Cam: [sarcastic laugh] Doesn’t say much for our fair city, does it?
Juanita: My point is, the police would have known what to do.
Cam: Or they would have come in, sirens wailing, busted down my front door and started shooting until somebody was dead. Which as you know, they did.
Juanita: You could have told them not to use the sirens.
Cam: I did what I had to do, what I thought was the best thing at the time.
Juanita: But police officers are trained for this exact situation. They know how to respond in order to save lives.
Cam: Look, lady. You and whoever’s on their cushy couches at home can sit there and judge me all you want, but let’s talk again when it’s your wife chained to a chair, begging you to hurry home with money you don’t have while your children scream bloody murder in the background. Until then, until you’ve stood in my shoes with the weight of a thousand elephants on your chest because you can’t cobble together the ransom to save the people you love most, I suggest you save your judgment for someone else because you don’t know what that’s like. You can’t know until you’ve been there.
Juanita: Point taken. But tell me this, knowing what you know now, if you could go back and do things over, what would you do differently?
Cam: [leans forward in the chair] Every single goddamn thing.
J A D E
4:19 p.m.
The man watches me from above. “Who’s ‘him’？”
I frown, more concerned with the strip of duct tape dangling from his fingers like a shiny silver snake. My skin still stings from where he ripped it off the first time, and I’m not looking for a repeat.
“Please don’t put that over my mouth again. I promise I won’t scream.”
Screaming would only scare the kids, which I really don’t want to do. They’re being so brave, so sweet and quiet in their playroom, and I know from experience this peaceful state won’t last long. Especially if they hear their mother across the hall, screaming her face off.
And even if I did scream, the nearest house is a quarter acre away, separated by multiple layers of stone and plaster and double glass. No way anybody outside would hear, not even if they were standing on the front stoop.
He moves closer, and I crane my head back until it’s flush against the wall. “You promised to take me to my kids. You said you’d let me see them after the call.”
“Yeah, well, I lied. Now answer the question, Jade. Who’s ‘him’？”
“What?”
“Just now. Cam asked if I was him. You said you didn’t think so. Who’s ‘him’？”
I’m barely listening, still reeling from the fact that I don’t get to see my kids. I stare at the door and the slice of empty hall and try not to cry. “Just some guy who’s been following me around town.”
“You have a stalker? How very Buckhead Betty of you. But how do you know I’m not the same person?” He waves a gloved hand in front of his masked face, a demented Vanna White. “It’s not like I’m giving you much to go on here.”
Admitting I have a stalker is one thing, but granting him insight in my thought processes, my fears, is another. I give him the most obvious answer.
“Your build is different. He’s shorter and smaller, skinnier. And he has a man bun, which I’m pretty sure you don’t have under that mask.”
He barks a laugh. “A man bun. No, I don’t have a man bun.” His tone says ridiculous.
I add another item to my mental list: mainstream hairstyle, traditional cut. Or possibly bald. Either way, not the type to sport a man bun.
“But it is interesting, don’t you think, that another man has been following you, too. What do you think he wants?”
I lift a shoulder but remain silent. I’m not about to get into my theories with this man—not that I have all that many. Until that guy showed up at Beatrix’s violin lessons today, I always just assumed running into him was random.
And I don’t miss this man’s choice of words, that someone else has been following me. I think back to all those times I raced through Whole Foods, bracing for the man-bunned man to pop around the corner. Was I so distracted by looking for him that I didn’t notice the other, more sinister man trailing me up and down the aisles? Did he follow me to the gym, the coffee shop, the post office, Beatrix’s violin lessons, too? As I go about my normal day, am I really that oblivious?
He sinks onto the edge of the bed directly across from me, the mattress springs creaking under his weight. “But it does make you wonder, though…” He shakes the tape from his fingers and it flutters to the floor, landing upside down on the rug.