Page 13

Deny or admit defeat?
I stare across the counter at the man, and I want all of this to be over already. Did he see Beatrix dig the phone out of my purse? Did my body jerk when she slid it onto my lap? My nerves are so sizzled I can’t be certain. The only thing I know for sure is that he saw.
And it’s not like I have much of a choice here. With a shaking hand, I pass the man my phone.
Baxter is still squashed into my side, his face buried in my sweater and his body trying to wriggle closer, but there’s nowhere for him to go. Despite the armrests between us, he’s already more on my chair than his own, his bones pressing into my skin. I haul him onto my lap, and he crumples into my chest with a whimper. My other arm I wrap across Beatrix, a laughably ineffectual shield.
“You’re scaring the children.”
The man offers up a wry smile. “I should hope so. Because this should be a lesson to both of them, that trying to sneak something over on me is not wise. It will get you caught. Better yet, it will get you punished.”
He lets the last word linger while he stares at the back of Baxter’s head, then shifts his attention to Beatrix. The guilty one. Every muscle in my body hardens into concrete. My lungs swell with breath and hold there. If he goes for my family, if he so much as lifts a finger toward either of my children, I will take the blame. I will defend them or die trying. I am ready.
The man taps a rubber-tipped finger to my phone, waking the screen. “What’s the passcode for this thing? And before you ask, yes this is a test. I want to make sure what you told me about your security system is on the up-and-up.”
My back locks up, my mind racing with panicked thoughts. There are all sorts of apps on that phone, and it never occurred to me to disguise the ones I don’t want people to see. That’s what passwords and face recognition are for, to keep what’s on the phone private.
And I’m too damn organized. If I give him the passcode, all he would have to do is flip through the pages to find every app that services this house. The pool controls, outdoor and indoor lighting, Sonos, the thermostats.
The cameras I told him about.
The ones I didn’t.
He sighs and looks at me. “Jade. The password.”
I could lie, but what then? I don’t see any other option than to give it to him. “It’s 2-9-2-1-9-2.”
He ticks it in, and the lock screen dissolves.
My one saving grace—the only one—is that the app for the security system isn’t anywhere near the others.You never know when you might need to get to it lickety-split, Big Jim told me,and this way you won’t have to go huntin’. At his advice, I saved it to my phone’s dock instead.
The man finds the security app in one go, tapping it without asking the name or for me to point out the logo. It is password protected, of course, and he flips the screen around and holds it up to my face. The lock screen dissolves into a bold, red block—armed Stay—with below it, five camera feeds.
“I thought you said there were six.”
“There are.”
He holds up the phone, wags it by his temple so I can see the five tiny squares. A birds-eye view of the front yard, multiple shots of the driveway and terrace, the stepping-stones on the right side flanked with trees shifting in the wind. “Then why’re there only five on this app?”
“Because the Ring is a separate app.”
The only problem—and it’s a big one—is that the Ring app is saved on the third page. If I direct him there, he’ll spot all the other apps, including the one stupidly labeled “iSpy.” Footage from three hidden nanny cams, providing full-color, high-definition, 110-degree views of the playroom upstairs. Undeniable, irrefutable proof that I looked this man in the eyes just now and lied.
“If you swipe down on the screen, you can search for it.”
“I know how to work an iPhone, Jade.”
His sarcasm gets zero reaction from me. I hold my breath and sit stock-still as he drags a finger down the screen, the movement slow and obstinate, like Baxter when I remind him to wash behind his ears. But the man doesn’t go flipping around the pages, doesn’t go searching for the app himself. When he ticks in those four little letters in the search bar, my lungs release in a soft whoosh.
“Why are there so many people on your street? One, two, three, four, five, six—no, seven bodies that I can see. And what the heck are your neighbors doing? How many kids do they have?”
Five, but they live part-time with their dad. I always know when it’s Tanya’s turn because she lets them run off steam in the yard.
I stare at the countertop, silent.
Except for an occasional burst of angry breath, Beatrix is silent, too, the sounds much like the ones she makes whenever Cam or I discipline her. Beatrix’s quick mind rarely needs me to explain things. She understands, as I do, that silence is a weapon of control—our only one in this horror show.
Baxter twists on my lap, blinking his big blue eyes at mine. “But, Mommy, what about the Santa cams?”