“And me,” Marty finished up the parade of loving family members. “No one is ever going to hurt my girl. No one!” he declared in a booming voice. “I've come to love you very deeply in the short time I have known you, Sandy. I look forward to making what years I have left on this earth worth living.”
“Ayo, if anyone tries to hurt Ms. Valley Girl, they'll answer to theCalzone!” Ralphie pounded his fist. “I'll make them swim with the fishes. I said what I said.”
Chris walked over to Sandy. He bent down and gently wiped away a falling tear. “You're safe here,” he promised in a soothing voice. “No one is ever going to hurt you again, Sandy. I know you're very scared right now, but in time, you will come to realize that everyone standing in this library cares for you and loves you.”
“Ayo, like a family,” Ralphie called out.
“We all became worried because you began acting strange and distracted after you returned from town with Candy a couple of days ago,” Betty told Sandy. “You haven't been eating and you've been staying in your room.”
“I knew something was wrong,” Peppermint nodded. “I told Marty I was worried. Marty was way ahead of me.”
“I could tell something was the matter from the moment you returned from town,” Marty told Sandy.
Sandy listened to five people talk—five people who honestly and truthfully cared about her. She had never felt so much love in her life. She was used to being treated like dirt or a punching bag. Growing up under the cruel hands of two abusive parents was no fun. But now, Sandy saw love instead of hate, care instead of indifference, tenderness instead of cruelty, and protection instead of harm. She felt as if her heart mightexplode. “Like...but I brought trouble here. How can you all be so kind to me?”
“Because we love you. Ayo, I said what I said,” Ralphie spoke up before anyone else could. He took a few steps forward. “I ain't known you a lifetime, and you drive me crazy with the way you talk, but I love you. I can't explain why. I said what I said.”
“I think what Ralphie means is that God brought us all together to be a family,” Candy spoke in a gentle voice. “And honey, you didn't bring trouble to this island, you brought a beautiful gift. That gift is you.” Candy hugged Sandy.
Betty hurried to Sandy and added a second hug. Chris followed. Then Ralphie. Peppermint and Marty brought up the rear. Before Sandy knew it, everyone was hugging her. Love—the purest form of love Sandy had ever felt—flowed from the hearts that were hugging her. Never before in her life had Sandy felt so much love. She burst out crying, and then she cried until it hurt. “I'm so scared. I don't want to be scared anymore. I don't want to be hit or yelled at or...or threatened. Please make it stop...please,” she begged. Every defense Sandy had managed to build up through the years crumbled.
“Oh, honey...” Candy pulled Sandy into her arms as tight as she possibly could.
“Ayo,” Ralphie felt tears start falling from his eyes, “someone get me a plane ticket. I'm going to Los Angeles and open a can of whoop butt on the people that hurt Sandy!”
“I'm with you!” Marty blurted out.
Sandy knew Ralphie and Marty would have flown to Los Angeles at that very moment. Candy stopped them. “We belong here with Sandy, guys. Our fight is here.” Candy looked deep into Sandy's eyes. “Now, honey, you are home. You never have to be scared again. I promise.”
“How can you promise that?” Sandy cried.
“Because the bag full of miracles God is holding is still full.” Candy leaned her head down onto Sandy's trembling arm. “Yes, the bag full of miracles God is holding is still full...very full. You'll see.”
Chapter 3
“Talk to me, Rita. Fill my stocking full of goodies!” Haley spoke in an urgent voice. She had Rita Drakes on the phone. That was good. Rita didn't call unless she had the goods.
“Oh, I've got the goods,” Rita promised her old friend.
Haley saw a woman who looked mean and ugly enough to make a boulder split in two appear in her mind. Haley had nothing on Rita when it came to being cruel. Rita was the queen of cruelty. “I'm sitting at my desk with my pencil in hand. Unload on me!”
A pair of skinny, hateful hands snatched up a file—hands that matched a skeletal face filled with lifeless eyes. “Ralphie worked in a pizza joint in Brooklyn that's owned by a guy who has ties to a mafia family.”
“Oh, delicious!”
“It gets even better. His parents were tied to a mafia family,” Rita explained. “Ralphie was given over to his grandmother as a young boy after his father was put in prison for robbing a bank. His mother vanished into the wind, and she was later picked upin Las Vegas. The woman is now doing time in a federal prison. But it gets even better.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Ralphie had a cousin who tried to rob a bank. The FBI wanted to question him but his grandmother talked them instead.” Rita spoke through a hideous grin. “The cousin ended up going to prison. Two guesses who the cousin was working for?”
“A crime family?”
“Bingo.” Rita nodded. “The cousin claimed in court that Ralphie was involved in the bank robbery. No evidence could be found to support the claim. It was believed the cousin was trying to get back at Ralphie because Ralphie's grandmother talked to the FBI.”
“And someone believes Ralphie put his grandmother up to be a stool pigeon, right?”
“Right,” Rita confirmed. “But it gets even better, Haley. You have really hit the jackpot on this one.”
