Chapter 18
Andy met her for the 6:30 show. He was in his best jeans and an oxford shirt with vertical stripes. She was in a knee-length skirt and a white button down blouse. As they waited in the ticket line, he admired her muscular legs.
As soon as the lights dimmed in the theater, he felt her hand on his thigh. Andy set his coke in the cupholder and leaned back, throwing his arm around her. It wasn't long before they were kissing.
Andy didn't have much experience with girls. He'd been too busy, really, with scouts and school. He'd gotten to second base before, with Molly Franklin, but that was last summer, a long time ago.
Jasmine was interested. Their kisses were deep, and her hands started to roam over his chest and against his cheek. They missed the entire movie, and reluctantly separated so they could leave the theater. Andy twined his fingers with hers and stumbled after her into the night.
"I really like you, Jasmine," he said as he offered to walk her home.
"It's this way," she said, "a short cut." She led him into a dark alley. Once hidden in the shadows, she stopped walking and put a hand on his neck, drawing him in for more kissing. Andy obliged. He was so turned on he didn't know how to slow down.
Her hand rubbed his crotch and he groaned aloud. She unbuttoned her blouse, and he was captivated. As he started to move his hands in to touch her bra, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket and knocked him for a loop. His hand bumped her arm as he reached back quickly to check it.
It was a text from Katie. I'm going now.
Instantly, Andy felt terrible. Katie was about to risk her life, and he'd forgotten. He'd been so wrapped up in Jasmine and thoughts of sex that he'd completely forgotten. He jammed his phone back into his pocket and looked up, but Jasmine was gone, disappearing around the corner, yelling something back at him about how he wasn't really interested in her.
The young man sighed and turned, just as a car's headlights making a turn swept a ray of light into the alley. He thought he saw a syringe on the ground where Jasmine had been. No big deal, to see a syringe in an alley in New York City. But Andy thought the syringe looked… full.
He used his phone as a flashlight and found the syringe, realizing at once that it was full of something and that it was exactly the kind they used in the doctor's office. Suddenly sweating, he called his father.
At the police station, Mike and Carolyn came in together and gave Andy hugs. At Mike's request, the police had waited to interview him until they arrived. One of the detectives invited all of the Logans into an interview room.
"Dad," Andy said. "Uh… I can't…" Head down, he gestured briefly at his mother.
Mike looked back at his wife. She was hurt, but she knew Andy needed his father. She nodded and stepped back to an empty chair by the wall and sat down.
Mike put his hand over Andy's shoulder and walked in with him. They sat down at the table: Mike, Andy, and Detective Sang. "You said you thought she was going to try to kill you," Sang said. "Why?"
"A… a few weeks ago, this woman ran me and my friend off the road and kidnapped us, locking us in her basement."
Mike nodded at the officer. "New Haven Connecticut. The suspect is Nicole Wallace. Look her up. She's used a lot of syringes to kill people."
"And this was Nicole Wallace you were with tonight?"
"No, I don't think so. I've never seen her, but she's older. The girl I was with tonight looked my age."
"Wallace kidnapped you and you've never seen her?"
Mike leaned forward and used his quiet but all-business tone. "Don't give him grief about it. Look it up."
"All right, all right." The officer glanced back over to Andy. "This girl was your age, you say?"
"Yeah."
"Describe her."
Andy did. "She said her name was Jasmine Lee." The detective wrote that down.
"How did you know her?"
"I met her earlier today." He explained the circumstances of their meeting, and how he asked her out. We went to the movies, and…" Andy blushed. "We made out for the whole time the movie was on. Then I was walking her home and she took me into the alley."
Andy looked over at his father, obviously upset with himself. "Dad, I thought she liked me." At the prompting of Detective Sang, Andy told the whole story, including all the details of how far their groping had gone.
Andy was sent out, with an encouraging hug from his father, to wait with his mother. "Look," Mike told the detective. "I was on the force. I was a detective with Major Case. My wife is the head of CSU. If you get the results back on that syringe and it's something deadly, you've got to look into Nicole Wallace. The lead detective on her right now is a woman named Lichter, at the 5-4. You should find her in the records from Connecticut."
Sang's phone rang, and he held a finger up for Logan to wait. He thanked the person and hung up. "We just got those results, Mr. Logan. It was rohypnol. It would have killed your son in seconds."