Page 54

Light. Casual. An Oscar-worthy performance, and it’s the polite thing to do, though I don’t have time to think through a game plan, and I definitely don’t want to consider the consequences. In my periphery, the man moves closer, the muzzle almost to the edge of the wall. The gesture is a warning, a promise of coming punishment.
Tanya shakes her head. “Thanks, but I can’t stay. I just ran over to—”
“Are you sure?” I flash her my most gracious smile, and then I do it. I step forward, shifting my body to the other side of the wall, putting me officially out of shooting range. “I’ve got a bottle of that Sancerre you like so much in the fridge.”
Last time she was here, she drank almost the whole thing by herself.
Her gaze wanders in the direction of the front door, where she has a view of her house across the street. “I’d love to, hon, but another time, okay? When I left there were seven kids jacked up on Sour Patch and Coca-Cola, and I gotta go wrangle those rascals off my chandeliers before they burn the place to the ground.”
Don’t leave.Take us with you. The words scream through my head, and then I think of my Beatrix, curled up somewhere in this house, and my skin goes slippery with fear. I can’t leave, not withoutbothmy kids.
But Baxter can. He can leave. If I can somehow get Tanya to take Baxter with her, to take him by the hand and lead him to safety across the street, he’ll have told her about the masked man who tied his mother to a chair before they step through her front door. I’m surprised he hasn’t already.
Probably because he was too focused on getting his hands on his big sister’s karaoke machine—in this house, it’s the root of the most vicious of sibling battles. Beatrix doesn’t allow her brother to touch so much as a dial, and now Bax is going to town with the disco lights. If that doesn’t smoke Beatrix out of her hole, nothing will.
Tanya is still talking. “...over the weekend sometime and we’ll do a walk-through of my house. I have a couple of rooms that could use some rearranging. I can get my cousin to come over and take some pictures. He’s not a professional photographer, but he’s pretty decent.”
Shit. She’s wrapping up. Adrenaline zings through my veins, and I blurt the first thing I can think of.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, and it sounds real—those old acting skills again, and this time they’re more convincing.
Her eyebrows shoot to the ceiling. “Oh my God, what?”
“I just realized I forgot to take Beatrix to her dentist’s appointment, and now we’re about to be late.”
“Now? I don’t know of any dentist in town who works past five.”
“This one’s open until six thirty.”
Beyond her in the den, Baxter’s figured out how to turn on the mic. Heavy breathing punctuated with an occasional and serious“testing testing one two three,”syrupy with synthetic echo.
Tanya waves her hand in a “who cares” gesture. “Don’t worry about it, then. They’re probably hours behind by now, which means you’ve got a good thirty, forty minutes of leeway.”
“Still. Would you mind taking Baxter for a bit? You know how Beatrix can be such a handful, and she’s terrified of the dentist. I promise I’ll swing by to get him as soon as we’re back. Shouldn’t take longer than an hour or so.”
Tanya checks her watch and pulls a face. “Oh, sweetie, I would, but I’ve already got two extra kids in the house and you know what those Montgomery twins are like. They—”
“Please.” My voice cracks on the word, and I force myself to slow down, to calm down. “Please, Tanya. You’d really be helping me out.”
“Oh... I don’t know. It’s really not the greatest time, and I haven’t even started on dinner.”
“I’ll return the favor anytime. Any weekend night you want. You can go out with the girls.”
Still, she looks undecided, so I latch on to her arm, all five fingers locking on to her wrist. My upper body pitches forward, leaning into Tanya’s personal space for a change, getting right up in her face.
Help.
I mouth the word, and just in case, I dart my eyes in the direction of the man and his gun concealed behind the wall, clamping down hard on her wrist. Her face twists in pain, in confusion.
“Sweetie, are you okay?”
When I don’t respond, Tanya frowns, her gaze sinking to my lips. I carve them around the word again:Help.
Three breathless seconds pass while she holds my gaze, three seconds while my heart booms so hard in my temples I wonder if I’m having a stroke. Tanya pats my hand, peels my fingers one by one away from her arm and stares with wide eyes into mine. “Hey, Bax?” She yells it without turning her head.
My knees go slushy, my eyes wet with relief. She’s going to take Baxter out of harm’s way, which means if I survive this shit show, I will have a lifetime supply of flowers and Sancerre delivered to her doorstep. I will kiss her on those coral lips and bow down to worship her pedicured feet. I will take out a full-page ad in theAJCtelling everyone in Atlanta and beyond how she saved Baxter’s life by whisking him out of the danger zone and carting him across the street to safety.
He pokes his head around the corner, the microphone in a fist. “Yeah?”