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Sebastian holds the animal in front of his face. “Hey there, gorilla. You got any nanny cams in that big fat belly of yours?” He gives it a good shake, then tosses it to the floor.
I stare at Gibson, wedged between the table and the carpet by my feet, and try to breathe.
Sebastian steps to the center of the room, rotating in a slow circle. “Though, if I were going to install nanny cams in my house, I sure as heck wouldn’t put them in something as cliché as a stuffed animal. I’d be a little more creative, maybe hide them in a plant—” he steps to the coffee table and rifles through the fern directly in front of me, shrugging when he finds nothing but fronds and dirt “—or a picture frame. Books. You’ve got a bunch of books over there on the shelves. Any of them contain cameras you forgot to tell me about?”
I shake my head, but I’m not very convincing. The strips of tape dangling from the console, the insistence I move to the far chair. He’s all but forgotten that plan now, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. That this is all an act.
It’s certainly possible he’s seen the nanny cams on my phone. He’s had plenty of time to look, moments when I was tied to the blue chair and wouldn’t have seen him nosing through my phone.This is a test, he said the first time he asked me about the cameras. This could be one big ruse to watch me paint myself in a corner.
One by one, he inspects the possibilities in the room. He runs a gloved finger down the book spines, bends to study the bowls and vases on the console, pulls the paintings away from the walls and peers behind the frames. He takes his time, moving around the room so slowly, so leisurely, I begin to think he’s running down the clock, dragging the drama out on purpose.
He parks his feet in front of the shelves, standing dangerously close to where two cameras are hidden—one in a speaker high on the wall and the other in the ugly mantel clock. Above my head, about five feet to my left, the third camera provides a birds-eye view from what looks exactly like a fire alarm.
Nobody will ever know the difference, the installer assured me as he screwed it into the plaster.Not unless they sell fire alarms for a living.
Now Sebastian extends a long finger at the ceiling, and my heart stops. “What about that thing?” He points to the motion sensor, its light flickering red in a corner of the ceiling.
It takes me a second or two to find my voice. “Just another Santa cam.”
He grins. “Maybe that’s where Cam got his information, then. What do you think, Beatrix? Does your dad have a hotline to Santa?”
Beatrix doesn’t respond.
The second he turns back to the shelves, I decide, is the best time to strike, and with the marble bust. The gun is too far but the bust is right there, on the table between us, and it’s plenty heavy, the base square and sharp enough to crack a skull. A good whack would take any man down, but there’s ten feet, maybe less, between us. I’d have to be fast, my attack stealthy and silent. I don’t know if I can clear the space fast enough.
“You know, if I were going to hide a nanny cam in this room, I’d put it in something nobody ever really notices. One of the ceiling speakers, for example.” He tips his head and studies them, his gaze bouncing between the four mesh circles flush to the plaster. “Those look legit. If there’s a camera in there, all I gotta say is bravo. That fire alarm, however...”
He comes closer, climbing up on the coffee table to get a better look.
My blood runs cold, an icy chill that starts at the back of my neck and creeps down my back like an invisible finger.
Sebastian reaches up, knocks the alarm with a gloved knuckle. “There are better models on the market, you know. This one looks cheap, and you know what’s weird? It doesn’t match any of the others you’ve got in the house. The one out in the hallway, for example, is a whole different brand. How do you explain that?”
He knows.
The words boom in my head like from a megaphone, loud and terrifying. This little tour around the room, the battle between the chairs...it’s all part of his evil game. I was delusional to think he wouldn’t know about the cameras. Maybe he’s known about them all along.
How many more minutes until Cam gets here—Ten? Eight? An eternity, when every second feels volatile.
“And why ten past five?” he says, gesturing to the dummy clock. He hops off the table and crosses the room to the shelves, comparing the time to a cheap watch underneath a sleeve. The time is off by almost two hours. “Why not ten past three, or four, or six? Why five?”
Because it’s the no-snack zone. It’s what I told the installer when he asked the same thing. A time of day the kids know not to bother me for a rumbling belly. The answer will always be no.
I say nothing.
“Hey, you know what else is weird? When the kids and I were watching cartoons earlier, I noticed one of the wall speakers wasn’t working.” He points with a long arm. “Must have a short or something.”
My whole body is shaking now, and I am thinking through my next move. Sebastian is far enough away, his back half turned. I could probably make it to the hall, but not without Beatrix, and I would never leave her here. My only move, the only thing I can come up with, is one of defense—to drape my body over hers, sacrifice myself by covering her body with mine, taking her bullet.
Sebastian’s grin is slow and sinister, like he read my mind. “Such a shame. I thought you were smarter than this.”
Are we still talking about the cameras? The kids? Cam? I have no idea, and I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to. This whole conversation feels staged, another one of his sneaky attempts to control and manipulate. These threats he’s lobbing, they’re vague on purpose. Meant to throw me off.
And it’s working.
My cheeks are hot, burning like smoldering coals.
“We’ve met, you know. More than once.”