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It’s bullshit, of course. But moving down the line of suitcases has me edging closer and closer to Cam’s workbench, taking stock of the tools hanging from a pressed-wood pegboard, assessing which would make the most deadly weapon. A box cutter, a lug wrench, a drill bit, a big, fat, sharp nail. Anything I can wound him with, maybe sink into an eye socket.
“You’re not supposed to stomp on those things, you know.” He’s put even more space between us now, a good ten feet at least. “Their eggs squirt all over the soles of your shoes and then you drag them all through the house. A couple of days from now, you’ll have a hundred baby cockroaches.”
I look over my shoulder, but in my head I’m running through the logistics. One more step toward the stairs and he’ll lose sight of my right arm. One more suitcase and I’ll be standing in reach of the workbench.
“I’m pretty sure that’s an old wives’ tale,” I say, creeping closer to the bench. “And it’s too late anyway. My Terminix guy told me by the time I see one roach, there are a million more crawling around behind the walls.” It’s why I pay him to spray the shit out of this place every other month, so wedon’thave bugs. I shove a box away from the wall and stomp on the empty floor. “Bax, go get the broom, will you? I think I saw it at the bottom of the stairs.”
Baxter shakes his head. His feet stay rooted to the floor, his gaze to the spot where I just stomped on empty air.
The man doesn’t move, either. “What? Why?”
I whirl around, positioning myself one more step to the right. Two feet, no more, the line of tools within arm’s reach. I pick my target in my periphery, a blue-handled screwdriver at the end of the board, thin and six inches long. One unwatched second, that’s all I need.
“So I can sweep it out before it disappears behind the wall.”
“Just leave it and let’s go. Did you hear that, Beatrix?” He leans his upper body back into the hall, craning his neck to holler into the empty rooms. “We’re going back upstairs, so that leaves just you down here with about a million cockroaches.”
He turns back, rounding us up with his gun and marching us back toward the stairs. Baxter whines for me to carry him again, and I hoist him onto a hip and drag us both up the stairs.
But as we’re coming up to the main level, I tug my right sleeve over my hand and prick the pad of my thumb with the screwdriver, and a thrill travels up my spine. It’s a Phillips-head, the point sharp enough to break the skin.
Bring it on, asshole.
I’m ready.
C A M
5:24 p.m.
I sit in my truck in the bank parking lot, traffic drumming on the other side of the bushes at my bumper, and scroll through the messages on my phone. Missed calls from my mother, a buttload of bills and marketing emails, a flurry of texts from Flavio and a local Housewife hounding me to cater a dinner for the cast and a hundred of their closest friends. I ignore them all, searching for the one I need, but it’s not there.
Ed’s silence cannot be a good sign. It means he couldn’t talk his boss into fronting the funds for my IRA or, at best, that he doesn’t yet have an answer. Either way, I’m screwed.
Jade’s words ring on a constant loop through my head, the way her voice sounded on the phone, how fear turned it high and thin. The sound of it shoots a new jolt of adrenaline through my veins, turning me radioactive. I can’t shake the image of her beaten and bloody and tied to that chair, helpless to stop the bastard from going after the Bees—an image that breaks me.
I run a shaking hand down my face and force myself to focus.
Stick with the plan.
Get the money.
Go get Jade and the Bees.
This mantra is the only thing keeping me sane.
I pull up Ed’s contact card and tap the number for his cell, my leg jiggling against the steering wheel. To my left, a neat line of crepe myrtles flutter under a stiff wind, and I start the car and crank up the heat even though I’m sweating. Panic sweat, the kind that makes you feel cold and slightly nauseous, like you’re coming down with the flu. I gun the gas and the vents spew lukewarm air.
One ring. Two rings. Three. I suck a breath and hold it there, ready to let loose a primal scream if Ed doesn’t pick up.
On the fourth ring, a slurp of garbled static beats through the truck’s speakers, followed by a fumbling of metal against fabric and finally, thankfully, Ed’s voice.
“Hey, Cam. I was just about to give you a call.”
Relief shoots through my veins like a drug, and I settle the phone in the cupholder, then throw the gearshift in Reverse. “Ed, please. For the love of God,pleasetell me you’ve got good news.”
I look over my shoulder and punch the gas, swinging the truck backward into the mostly empty lot. I’ve already thought about the best way to Ed’s office, on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise on the Buckhead loop, already plugged the coordinates into Waze. I screech to a stop and shove the gearshift into Drive, but Ed’s next words freeze my fist around the stick.
“I’ve got some news, yes, but I’m not certain it’s the good news you’re hoping for.”