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“See? Jade agrees. She thinks you’re in the wrong, too. So what do you think she’ll say when she hears about the rest—”
“Sebastian, I don’t—”
“—how I came to you on my knees and with tears in my eyes, begging you to honor the verbal agreement because for my daughter it was a matter of life or death. Do you remember what you said to me then?”
Silence.
Sebastian steps closer, stopping directly under one of the nanny cams nestled in what looks like a fire alarm. He looks at me, but his words are for Cam. “I’m going to need an answer. What did you tell me?”
“I...” A pause. A frustrated groan. “I said it wasn’t my problem.”
“Notit. She. You saidshewasn’t your problem. My daughter, dying in her bed because I couldn’t afford her medicine, was not your problem.”
My stomach turns. Cam’s words hit me hard, and I think I might vomit. I tell myself it’s not true, that Sebastian is stretching the truth. Cam is a man who takes care of his mother. Who passes dollar bills out the window to the homeless people begging at stoplights. Who volunteers at soup kitchens and donates his extra food to the food bank. Not someone who would tell another father—a potential business partner—his sick and dying daughter wasn’t his problem.
With a victorious grin, Sebastian flips his cell around, holds it high in the air like a trophy. “Say it again so everybody hears. Louder, this time.” On either side of the fake fire alarm, twin ceiling fans cast eerie shadows on his mask and clothes, as menacing as any monster.
“I said she wasn’t my problem.”
“Right. Just like how what happens next to your wife and daughter isn’t mine.”
“Please, Sebastian.” Cam’s voice is pleading, thick with fear. “Just...let Jade and Beatrix go, and I will make sure your daughter gets her lungs, I swear to you. I’ll pay for them myself if I have to, and we won’t involve the police. You don’t have to go to jail for this. We can work this out.Please.”
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.”
“Comeon, Sebastian. Iknowyou. 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.