“The kids are in the playroom. Watching TV.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the guest room.” I squeeze my eyes tight, breathe through a slice of white-hot panic. “He tied me to the blue chair.”
“You’re tied to a chair. Are you for real right now? Because you’re scaring me.”
I’m scaring me, too. Hearing the words roll off my tongue has me electric with fear, but I can tell Cam isn’t there yet. It’s not that he doesn’t believe me, it’s just that he’s still processing.
“He has a gun, Cam. He says he wants money.”
“Jesus.” Tires screech, and a car honks in the background. “Hold tight. I’m on the way.”
“Cam, no. If you come without the money, he’ll kill us. If you call the police, he’ll kill us. Do you understand? You can’t call the police. He says if you do, if he sees somebody sneaking through the yard or hears so much as a siren in the distance—” I don’t think I can say the terrible words out loud, but I know I have to “—he says he’ll kill the kids first and make me watch. He says he’ll give me plenty of time to see it, and then he’ll kill me, too.”
“Let me talk to the kids. I want to talk to them.”
Before we made this call, before the man pulled up Cam’s contact card on my phone and hit the number for his cell, the parameters were clearly defined. This is one of the scenarios we talked about. If Cam asks to talk to the children, I am to tell him no.
I look at the man now, and he shakes his head.
“You can’t. They’re in the playroom.”
I stare at the phone as I say it, trying to ignore the gun in his other hand, the barrel pointed at my forehead. I’m praying the last word will spark something in Cam’s mind. A memory. A recollection of the three nanny cams, concealed in strategic spots around the playroom. The same ones he teased me for installing, the ones he claims were an unnecessary expense seeing as I was never going to hire a nanny.
“Are they… Are the Bees okay?”
“For now.” Another answer the man and I rehearsed, one that’s meant to put the fear of God in Cam.
The kids’ earlier bickering from the back seat of my car rings once again through my head, wrapping like barbed wire around my heart. I will never fuss at them again. I will never lose patience when they want another hug, another story, another few minutes of my attention when I’ve finally found a moment alone.
I squeeze my eyes shut but it doesn’t staunch the tears. “But, Cam, you have to do exactly as I say.”
“Tell me. I’m ready.”
“I need you to go to the bank and withdraw—it’s a specific number. Maybe you should write it down.”
“I’m ready,” Cam says without missing a beat, and I don’t push the issue. This is a man who can’t remember to pack socks or take out the trash, but he never forgets a recipe, a measurement, a budget line. Cam knows exactly how many packs of butter he has in the cooler at any given moment. He knows the market price of a twenty-eight-day aged filet mignon down to the cent. He doesn’t need to write the number down.
“I need you to get $734,296 in cash and bring it to the house. Do not call the police. Do not tell anyone what you need the money for. Just get it and bring it home. When you get here with the money, he’ll let us go.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me his name.”
“Is it…is it him?” Cam doesn’t have to say who he’s referring to. The pock-skinned, man-bunned man.
“No. At least I don’t think so.”
“Who, then? What does he look like?”
The man touches the side of the gun to his temple, a not-so-subtle indication to mention the mask. Before the call, he told me I was allowed to, but only if Cam asked.
“I don’t know. He’s wearing a mask.”
The man nods, gives me a close-lipped smile. Good dog.
“It sounds like I’m on speaker. Is he listening? He’s standing right there, isn’t he?”
Finally, Cam is asking the right questions, gathering up the facts with his businessman’s mind. But before this call connected, the man was very specific about what I was allowed to say. The instructions, that I’m separated from the kids, that we’re fine for now but that Cam needs to hurry—those were all parts of the script. Everything else is on a case-by-case basis.
I look at him for guidance, and he gives a slow shake of his head. Panic heats the space behind my breastbone because I don’t know what that means. Am I supposed to lie and say he’s not listening? To not answer the question?