3:39 p.m.
That Beatrix kid is a trip. Sneaking the phone out of her mama’s bag, slipping it into those ruffly denim shorts. Like I wouldn’t notice the iPhone-sized lump in her pocket, or the way her freckles lit up like stars when she passed the thing to Jade. I’m not blind. I saw her hand move to her mama’s lap, how when it landed, Jade jerked to attention in her chair. I saw every bit of it.
Then her face when I asked if I could trust her. Even with the gun I’ve been waving around like a stick of dynamite, this old Beretta Cougar I dug out of storage especially for today, the kid just sat there. Clamping down on her molars, cussing me out with her eyes, looking for all the world like she’d swallowed her tongue just to spite me. My Gigi used to look at me like that, too, when she was about Beatrix’s age. I looked at her and I saw my daughter’s face and, damn, it was hard to keep mine straight.
But what Beatrix hasn’t quite figured out yet is that stubborn streak of hers? It’s not a strength but a weakness. It makes her predictable. Easy to manipulate, like kid-shaped putty in my hands. These next few hours are going to be a lot of fun pulling that kid’s strings.
“Let’s go.” I direct the words to Jade, but it’s Beatrix I’m looking at, and not just from the corner of my eye. She’s the one I’ll be keeping my eye on.
Jade’s arm tightens around the little guy on her lap. Baxter—what kind of sissy name is that for a boy? Poor kid probably gets the shit beat out of him on the playground. Beatrix, too, though she seems like the nerdy type, an awkward loner who reads a book while all the other kids play. Her gaze sticks to me like a shadow.
Jade frowns. “Go where? Where are we going?”
She looks nothing like she did the first time I met her, at the opening for Cam’s restaurant on the West Side. That night she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine, all glossy hair and glittery makeup and this complicated silver dress that had to cost more than what a normal person pays for a month’s rent. She shook my hand, and even with all the people and the commotion, I heard those diamond bracelets rattling. I remember thinking she’d better be careful on the way to her car. A good $50K on that one arm alone. Prime mugging material.
Now, though, in those workout clothes, I barely recognize her. Her hair is loose and wild around her head, her face bare but for two pink spots high on her cheeks. The jewelry is gone, too—only a watch, a diamond wedding band and a honker of a stud perched on each ear. Worlds apart from that flouncy Barbie I saw hanging from Cam’s arm. Prettier, too. For a fleeting second, I wonder if I misjudged her.
I gesture to the snacks spread across the bar. “Aren’t y’all going to eat?”
“My husband will be home soon,” she says, ignoring the food, my question. “He’s home for dinner every night. Take whatever you want and leave, and I’ll forget you were ever here.”
I lean an elbow on the bar, gesturing with the gun. “And here we were doing so well just now. Your husband doesn’t come home for dinner, ever. Don’t lie to me. Your children understand this. Why can’t you?”
She presses her lips into a straight line, and I squint, studying her face. Does she recognize me?
I’m pretty sure the answer is no, though it’s not for lack of trying. Her eyes have followed me since the second she saw me in the garage. I’ve seen the way she’s examined my build, clocking the shape of my eyes and my lips and skin and whatever else she can see of my face. I saw her ticking off my features one by one, searching her memory banks for a match. Jade’s one of those people whose every thought plays out on her face, which means that so far, she hasn’t made the connection.
I straighten, and my gaze sweeps the windows on the back side of the house, checking the view onto the driveway and fenced-in backyard—both deserted. Nothing out there but some squirrels and that big-ass pool, the water like shimmering black glass. It’s the front of the house I have to worry about—a solid wall of windows and glass doors.
“Now come on. We need to get our asses upstairs.”
Jade frowns, her pretty forehead crumpling. “Why…why do you want to go upstairs?”
“What do you think your neighbors will say when they see a guy in a ski mask marching through your living room? We’re okay here, but the rest of this place is like a fish tank.”
That’s what a couple million bucks in this town will get you—a palace high on a hill where every space winds into the next through mammoth, open doorways. Only three rooms on this level provide any sort of privacy: the master on the back end, the TV room behind Jade and the kids, and the kitchen I’ve parked us in. Other than that, it’s a straight shot for anyone outside looking in, up the yard and through the windows into the library, the dining room, the foyer and living room beyond. Fifty solid feet of unobstructed visibility from the street.