Their sirens swirl loud and steady in the falling dusk just outside, and my gaze goes to the front of the house, to the stretch of solid wall bordering the hallway, through the wood and plaster and stone, down the hill to the painted brick two-story home across the street.
Baxter.
His name whispers through my brain, a siren’s song tugging me to him, a gravitational pull between me and my son. I don’t care about Sebastian, bleeding onto my wall. I don’t care about tying him down or shooting him in the face or taking out both his kneecaps. I don’t even care if he gets away. I can only think of one thing.
I drop the tape to the floor and grab my daughter’s hand.
J A D E
7:09 p.m.
Beatrix and I race down the stairs to the main floor, cloaked in shadow because nobody thought to turn on the lights.
It’s a way I know by heart, and I’m navigating the dim space when I run smack into a body, a head-on collision with the human wall at the bottom of the stairs.
Two massive men, big and solid like bouncers, their bodies blocking the way like giant boulders. I ricochet off their thick chests, and then I clutch Beatrix to me and scream.
“Don’t shoot,” one of them says, holding up his hands. “We’re the good guys.”
“Friends of Cam,” the other adds.
Cam. At the name, my heart and lungs unclench, but not my finger on the trigger. I don’t know all of Cam’s friends, but I definitely don’t know these men. I might still need the gun.
“Where is he? Where’s Cam?”
“He’s meeting us at the car.”
There’s a breath or two where I almost believe them, these two strange men who are motioning for me to follow them into the night just because they claim to be friends of Cam. Behind them, at the back of the house, the floor looks like a sky of stars, glass shards glittering in the glow of the outside lights.
It’s not the front doors they just busted through. It’s the back.
And why the back? The police are almost here, and they’ll be coming through the front. Why not throw open the doors and meet them outside?
I’m also wondering what happened to the alarm, why it’s not wailing. Or maybe it is, and I’m just not hearing it over all the other noise—the crunch of glass, the approaching police, the blood pounding like Niagara Falls in my ears.
Beatrix twists around, her expression strangely calm as she stares out the front windows. The lawn is lit up like a laser show, swooping white arcs in a disco of red and blue. Police cars careening up the drive.
The two men bolt for the back.
“Let’s go,” one of them calls over his shoulder. “We gotta hustle.”
“Tell Cam we’re going for Baxter.”
I turn into a sudden light, white and blinding. Two giant spotlights pressed into the front-door glass, twin suns that ignite our skin, surrounding us with light brighter than day. Beatrix shades her eyes with an arm, but I just close mine. My hands are filled with the gun and a fistful of my daughter, and no way in hell I’m letting either of them go, even though I am all too aware of the danger. A loaded weapon, an obvious threat. I hold it in a loose fist by my side.
Shouts bombard us through the doors.
Open the door!
Police!
GUN.
Freeze don’t move don’t move.
The windows on the front door explode, a hailstorm of glass shattering on the foyer tiles, skipping across the marble to the hardwood. I open my eyes at a sound I know instinctively, a hand reaching inside to flip the dead bolt. Big black silhouettes stomp inside, crowding around us, barking questions. One of them pries the gun from my fingers.
Ma’am, are you okay?
Is your daughter hurt?
Is either one of you injured?
I reach for the first officer I see. “My son. He’s in the house across the street. He’s in danger.”
J A D E
7:14 p.m.
Beatrix and I stand on Tanya’s front lawn, shoulder to shoulder with a female cop whose orders were to tackle me if I moved. I wanted to go in, of course I did. I told them I knew the layout of the house, could point out the rooms where Baxter might be, but the cops wouldn’t hear of it, so here I stand, stiff with terror, staring at Tanya’s front door and praying.
That Baxter is inside.
That he’s alive.
That Tanya hasn’t hurt a hair on his body.
“What’s taking so long?” Beatrix says. “Why can’t they find him?”
I clutch her hand and try not to scream. I don’t think Tanya would hurt Bax or kidnap him, but what do I know? I’ve been wrong, so wrong about her. I stare at the house and think surely it can’t be much longer.