I tell myself he’s not going to hurt the kids. That he’s not going to sit them in a chair, press his gun to their little heads and pull the trigger. That the pistol he’s been waving around is for me. I’m the one he wants to intimidate. If he was here to murder us, he would have done it the moment he stepped out of the shadows. Why go to all this trouble just to torment us? I tell myself he’s here for something. Money, probably.
Please, God, let it be money.
I stare at the sliver of empty hallway, and the upstairs layout flashes through my mind. Walls, doors, all the corners and blind spots. There are two ways into that playroom, through those double doors out in the hallway, or an interior door we never use, one that leads to a hidden hallway and the guest room bath behind me. We keep it shut to accommodate the furniture, a marble console table with, next to it, a potted fiddle leaf fig.
Which means if I could somehow manage to break free, I could get to the kids from this room. Sneak through the hidden hallway, shove the door open and the furniture aside. Surprise, asshole. Mommy’s here.
Bad odds, though, considering he’s the one with the weapon and I’m stuck to a chair.
Still, I look around the room for something I could use, taking in the furniture and decor—the rosewood and brass bed, the matching nightstands, the Herman Miller dresser, all of them impractical. The closet is empty, nothing but plastic hangers and a flimsy wicker hamper, and there’s nothing useful under the bathroom sink. I consider the bedside lamps, two complicated things of metal and glass anchored to the wall. A third lamp, a floor model, weighs practically nothing.
The vase, a couple of books, a vintage lucite bowl, a flawless Ritts from the sixties. A little bulky, maybe, but solid enough to bash in somebody’s head. I just need to get to it first.
I struggle against the rope, but the damn thing only pulls tighter.
Beatrix’s face. Oh my God, her face when that man tied me up. While Baxter chattered away about some stuffed gorilla he wanted to fetch from his room and the Xbox game Santa gave him for Christmas, Beatrix stared at the back of the man’s head and said nothing. Empty eyes. Slack jaw. The kind of expression she gets from watching too much TV, or on a car ride that’s taking too long. No fear. No fury. Just…nothing. Her face was like a dead zone. When this is over, she’s going to need a lot of therapy.
Assuming we survive.
I shove the thought aside before it can turn into a sob, force myself to think about Baxter. At least he’s doing okay. I hear his singsong voice floating on the air, no longer scared. He’s too young to understand how dangerous things are, how the man is manipulating both kids in order to manipulate me. That bullshit marshmallow trick with Baxter, the begrudging admission he pried from Beatrix—those stunts were a message to me.
See? he might as well have said. I control your kids, which means I control you.
That’s the kind of psycho I’m up against.
With all my might, I heave my body backward in the chair, then lurch my weight forward, but nothing happens. The legs don’t lift from the floor. The chair doesn’t so much as wobble. I remember the first time I sat in the thing, one sunny afternoon in the Jonathan Adler showroom. I loved the weight of it, the sturdiness, the way the horizontal brass bars at the base of the legs kept the chair stable, and always flush to the ground. Now the damn thing doesn’t even budge.
And honestly, even if I managed to tip it, then what? The legs aren’t legs but connected brass bars, a closed square holding up either side of the chair. Even if I were able to wriggle the rope down the legs, I can’t just slip it off the feet and be free. I could maybe tip this thing, but then what—crab-run down the stairs with a forty-pound chair on my back? I won’t make it very far, and I’d never leave my kids.
Shit.
Shit.
He knows this, of course. He knows as long as he stays with my kids, then I’m going nowhere—not without coming for them first. He knows if I did somehow escape, I’d come straight to them, which means he’ll be ready for me. I picture him sitting in a chair facing the door, tapping the gun on his knee. Waiting.
But why? For what? What does this man want from me?
Laughter comes from the other room, and my stomach roils in an oily wave. This is torture. He’s torturing me. SpongeBob’s voice bursts from the speakers. Is he tying them up? Turning up the volume so I won’t hear their screams?
I stare at the doorway across the hall and my hands shake with terror. With rage.
What is happening?
I have no idea, because I am tied to a goddamn chair.