Page 23

Still, I look around the room for something I could use, taking in the furniture and decor—the rosewood and brass bed, the matching nightstands, the Herman Miller dresser, all of them impractical. The closet is empty, nothing but plastic hangers and a flimsy wicker hamper, and there’s nothing useful under the bathroom sink. I consider the bedside lamps, two complicated things of metal and glass anchored to the wall. A third lamp, a floor model, weighs practically nothing.
The vase, a couple of books, a vintage lucite bowl, a flawless Ritts from the sixties. A little bulky, maybe, but solid enough to bash in somebody’s head. I just need to get to it first.
I struggle against the rope, but the damn thing only pulls tighter.
Beatrix’s face. Oh my God, her face when that man tied me up. While Baxter chattered away about some stuffed gorilla he wanted to fetch from his room and the Xbox game Santa gave him for Christmas, Beatrix stared at the back of the man’s head and said nothing. Empty eyes. Slack jaw. The kind of expression she gets from watching too much TV, or on a car ride that’s taking too long. No fear. No fury. Just...nothing. Her face was like a dead zone. When this is over, she’s going to need a lot of therapy.
Assuming we survive.
I shove the thought aside before it can turn into a sob, force myself to think about Baxter. At least he’s doing okay. I hear his singsong voice floating on the air, no longer scared. He’s too young to understand how dangerous things are, how the man is manipulating both kids in order to manipulateme. That bullshit marshmallow trick with Baxter, the begrudging admission he pried from Beatrix—those stunts were a message to me.
See?he might as well have said.I control your kids, which means I control you.
That’s the kind of psycho I’m up against.
With all my might, I heave my body backward in the chair, then lurch my weight forward, but nothing happens. The legs don’t lift from the floor. The chair doesn’t so much as wobble. I remember the first time I sat in the thing, one sunny afternoon in the Jonathan Adler showroom. I loved the weight of it, the sturdiness, the way the horizontal brass bars at the base of the legs kept the chair stable, and always flush to the ground. Now the damn thing doesn’t even budge.
And honestly, even if I managed to tip it, then what? The legs aren’t legs but connected brass bars, a closed square holding up either side of the chair. Even if I were able to wriggle the rope down the legs, I can’t just slip it off the feet and be free. I could maybe tip this thing, but then what—crab-run down the stairs with a forty-pound chair on my back? I won’t make it very far, and I’d never leave my kids.
Shit.
Shit.
He knows this, of course. He knows as long as he stays with my kids, then I’m going nowhere—not without coming for them first. He knows if I did somehow escape, I’d come straight to them, which means he’ll be ready for me. I picture him sitting in a chair facing the door, tapping the gun on his knee. Waiting.
But why? For what? What does this man want from me?
Laughter comes from the other room, and my stomach roils in an oily wave. This is torture. He’storturingme. SpongeBob’s voice bursts from the speakers. Is he tying them up? Turning up the volume so I won’t hear their screams?
I stare at the doorway across the hall and my hands shake with terror. Withrage.
What is happening?
I have no idea, because I am tied to a goddamn chair.
I am struggling against the ropes when I hear footsteps—big ones, coming my way. Rubber soles slapping the hardwood, the feet carrying them too big, far too heavy to belong to one of the kids.
I stare at the door, the breath going solid in my lungs. From across the hall, the TV blares sounds fromThe Loud House, thumping the air in thundering bursts. I’ve always hated that show.
He comes around the corner, a slouchy black shadow palming a gun. He sees me and stops in the doorway, feigning surprise. “There you are. The kids and I have been looking all over for you.”
I scream into the tape, “Let me go!” It comes out as a long, frantic squeal that ignites the back of my throat.
He steps into the room, his sneakers swishing on the vintage Moroccan shag, and settles the gun atop the dresser on the far wall. “So...how you been? What have you been up to? Been keeping yourself busy?”
I scream into the duct tape again, the silver strip flexing a bubble that pulls like razors on the skin around my lips. I strain against the rope, the yellow strands cutting into my sweaty skin, marring ditches into the velvet armrests.
With his free hand, he cups the lump that is his ear. “Sorry, but I didn’t quite catch that.” His grin inflates, and he laughs again, an exaggerated sound. “It’s called enunciation. You should try it sometime.”
He stands there for a few empty seconds, letting his stupid joke flutter and die. Christ, how I loathe this man.
His gaze darts around the room, taking everything in, pausing on the lamps, the vase, the lucite bowl. I wonder if he’s doing what I did, cataloging them as possible weapons. When he looks back at me, he’s no longer smiling. “You have a real nice house here. Really nice. Did you do all this yourself, or did you use a decorator?”
Even if I could respond to that, I wouldn’t. There’s no way I’m going to explain myself to this man. How I’ve forgotten my mother’s smile but I remember every detail of the flouncy curtains she spent months cutting and stitching, or the way she would fill the house with flowers and branches she cut from the yard. I’m enough of an armchair psychologist to understand the reasons I’ve spent my life since surrounding myself with pretty things, or why I gave up a career that fed the hole in my soul to spend more time with the kids. This man doesn’t deserve to know that about me.
Plus, if I’m right, if it’s money this guy is after, there’s no good answer to his question. Yes, I used a designer—me. And while I didn’t pay a design fee, I also didn’t pinch pennies. Every inch of this place bears my fingerprint. This house, these carpets and tables and meticulously sourced decor, it’s some of my finest work.
So instead I sit quietly, taking in his eyes, hazel and almond shaped, the way they droop down at the outside corners. They’re frighteningly familiar but in the same way a Labrador retriever is, or a pink-edged tulip. Seen one? Seen them all.