a man who regrets everything he drank the night before, a seedy paleness to his skin through the five o’clock shadow making his peachy baby complexion look even more incongruous.

  “Yeah?”

  “You guys have any whiskey last night?”

  “Oh fuck, I don’t know,” he groans. “Why?”

  “Just wondering if you have the bottles,” I say. “We’re doing uhm, a clean up.”

  “Yeah, a clean up!” Steffy chirps. “We’re going to recycle the bottles and donate the money to kittens who don’t have mittens.”

  “Uh… okay. Uhm. Check around the back.”

  We walk around the back of the house to find the most rancid set of garbage cans I’ve ever seen in my life. The debris of several parties is in big black sacks, but some of them have been torn open already. Maybe by raccoons or something. Whatever did it, it got more than it bargained for. What’s spilling out of the bags is absolutely foul.

  “I am not going through frat garbage,” Steffy says, covering her mouth and nose with her hand. “If the stuff did get taken, it’s been drunk by now. Why don’t we just like, forget about it? I’ll get my mom to put some money into my account today. If those guys come back, we’ll just give them cash. Like, a thousand will do it. It’s more than the liquor was worth anyway.”

  “I can’t pay you back that much.”

  “Don’t worry about paying me back. Let’s just pay off the gangsters and move on.”

  There’s that saying about how a good friend helps you hide bodies. In this case, a good friend is one who pays off the gang you angered by stealing their drink.

  “I so owe you, Steffy.”

  “I know,” she smirks. “Besides, they probably won’t even come back.”

  I know they’ll be back. Or rather he will be back. I hope when he comes he agrees to take the cash. If he won’t, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Move, probably. Steffy’s idea wasn’t a bad one. Breaking a lease
is bad, but being murdered by a gang is, yannow, worse.

  Would he kill me? What is his name? There are so many questions, and none of them are questions I ever thought I’d be asking myself between Ancient Art 101 and Eng Lit 103.

  “We’re going to hook up with the others for lunch,” Steffy says. “Come on. We’ll be late.”

  We walk away from frat row and I have an uncomfortable prickling feeling like I’m being watched. When I look around I don’t see anyone staring directly at me, but there are people all over. I’m getting paranoid. Whoever that nameless man with the tattoos and the entire gang at his disposal is, he has me scared. They came to our house, and now he’s showed up on campus. He’s following me. Maybe even stalking me, and I don’t know his name.

  “You okay, Candi?”

  Maddy asks me the question when I get back home after classes, but she’s the one I should be asking. Her makeup is just covering the bruise where she was hit by one of those assholes. It has colored up and I know it must hurt. Just looking at her makes my body flood with anger and my stomach clench with fear. We could be hurt. We could all be hurt really badly.

  “No,” I say honestly. “I’m worried about us. I’m worried about those guys.”

  “We’re just going to give them money. That’s what Steffy said when she came back. Problem solved.”

  “Is it? I mean, what if we give them money, and they come back for more because then they know they can just shake us down? What if Steffy ends up paying her inheritance to a street gang?”

  All four of us are gathered in my bedroom. It overlooks the front of the house and theoretically we can see people coming in that way, but the gang men came from the back and the side and I find myself listening to every sound in the house even as we sit here. Is that a creak of the washing machine? Or is that a heavy pair of boots coming up the stairs?

  Usually the inner city doesn’t make its way out into our world. We are not equipped to deal with this situation.

  “What do you think, Miranda?”

  “Huh?”

  She’s been very quiet. More so than usual. She’s never been the chattiest of us, but she usually chimes in now and then, usually with a snide remark about something which we all find pretty funny.

  “Shouldn’t you be used to guys like that? After you worked in the inner city? Didn’t you tell us you worked with gangs all the time?” Steffy asks.

  Miranda mumbles something into the coffee she’s been nursing for ages.

  “What was that?”

  She mumbles again. We all lean in closer, trying to work out what she’s saying.

  “Miranda, what are you saying?”

  She throws her head back and sighs more loudly than she talked. “I didn’t actually go to the inner city. I was at tennis camp.”

  I let out a muffled laugh. Steffy gasps, and Madison just rolls her eyes.

  “Okay, so, you’re not going to be that helpful.”

  “No! Okay! But you know they’re not coming back once we give them their money, so…”

  “We don’t know that,” I say quickly. “From now on, we travel in pairs.”

  “That way they can take two of us at a time. Like a co-ed twin pack. We should split up,” Miranda objects.

  “We live in the same house. We can’t split up.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t live in the same house,” Miranda snipes back.

  “Guys, calm down. It was one party. One time. Nothing even happened, if you don’t count Madison’s face. And I never count Madison’s face,” Steffy smirks.

  “I’m going to stay with my mom for a while,” Miranda says softly. “She wants to know I’m doing okay, and I think it might be for the best.”

  We all make noises of disappointment, but none of us are going to tell her to stay if she doesn’t feel safe. Truth is, we’re all shaken, and the others still don’t know that the guy came to talk to me again today. If they did, they’d probably already be gone.

  “I’m probably going to head out tomorrow,” Steffy says. “Daddy says I need to come home and try the new pool, but I’ll be back next week, and I’ll leave the cash before I go.”

  So much for sticking together. While I was worrying about them getting hurt because of me, they were all planning on bailing. I don’t blame them. Last night was weird, and it’s pretty obvious that those guys are probably coming back.

  Madison looks uncomfortable. “Well, I’m going to crash in the dorms then. What about you, Candice?”

  “I’m just… I don’t know. I guess I’ll stay at the house.” I don’t bother to tell them that it’s not going to matter, that the guy, whatever his name is, is coming back for me, and when it turns out I don’t have his whiskey, he’s probably going to take it out on me one way or another.

  “We all slept there last night and there weren’t any problems,” Steffy points out. “Maybe we shouldn’t worry.”

  “We should worry,” I say, as the guilt at not telling them anything finally eats through my reservation. “That guy came back and found me this morning.”

  “Candice!” Madison gasps. “Why didn’t you tell us!?”

  “Yeah, why didn’t you tell me?” Steffy is frowning.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a flight to New England already booked.”

  She has the good grace to look a little ashamed, not that she should. It’s a good idea to get the hell out of dodge.

  “We’re not leaving you, Candi.”

  “It’s time to call the police,” Miranda says firmly. “And to stay somewhere else until this is resolved.”

  “And tell them that we stole liquor and now the store owner wants it back?”

  “That guy doesn’t own a store. That guy doesn’t own anything except a gun and drugs and probably one of those dogs that bites people,” Miranda snaps.

  “You’re being really judgmental,” Steffy cuts in. “He could easily own a liquor store.”

  “Then why didn’t he call the police?”

  “We’ve already had this discussion,” I sigh. “It’s pretty obvious those whiskey bottles weren’t whiskey bottles. There has to have been something else inside those crates. Like drugs or something.”

  “Which means someone stole drugs from our house. Which means someone thinks we keep drugs in our house. Which means…” Madison covers her face with her hands. “This is such a mess.”

  “I know, and it’s totally my fault, you guys. So I’ll deal with it.” I stand up and raise my hands. “You guys go where you’re going to go. I’ll take care of this.”

  “How will you deal with the violent criminal, Candi?” Miranda is less than convinced.

  “I don’t know. I just… will.”

  Chapter 3

  I’m sitting alone at the kitchen table when he comes. We’ve cleaned the kitchen up, thrown out the broken crockery and knick-knacks and gotten things back to normal. I have the back door open, because I know that will be his preference. He seems like back door sort of dude.

  All the other girls have gone. They left about an hour ago, not wasting any time. I have a cup of coffee in front of me, partially because I’m exhausted and partially because it gives me something warm to wrap my hands around and stop them from shaking. I don’t know when he’s coming, but I do know that he is coming, and that’s hard to reconcile. Maybe his name is Damocles. That would suit him.

  It’s a sunny day outside. A warm breeze is floating through the house, bringing with it, well, a gangster. Heavy footsteps herald his arrival, and that voice which is like the rough grit against which my desire ignites.

  “You should never sit with your back to an open door.”

  “Why not?” I crane my neck around to look at him, then push the chair out so he’s not behind me anymore.

  “Makes it easy to kill you.”

  “I’m pretty easy to kill no matter what way I’m facing. Do bullets care which way around you are?”

  He cocks his head slightly, his dark eyes lighting. “You gett
ing an attitude with me?”

  “Nope, just being honest.”

  His eyes sweep over me and the empty kitchen table. “You got my stuff?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “Unh,” he grunts, sounding disappointed. “You’ve fucked up, babygirl.”

  “I do have some cash,” I say, pushing the stack of twenties Steffy got out of the ATM before she checked into the hotel she’s decided to stay at tonight before she flies out in the morning.

  “How much is that?

  “Enough,” I say. “More than enough to pay for some missing whiskey.”

  He shakes his head. “Naw,” he drawls. “It’s not.”

  “What kind of drink costs more than a thousand dollars a case?”

  “You took three cases. Plenty of alcohol costs more than three thirty a case. You should know that. You’re a rich little college girl.”

  Fuck. He could be right.

  “Okay. I guess, you take this now and you give us a receipt, and then we pay the balance when you invoice us?”

  “What do you think this is? You think I’m running some kind of at home steal my shit and pay me when you feel like it delivery service?” His brows rise, two thick dark slabs over those magnetic eyes. “I am not here to play with you, girl.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  A new voice enters the conversation. It comes from the front of the house and it steps through the lounge door, and it belongs to a very tall, pretty cute policeman.

  Hell. Yes. Thank. God.

  The two guys stare at each other, like tomcats who accidentally walked along the same picket fence, except there’s nothing accidental about this. The second the policeman appears, I know Miranda called him. And I know just as well that this guy is going to think I called the cops on him.

  “Haven’t seen you around in a while, Dante,” the policeman says.

  So my stalker’s name is Dante. I’m guessing he’s not aware of the literary inference, but it might explain the devil staring out at me from the back of his bicep. This man is covered in enough aggressive imagery to keep a sociologist or maybe a psychologist busy for years.

  Dante stares the cop down with a controlled and vicious glare. For a second, I wonder if I am about to see real violence erupt. He’s probably armed. Dante, I mean, the cop is definitely armed, though he doesn’t have his gun out, which is nice because we are not getting our security deposit back if the place is riddled with bullet holes.