I turn to the dummy speaker, step right up to it and smile.
“This isn’t the way I wanted today to end, baby girl, I want you to know that. Maybe one day, after you get your lungs and a baby boy or girl of your own, you’ll find some understanding in that big heart of yours. But before you do any of that, take a little peek under the bread in the freezer, will you? I love you, Gigi. So much. Never forget that.”
I blow a kiss at the camera and turn away.
I didn’t come all this way without a backup plan, and a backup to the backup to the backup. Like I’m always telling Gigi, she’s getting those lungs if it’s the last thing I do. It’s time to pull the parachute cord.
I figured if anybody could pull together the ransom money, it would be Cam. Even deep in debt, that man knows every martini-swilling, tweed-wearing, steak-overpaying asshole in town. Surely he could sweet-talk some of them into loaning him some cash.
And who knows? Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. I won’t believe it until I see that promised bag of cash, until I can count out the bills.
Jade was a surprise, though—not the money-loving Buckhead Betty I originally thought. The way she kept throwing herself in front of her kids. That move downstairs with the screwdriver, how she was constantly risking her life in order to save theirs. That kind of love is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
I think of my Gigi at home, coughing up mucus into a cup. No more pain. No more money problems. No more constant worry about her fate.
Heavy boots clomp on the stairs, and I press myself to the wall, pulling out the switchblade in my pocket, flicking it open and holding it high in my good fist. The blade reflects a glint of white ceiling light that blinds me to everything else. The pain in my shoulder as I lunge for the cluster of cops filing through the door, the shouted warnings right before the blade sinks into someone’s skin, shots ringing out like a string of firecrackers. Everything but my baby’s sweet smile.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says as she reaches for my hand.
My freedom for Gigi’s lungs. My life for hers. I’m more than willing to make the trade.
T H E I N T E R V I E W
Juanita: The nanny cam footage went viral the second it hit the internet.
Cam: Yeah, for all their tough talk about cracking down on violent content, the social media platforms sure do a bang-up job, don’t they?
Juanita: Most people would agree they failed pretty spectacularly. One tweet led to a couple dozen, which led to hundreds more, crossing over onto Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. Sebastian and his two accomplices, his sister, Hannah, and your neighbor Tanya Lloyd, certainly didn’t anticipate things taking off that fast. The police traced the feed to your home. They got there in the nick of time.
Cam: Well, that’s debatable. Jade and Beatrix were already downstairs when they busted through the door. They’d already gotten away from Sebastian, but the police killed him anyway.
Juanita: Because he attacked one of the officers with a knife. She was in the ICU for days. She almost died.
Cam: Yes, but why couldn’t they have just tackled Sebastian to the ground? Did they have to kill him?
Juanita: Yes, because again, he attacked an officer of the law.
Cam: Sure, but he did it because he was out of options. Not just broke but buried in debt, and unable to get treatment for his dying child. So you tell me. What else was he supposed to do?
Juanita: I don’t know. Certainly not hold a mother and two small children for ransom. Certainly not break a woman’s cheek.
Cam: Still. There’s something inherently wrong with a system that would allow a girl to die simply because her father can’t afford drugs that every other Western country would have given her for free. Every single societal safeguard that was meant to catch Sebastian failed. Every single one of his options was snatched away.
Juanita: [sitting back in chair] Sebastian held your family at gunpoint. He tied them to a chair and threatened their lives. He physically hurt your wife and traumatized your children, all because he carried so much hatred for you. Because he wanted revenge.
Cam: I know, and I think about those things a lot. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get flashes of Jade’s mangled face or Beatrix waving around that gun. I have to relive those awful moments knowing they happened because of me, because of things I did. But at the end of the day, I keep coming back to the fact that Sebastian acted not for himself, but for a child. His child. The one he loved the same way I love Beatrix and Baxter, with every inch of my heart. I don’t know, Juanita, the answers don’t feel so black-and-white.