Chapter 36 – Disconcerting
Spencer pressed the END button on her cell phone just as she and Toby reached the door of her penthouse.
"What did she say?" Toby inquired while unlocking the door.
Spencer enlightened, "Melissa said she'll be over shortly; she's going to ask Ian to babysit Taylor."
"Ok, cool," the carpenter replied as he opened the door, permitting his lady to enter first. "So, do you know what you're going to ask her?"
Spencer shrugged. "I don't know. I just want the truth, so this nightmare can finally be over. At first, I felt like we were just going in circles, but actually, we've been making progress," she explained as she retrieved his case file from her bag.
The lawyer entered her kitchen and found residency upon her bar stool. She spread the documents out, narrating her thought process.
"We have a timeline to work with now," she expressed.
The second Toby Cavanaugh entered the party, his frat brothers greeted him with manly half hugs. Shortly after, a wave of girls paid him a visit. He received a high volume of compliments on how good he looked, requests to broadcast his acres of abs, and offers to get busy in one of the upstairs bedrooms. As nice as possible, Toby turned down the many pleas. The girls who were practically throwing themselves at him were beautiful and stunning, but they weren't his type.
Interrupting his thoughts, Jason slammed a cold aluminum can against Toby's chest. "Years to the fricking weekend," the intoxicated party host slurred.
Usually, Toby would pop the lid and drown his insides with malt liquor with the quickness. But tonight was different. He wasn't craving the wild party life anymore. He was about to inform his frat brother of his decision, but Jason's attention had zoomed in on someone over Toby's shoulders. Stumbling over, Jason left Toby alone with his thoughts.
"Hey there, pretty lady," the dirty blonde slurred as he neared his girlfriend.
The vegan burger Aria had just consumed threatened to reverse its journey at the overwhelming smell emitting from Jason.
"You're drunk," she complained, using her hand to blanket her nose from the overwhelming smell of his alcohol. "You promised me that you'd stop."
"Yeah, and you promised me that you'd stop flirting with our professor, but it looks like breaking promises is our thing," the intoxicated man angrily spewed.
"I wouldn't be flirting with him if my boyfriend stayed sober long enough to remember my damn name!" she retorted, her voice rising in anger.
"Yeah, and I wouldn't have slept with CeCe if my girlfriend…"
"Wait a minute! You what?! You cheated on me?!" Aria shrieked.
Meanwhile, Toby rejected the drink Jason had given him and journeyed through the mass of partygoers. En route to the restroom, he passed by Jason who was engaged in a not-so-happy chat with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
Toby walked down the hall accessorized with crushed beer cans littering the floor. He stopped in front of the door before the stairs and twisted the doorknob. He entered the cubicle sized room to find an astonishing sight.
Back in the living room, Aria was storming off towards the front door with a whining, drunk Jason following behind her, pleading for her forgiveness. Aria's tolerance of Jason's bad habits had finally reached its breaking point and she was officially done.
Moving as fast as her miniature legs would permit, the pink haired beauty marched down the steps of the DiLaurentis's porch. She was in such a frenzy to elude Jason that she nearly bumped into the pregnant girl climbing the stairs to enter the party.
At the same time of Jaria's shocking breakup, Toby was shocked by the activity he'd walked in on. There before his eyes were a pair of partially nude occupants scrambling for their shredded clothes. Gaping at his stepsister and frat bro, Toby couldn't believe Jenna was secretly hooking up with Noel. Before he could investigate their affair, the high pitched scream of a female's voice from the living room pierced his eardrums.
His heroic instincts kicked in, causing his feet to find the source of the scream.
"Spencer," Toby softly cooed her name.
But the lawyer's attention was buried so deep in the paperwork that she hadn't heard him. Toby was grateful that he had the best lawyer in charge of his case, but at the same time, he hated how his case was taking such a toll on his girlfriend.
Currently, a collection of wrinkles consumed her forehead, displaying how hard she was concentrating. She was chewing incessantly on the cap of her ink pen. She was so engrossed with the context before her that she hadn't realized her left leg was shaking more than an excited puppy's tail.
Toby called out to her again, wanting her to take a break, but his plea went unnoticed. He sighed. Instead of trying for a third time, he decided to put his muscles to the test. He walked up behind his girlfriend. Before she could protest, Toby had his target fastened in his grip and over his shoulder. He lifted her up as if she weightless and journeyed towards her bedroom.
"Tobias! What are you doing?"
"Carrying you," he simply said with a smirk.
She growled at his sassy remark. "Put me down, mister. You put me down right now, or I am going to…"
A wide grin emerged on the man's face; he knew his girlfriend was bluffing. He decided to play along, because he knew he'd win.
"Or what?" he enquired.
"Or else!" she warned.
"Or else what?" He concluded his question with a tap to her tush.
"Oh no you didn't!" she yelled and swarmed in an attempt to escape his envelopment. "Errr! You just wait, mister! When I get out of your hold, I am going to…"
Just as the words left her mouth, he entered her bedroom. He deposited Spencer atop her mattress, rewarding her body with the company of his. Hovering above her, Toby stared uninterruptedly into her honey tinted orbs.
"Going to what?" he challenged, his gaze intensifying on his prey.
Spencer abandoned her train of thought when her eyes met his. She became fixated in his hues of blues, lost in his sea of cerulean swirls. As a result, she surrendered her protests, forgetting why she was going against him anyway.
"Going to kiss you," she flirted, dropping her voice down an octave to sound sexy.
The only moving their lips were doing now was entertaining each other's. Toby had lowered his frame atop hers during the kiss while her legs found themselves encasing his mid-section. As always, their lip-locking intensified. It seemed as though both of their bodies were experiencing the same effect and anticipating the same thing. The friction from their grinding pelvis sent jolts of fire through their bodies, alarming every nerve.
Toby's lips retracted from hers to plant countless kisses wherever his lips were bold enough to land. From her nose to her cheek to her earlobe to her neck to her shoulder to her collar to her sternum. The closer he approached the valley between her perky mountains, the louder her moans were, approving of the increasing aggressiveness of his hungry lips.
His chin slid into the V intersection of her low-cut blouse, lowering the fabric to unveil her lace black push-up bra. Before continuing, his eyes ascended to meet hers. As always, he was seeking her permission, never wanting her to feel pressured into doing something she wasn't ready for.
Spencer's bottom lip was tucked on the inside of her oral cavity; her top front teeth were sinking deeply into her flesh. It was obvious she was ready, but to make sure he got the message, the brunette's hand snaked down his sides until she reached the tail of his shirt. She tugged upwards.
Realizing what she was trying to do, Toby raised up off her body to permit her desires. The second he was shirtless, Spencer's hand explored his flawlessly designed torso. Dragging her nails down his well-defined crevices caused the rapid inflation of his anatomy.
Just as he reached for to dispose her of her blouse, a massive frown surfaced on her face.
"Oh… I… I'm sorry…" the carpenter timidly stuttered.
"No, baby, it's not you," she explained. "Listen."
Toby concentrated on listening. He, too, frowned once he realized someone was hammering on the front door.
"Can we pretend we're not home?" Toby pouted.
Spencer giggled. She thought he was just the cutest thing ever with those sapphire eyes that were very hard to say no to. Unfortunately, she had to this time.
"Babe," she explicated, "we need to go ahead and find out what Mel remembers from the party. The sooner we crack this case, the sooner we can enjoy our lives together. Until then, this chaos is going to continue to be an obstacle obstructing our happiness."
Toby whimpered. He knew she was right. He planted one final kiss on the tip of her nose before rolling off of her. While he searched for his discarded shirt, Spencer exited the bedroom and advanced towards the front door where the knocking hadn't stopped.
"I'm coming!" she shrieked, becoming annoyed with Melissa's constant hammering. If you're that damn impatient, why don't you just use the spare key I gave you to my place? The younger Hastings' spawn mumbled under her breath.
A foreign feeling ruptured in the pit of Spencer's stomach when her fingers encircled the doorknob. That feeling that seemed to foreshadow that something bad was going to happen. She exhaled deeply, trying to shake the weird vibe off.
The second the door no longer played as a barrier between Spencer and her guest, that feeling doubled in anxiety. She wanted to question his presence at her house, but her words were entrapped in her throat that suddenly went dry.
His icy blues eyes stared past her towards the shirtless man approaching them from down the hallway.
"Mixing business with pleasure?" he taunted.
Usually, Spencer was quick with a winning comeback, but that fearful feeling paralyzed the operations of her mouth.
"That's none of your business," Toby jeered after successfully returning the woven material to his upper body.
Wilden huffed, "You're right; it's not. But this is."
The detective retrieved a thick wad of stapled papers from the inside of his tailored grey jacket. He extended the documents towards Spencer, but she was still motionless, so Toby intervened and snatched the papers out of the man's hand.
Toby read the capitalized words inked in the header of the paper aloud. "A search warrant," he stated, but his nervous tone made it seem like a question.
Finally, the workings of the lawyer's brain broke free from the alarming feeling and caused her to intercede. "No! You are not searching my client's property unless…" she began.
Toby spoke up. "No, it's fine, Spence. Let him search whatever he wants to. I didn't do anything, so I have nothing to hide."
Spencer thought about it for a second and quickly realized he was right. The couple stepped aside to permit the detective to come in.
A coy smirk expanded on Wilden's face as if he was thinking these silly kids.
"Not the house; this warrant is for Ms. Hastings' vehicle," he proclaimed.
Spencer thought that was strange, but she nor Toby objected because they had nothing to hide. Spencer grabbed her coat and car keys and led the detective downstairs towards the parking lot in which Toby was right behind them.
When the trio emerged from the building, the cops awaiting in a second squad car exited it. One of the officers retrieved a suitcase from the marked Impala. From inside the case, all the cops present received a pair of gloves.
By the time they neared Spencer's car, she had unlocked and opened every door of her Mercedes. The cops began probing and searching the interior of the vehicle except Wilden. He was standing behind her car. He pointed towards the trunk.
"We need to search this as well," he firmly elucidated.
Spencer pressed the button on her car remote to unlock the trunk. Wilden alleviated the lid until enough sunlight provided a clear viewing of the trunk. He seemed dumbfounded for a moment, just staring into the bed of the car.
He looked up and motioned for one of his colleagues to approach him. Obeying his successor's commands, the officer picked up the elongated item. Wilden trekked towards the lawyer and client with his eyes fixated on Toby.
"Do you know what that is?" the well dressed man asked the carpenter.
"A shovel," Toby replied matter-of-factly.
"Actually," Wilden stated as he unlatched the shiny silver bracelets from his waist. "It's the murder weapon used to hit twenty-four year old Alison DiLaurentis so hard with that it dented her cranium which ultimately led to her death."
Both Spencer and Toby stood in utter shock.
"It's just a random ass shovel," Spencer tried to call the detective on his bluff.
Unfortunately, he wasn't bluffing. "That's the shovel from the DiLaurentis' property. Their last name is engraved into the handle."
Wilden dangled the handcuffs before Toby.
"Tobias Allen Cavanaugh, you are under arrest…"
…
A/N:
If I say please really really nice, will you review? Pleaseeeeeee!
I am going to update tomorrow, because I am going to be very excited, because tomorrow I am going to meet the hunk who plays our beloved Toby. Yes, you read that right. Keegan Allen is going to be in Fredericksburg, VA tomorrow and that's less than an hour and a half away from me, so I'm going to get my stalking on.
Siretha Elaine