And I’ve cased this house often enough to know who’s out there. Bikers. Runners. Neighbors walking their prissy dogs.
I point to the ceiling. “What’s up there, bedrooms?”
I know what’s up there. I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t be here without having done my homework. Three giant bedrooms, three full baths lined with marble and tile, ten times more closet space than I ever had even in my nicest house, and along the entire back side of the house, a mack daddy home theater stocked with toys. Blackout curtains, reclinable theater seating, soundproofing in the floor and walls and ceiling. That’s where we’re going.
At the last word—bedrooms—Jade’s eyes go big and wide, darting from her kids to the stairs on the other side of the wall. She can’t stop touching the kids—shielding them with an arm, hugging them to her chest. “Why…why do you want to take us upstairs?”
I roll my eyes, curl my lips in exaggerated disgust just so we’re clear. Jade may be easy on the eyes, but she’s not my type, and only a real sicko would touch a child that way. “Get your mind out of the gutter, lady, and answer the question.”
“The kids’ rooms are upstairs. A guest room. The media and playroom.” Her voice is thin and shaky, her muscles twitching under her skin like a horse, flicking away flies. She doesn’t understand what’s happening here—not yet. But she will.
“Any alarm pads up there?”
She shakes her head. “I just told you there are only two, both downstairs.”
Staring down a gun and she can still summon up some sass. Any other time I might appreciate Jade’s spunk, but not today. Today I can’t get distracted by anything trivial.
“And cameras?”
She points to her cell phone, black against the bright white marble. “You already saw the camera feeds on my phone. All six of them.”
“Answer the question.” I slow down my words, wrap my lips and tongue around them and let them fly like poison darts. “Are there. Any more. Cameras?”
Will she lie? Tell the truth? Her answer is essential to my plan, as are the cameras.
“No.” She shakes her head, swallows. “No, there aren’t any more cameras.”
I sigh. Give her a full five seconds to amend, confess, recant, but she stays quiet. She stares me straight in the face, and she doesn’t say a word. Daring me with those blue eyes, as if I don’t have full access to her phone, like it wouldn’t occur to me to pick it up right now and check.
I pick up her phone, hold it in the palm of a hand. She doesn’t so much as squirm on her chair. Impressive.
Game on.
I shift my focus to the lump on her lap. “Yo, Baxter, buddy, I need your help with something.”
His body gives a mighty jerk, almost launching himself off Jade’s lap, but her arm tightens around him like a safety bar, the kind on roller coaster cars so you don’t fly out of the corkscrew curve. She’s the type of mother who wouldn’t think twice about offering herself up for her children. The kind who would take a bullet for her kids, who would shove them onto the shoulder only to end up crushed by the oncoming truck herself. A lioness, her protectiveness as instinctive as breathing. It’s an admirable trait. Not every parent is built that way.
She stares at me, eyes wide over the top of her son’s head, and she doesn’t let him go.
“Come on, Baxter.” I toss the cell to the marble and gesture with my gun—a warning, a promise. He’s sucking hard on a thumb, his smooth cheeks puffing and pulling. I smile to calm his nerves. “Get on over here, son. I need you to do something for me.”
Jade’s gaze sticks to the gun like superglue. “At least let me come with him.”
“Sorry, but that’s a hard no.”
“But Baxter’s only six.”
“Exactly. Plenty old enough to help me out.”
She shakes her head hard enough that her hair whacks her in the face. “But he’s terrified. I’m terrified.” Her voice cracks, and she’s trying really hard not to cry.
“What do you think’s going to happen? What are you so scared of?”
She gives me an incredulous look, searching for words she can say out loud. Without turning her head, she darts a sidelong glance at her daughter, her expression sparkling with meaning. Little pitchers have big ears—and Beatrix’s are practically flapping off her head. This is a kid who knows when to listen.
“I just…” Jade’s voice is a soft squeak. She takes a big breath, swallows. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”