Sebastian pulls the phone right up to his mouth and shouts, “Too late. Now get your ass home with my money or your kid dies and then your wife dies and you will sit there helpless knowing there’s nothing you could do about it. You won’t be able to stop the people you love from dying, and you’ll have to live the rest of your miserable life knowing their deaths are all your fault. Then you’ll finally understand what you did to me. You’ll feel the pain I felt.”
Beatrix’s face screws into a purple coil, and I scoot closer, wrapping a hand around her ankle.
“I feel your pain now,” Cam says, his voice low, calmer now. He’s holding it together, but just barely. “Just hold on. Don’t do anything you’ll regret. I’ll be there in eighteen minutes, and then I swear to you we’ll fix this. I want to fix this.”
Sebastian checks the time on his cell. “In fifteen they’ll all be dead.”
“Come on, Sebastian. I know you. You may hate me for what I did, but you’re not evil enough to kill innocent people. You’re smart, you’re caring and you’re a great father. No father deserves the kind of worries you’re carrying around, but you’re not that guy. I know you don’t want to do this.”
“Oh yeah?” He steps closer, his eyes flashing when they land on mine. “If you know so much about me, smart guy, then you know I have nothing left to lose.”
J A D E
6:45 p.m.
Fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes until Cam gets here and I can run across the street for Baxter. I don’t think about everything I just heard, about the lawsuit and Cam’s callous dismissal of a girl’s illness, or the fact that Cam said it would be eighteen minutes and in all the years I’ve known him he has never once been on time. And it’s raining again. Atlanta’s rush hour is still in full swing. There are so many possible complications, but I tell myself he will get here on time. I can’t think of what will happen if he’s too late.
The words chant like a mantra through my head.
Fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes.
Sebastian pushes off the windowsill and grabs his backpack off the floor. He shoves a hand in deep and roots around, but not before dumping the gun and both cell phones onto the side table next to Beatrix. I would protest—Too close, what kind of idiot puts a loaded gun within arm’s reach of a child?—if her arms weren’t strapped to the chair.
“All right. Game time. Let’s go.”
I stare at him in horror because I’m pretty sure what’s about to happen. Still, I have to ask, “Go where?”
“On the chair.” He pulls his hand out of the bag and gestures to the recliner at the far end, as far away as possible from Beatrix. “That one.”
I shake my head. “I want to stay next to Beatrix.”
He digs through the bag again, his hand emerging with a fresh roll of duct tape. “This is not up for discussion. I’m not asking you which chair you want to sit in. I’m telling you which one, and it’s the last one.” He drops the bag on the carpet by the side table.
Questions fly through my mind. What’s going to happen once I’m tied down? How do I save my daughter when I’m strapped to a chair? I try to think of some way to frame the questions so Beatrix doesn’t understand, but the idea of being tied down and helpless to protect her has me too panicked to think straight.
Fifteen minutes. It feels like an eternity. There’s no way I can stall for that long.
He finds the edge of the tape and tears off a long strip. It rips off the roll with a harsh clatter.
“Mom—” Beatrix begins, but I stop her with a look.
“Please,” I say to Sebastian. “If you let me stay here, I’ll make sure she stays quiet and does as you say. We both will.”
He shakes his head, and my throat dries up like sandpaper. It’s a setup. Sebastian is a parent, which means he knows the agony I am feeling at the thought of being separated from my child. At being helpless to save her. He has to know what this is doing to me.
Sebastian lifts a brow—a silent Well?—and Cam was wrong about this man. He is not a good guy. Anyone who separates a mother from her child, who ties her to a chair and turns her defenseless is evil. Never, not once ever in my entire life, have I wanted to kill someone like I want to kill this man. He is a monster.
I look at my daughter, silent and strapped to the couch, and her expression makes my stomach hurt. “No. I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”