“Keep me posted, will you? I want an update every fifteen minutes or so. I agree it’s worrisome, but she’s done this before, remember? Just hang in there a little longer. We can’t pull the plug on this thing, not even as a last resort. This is our last resort, remember?”
I stare at the counter, processing everything I just heard. So far he hasn’t said the first word about money—unless that was what he meant with the numbers he mentioned. Maybe post payment, he will take the cash and return to his lists and levels and whatever else this one-sided conversation has been about and disappear from our lives forever. I imagine Beatrix crawling out of her hiding place and rushing into my arms, the two of us racing across the street for Baxter. The police wrapping us in silver foil blankets and peppering me with questions while I hug my children and cry joyful, relieved tears. Maybe this day can have a happy ending.
“I know, which is why I’ve got to find this kid and get everybody back upstairs, pronto. Text me in fifteen, okay? And hang in there. In another hour this will all be over.”
At his words, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle with awareness. It’s that feeling you get right before the phone rings with bad news, that out-of-the-blue premonition two seconds before your tires hit the patch of black ice. I look up and his gaze meets mine, and that’s when I know. Every last bit of hope I allowed myself to feel drains away like muddy rainwater.
What he means is, this will all be over for us.
J A D E
6:17 p.m.
He slides his cell into the cargo pocket of his pants, his voice jolting me back into the moment. “All right, Jade. No more fooling around. Where’s the kid?”
Curled into a ball in some cabinet, wedged between the boxes downstairs, pressed flat between a piece of furniture and a wall. Or maybe sitting on a chair at a neighbor’s house, a cup of something hot and sweet in her hands and a blanket draped over her shoulders, recounting her harrowing tale to the police so a sniper can train their gun through a window and shoot this masked-man in his face. Yes, let’s pray it’s the last one.
He drops his head back and howls at the ceiling: “Beatriiiiiiiix.” All hard consonants and dragged-out vowels, fueled by fury. If Cam or I called for Beatrix that way, she’d pee her pants.
I stare with wide eyes at the man, the way his fingers are creeping across the marble toward the gun. Tension buzzes in the air like static, and I hold my breath, but I don’t dare look away.
I listen for movement, the patter of footsteps or the creak of a door, but there’s nothing. No sounds, other than cool air blowing through the vents.
“Where is she?”
I drop the towel filled with ice in the sink. Screw this guy. Screw his apology ice pack.
“I don’t know.”
“Jade. I am not joking here. We’re running out of time.” He slides the gun from the counter, one smooth move from the marble to his glove to my face. There’s a good ten feet between the bullet and my skull and the space is dwindling.
Time for what?
I stare down the muzzle of the gun, and my chest swells and stills.
He aims at a spot directly between my eyes. “Let’s try this again. Where. Is. Beatrix?”
I hold up both hands—a sign of defeat, a useless shield—and squeeze my eyes tight. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Please don’t shoot.”
Something cool presses against my forehead, the hard metal pressing into my skin.
“Beatrix!” His shout is a loud roar.
I flinch hard enough to fall off my chair. The movement and the terror are messing with my equilibrium, and the world turns upside down. I open my eyes, just a slit, enough to catch my balance. The gun is still there, pressed against my forehead, but the man has his head turned, screaming over his shoulder into the living room and beyond.
“You get your sneaky little butt out here right now, missy, otherwise I’m putting a bullet in your mother’s skull. You have ten seconds to decide, not a second more, so you better get here fast.”
He pauses to listen, but there’s nothing but dead air and the sound of light panting—mine.
“Ten…nine…eight.”
I think of Baxter across the street, how I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I think of Beatrix having to live with the knowledge she got her mother killed. I think of Cam, and the older version of him I’ll never get to see.
Please, God, please let Beatrix be miles and miles away by now.
The pressure on my forehead releases, leaving behind a dull, empty throbbing. I open my eyes and he’s walking away, that angry gash already drying up on his back. He stops at the doorway to the living room and shouts into the house.