Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead(Finlay Donovan #2)(47)

Vero grabbed my arm and jerked me to a stop. “Listen,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to do this.” Georgia’s voice was muted through the bathroom door. “If you hold them hostage, you’re only hurting yourself.”

A muffled cry of distress came from inside the bathroom. I tried the knob, a strangled, terrified sound escaping me when I realized the door was locked.

I reached for the key we kept hidden above the doorframe. Vero dragged me backward and held a finger to her lips. “Your sister is in there,” she whispered.

“So are my children!” I whispered back.

“Georgia’s a trained professional. Whatever’s going on in there, she’s qualified to handle it.”

Zach let loose an angry howl. Vero clapped a hand over my mouth before I could call out to him.

“I’ve heard your list of demands,” my sister said in a carefully measured voice, “and I am prepared to be reasonable. But you need to give me something in return. A show of good faith. That’s all I’m asking.”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t breathe. I pried Vero’s hand from my mouth, dragging in a shuddering gasp. Aimee was in there with my kids. She was holding them hostage. Theresa must have called her and told her we knew about Carl the second we’d left her house. This was all my fault.

Zach whimpered through the door, and my heart ripped to pieces. “We have to go in there,” I whispered.

“What if Aimee panics? She might hurt them.”

“They’re already hurt!” They must have fought her off in the kitchen. They must have run to my room to escape, and she’d trapped them. Cornered them in my bathroom and locked the door.

“Take it easy,” my sister pleaded. “I know you want out of here. I know you’re afraid to give up control of the situation, and I get it. I do. But you need to let them go. Let’s start with one. Just one. Let one of them go, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“It won’t stop bleeding,” Delia cried.

Vero gripped my hand. Her lip trembled.

“It’ll stop soon, Delia. I promise.” There was an undercurrent of tension in my sister’s voice, as if she was barely holding it together. “It’ll be okay. But right now, I need to help your brother.”

Zach cried out. I couldn’t take it anymore. I tore out of Vero’s arms. With shaking hands, I grabbed the key from the top of the doorframe, jabbed it into the lock, and threw open the door, my chest heaving.

Vero slammed into my back as I lurched to a stop. Zach’s cries fell abruptly silent, and three heads turned to look at me.

“Hey,” Georgia said with obvious relief, “I didn’t hear you come home.” My sister sat cross-legged on the floor in front of my toilet, an open bag of fruit snacks in one hand and a single orange gummy held aloft in the other. Zach perched on Delia’s old potty training insert in front of her, red-faced and furious.

“What’s going on in here?” I asked through ragged breaths.

“Potty training,” Georgia said proudly. Zach whined, teetering on the knife-edge of a tantrum as he grabbed for the fruit snack Georgia held out of reach. “Nope. I told you, buddy. This is a negotiation. You don’t get to make any demands until you drop me a deuce.”

“What’s a deuth?” Delia asked.

I followed the red trail on the floor to my bathtub. Delia’s head peeked out from a mountain of pink-stained bubbles. “Look, Mommy!” She flashed me a wide, gap-toothed smile. Her tongue poked through the bloody space where her front teeth used to be. “I loth’d my teeth!”

I sagged, holding myself up against the counter as Vero doubled over laughing behind me.

“What?” My sister scowled at us. “What’s so funny? I read all the potty training blogs. This is how you’re supposed to do it.”

Vero snorted, clutching her chest and rubbing tears from her eyes. She pulled it together long enough to pat me on the shoulder. “I’ll get the carpet cleaner and the Magic Eraser.”

“Where’s Aimee?” I pulled Zach off the potty seat as Vero went off in search of cleaning supplies. He squealed like a pissed-off pig and wriggled out of my arms, waddling out the door after Vero, an angry circle imprinted on his butt.

“You just missed her,” Georgia said. “She got a phone call a few minutes ago. Tore out of here like her hair was on fire. Must have been an emergency.” She rose stiffly to her feet, peering into the empty toilet. With a disappointed shake of her head, she popped the fruit snack in her mouth.

Exhausted and numb, I dropped to my knees beside the bathtub and planted a kiss on Delia’s suds-covered head. “What happened to Delia’s teeth?” I asked my sister.

“She got tired of wiggling them and decided she didn’t want to wait for them to fall out on their own. Aimee was busy making the popcorn. I was up here with Zach. We didn’t see Delia tie her teeth to the pantry door and kick it closed. She nearly gave Aimee a heart attack with all the screaming and the blood. It’s a good thing I was here. I don’t think Aimee could handle the gore.”

An anxious laugh bubbled out of me. I hauled Delia from the bathtub and wrapped her in a towel. “Those teeth weren’t ready to come out, sweetie. Why would you do that? That must have hurt.”