Her message straightens my spine, and I unwind my arm and settle into the seat. Beatrix made signs for the door—which explains the mess on Cam’s desk. The markers, the paper she must have pulled from the printer, the tape she dug out of a drawer. I imagine her hasty scrawl, a quick and efficient SOS taped to the front windows.
Clever, clever girl.
And now she’s suggesting Tanya took them. I try to come up with some other explanation, but I can’t. Tanya is the only person other than us to be in the house this afternoon, and the timing is right. There’s no other possibility.
I have so many questions. Tons of them.
But one word rises to the top like curdled cream: Why?
Why would she march over here with her key, peel the signs from the glass and not say anything about it to me? Why would she spout off some bullshit story about a silent auction and not give me some kind of signal—a wink, a nod or a cocked brow? Why not agree to take Baxter right away when I begged her to; even more, why not volunteer to bring him across the road to safety? Why didn’t she see Beatrix’s SOS and call 9-1-1 right away? Why has no one come to save us? Why, why, why?
And then I think of something else, and the visual of her walking to the door flashes behind my eyes. The way her ponytail swished and the sweater stretched across her hips, how it was hitched up on one side like there was something in her back pocket—which I now know there was.
Beatrix’s signs.
The man turns away from the window, his gaze panning over my daughter and me, and my heart leaps up my throat. He caught us whispering again. My mind races, searching for another bullshit excuse when he looks away.
“Uh-huh,” he says, still frowning into the phone.
I take in the squint of his eyes, the thinning of his lips. Whatever the person on the other end of the line is saying, it’s not good news.
“All we have to do is keep her steady until tomorrow morning,” he says, aiming his frown at me. He gives me his back, turning to the window. “Tomorrow morning we’ll get everybody on board, and then we can finally move forward. Until then, all you’ve got to do is keep her stable.”
Whoever’s on the other end of that call cranks up the volume, yelling loud enough that he peels the phone from his ear. I can’t make out the words, but the voice is female, and her anger, her indignation comes across loud and clear.
“Okay, okay…calm down, will you? You know I didn’t mean it like that. I get that you’re worried, but so am I. I’m just as worried as you are.”
Worry—that is the emotion I spotted on his face, a worry I’m all too familiar with. The kind only another parent can have for his child.
That’s when all the pieces fall together in a perfectly clear line: I was right before; this man is a father. This person he keeps referring to is his daughter. His sick daughter.
I think back to the half of the conversation I overheard in the kitchen downstairs, and it all makes sense. Levels, numbers, all of them worrisome. Cancer? Something deadly, certainly.
So the money is for what—an operation? A life-saving treatment? It’s possible he doesn’t have insurance, or maybe it’s just that his insurance won’t pay because it’s a last-ditch effort, an expensive Hail Mary pass her doctors won’t sign off on.
But still.
What kind of parent would value his sick daughter’s life over the lives of my two healthy children? Who would hold a family hostage, threatening them with words and blows and a waved-around gun, in order to pry money out of their father? He thrust a loaded gun in our faces. He used it to pistol-whip me hard enough to crack a bone. Yes, I realize this man is desperate, but desperate enough to trade three, maybe four lives to save his ailing daughter’s? What kind of monster would do that?
He turns away from the window, his gaze landing on mine. “I’ve got to go. Cam’s on his way, and I need to get everyone ready.”
C A M
6:30 p.m.
I’m doing seventy up a residential street when it comes to me in a flash: the playroom.
Twice now I’ve talked to Jade, and twice she tried to trip my memory. She worked it into every conversation, multiple times. Playroom playroom playroom. But I was too busy spiraling in my own panic, my brain too distracted to catch her meaning.
I slam the brakes and yank on the wheel, careening the truck over some poor sucker’s freshly mowed lawn. The tires skid sideways across the soft ground, grass and gravel pinging against the side of the cab.
A hank of grease-slick hair escapes from Nick’s man bun, and he yelps, grabbing on to the roof handle. His shoulder slams into the window. “What happened? Did you hit a dog or something?”