Baxter wriggles deeper into my chest, clutching me tighter. “Mommy, I don’t wanna go downstairs.” My sweatshirt pulls on a shoulder from where it’s bunched in one of his tight fists.
“It’s okay, sweetie. We won’t be down there long.”
The man orders me to do a quick check of the street, then hustles us across the living room and down the hall, where I flip the dead bolt and pull open the door. A chilly draft rushes up from the darkness, and I shiver—not from the cold but with the beginning wisp of a plan.
The basement is where Cam keeps his tools.
I feel around the wall for the light switch, and a bare, dusty bulb flicks on, shining light on the steep wooden stairs, rickety and builder-assembled to pass code, but just barely. I follow them down, down, down into the darkness.
The stairs dump us onto a concrete slab, and I blink into the pitch-black basement. The air is a good ten degrees cooler down here, and it smells of underground, of dirt and dust and creatures living and dying.
I flip another switch, and it lights up the first room, an unfinished square tomb piled high with plastic boxes and furniture. A high chair, a crib, our old queen mattress and box springs, the plate rack that came with the antique buffet in the dining room but I found too fussy. Everything is neatly stacked, one on top of the other like giant blocks, then arranged against vertical studs waiting for drywall. Beyond it, the space that runs the length of the house is cloaked in blackness.
The man calls out into the shadows, “Beatrix, if you’re down here, sweetie, now would be the time to make yourself known. Come out now and I promise not to hurt you.”
No answer. Only the sound of Baxter’s shallow breaths against my shoulder. I cover my son’s head with a hand, his fine hair tangling in my fingers.
“Are there any doors or windows?”
I turn, gesturing to where dim light trickles like water from somewhere deep in the darkness, a window well concealed behind thick hedges. Even on sunny days, very little light makes it through.
“Stay here while I check,” he says. “Move and both of you get a bullet.”
While he’s gone, I shift Baxter to my opposite hip to give my bicep a break. He’s a deadweight, forty-two pounds of bone and muscle dragging on my shoulder, my back, my neck where his arms hang from it. My entire upper body is on fire, muscles shaking, joints throbbing. But I know what would happen if I put him down: he’d scream and wail and pitch a fit, and I need to save that for when I need a distraction.
“Locked up tight.” He jabs me in the back with his pistol, a harsh gesture that means move it.
I lurch forward with a hot burst of adrenaline. If I didn’t have Baxter hanging from me like a monkey, that would have been my chance. I could have lunged for him. I could have grabbed his wrist with one hand, the gun with the other, and wrestled it from his grip like some badass TV spy. I probably would’ve gotten shot, but maybe, just maybe, I could have knocked off his aim to somewhere it wouldn’t kill me. An arm, maybe, or a foot. Bloody and painful, but not fatal. And then I’d grab the gun and shoot him in the face.
But I can’t fight back—I wouldn’t even dare try—not with Baxter clutched to my hip.
That’s when it occurs to me: the most terrifying part of being a parent isn’t this monster holding the gun. It’s the idea that something I do or don’t do could get my children killed. That I could be to blame for their deaths. That they would die, and I would be both a witness and the cause. How would I ever live with myself?
Then again, I probably wouldn’t have to.
Beatrix first, and then Baxter. And I will make you watch.
The third bullet in the gun pressing between my ribs would be for me.
I think of what that would be like for Cam, walking in on three dead bodies, and my eyes go hot with tears. I should have told him I loved him. I should have led with those words before anything else. I should have started the call with the most important.
The man shuffles us farther into the darkness, nudging me down a strip of concrete studded on either side—a future hallway lined with future rooms. He finds the light switch and flips it on, two more dusty bulbs that cast a buttery yellow glow.
“Yo, Beatrix. We know you’re down here, girlie. Might as well come out from whatever old box you’re hiding behind. I promise you nothing bad will happen. I won’t hurt you, but only if you show your face right now.”
Still nothing. Just a long stretch of strangled silence while I listen for movement above our heads, footsteps or the squeak of a floorboard. Wherever Beatrix is in this house, she’s good and hunkered down.