My Darling Husband(15)

Now I recognize that look on her face—the squinty eyes, the puckered mouth—and it terrifies me because I know what it means.

“So you’re one of those, huh?”

Beatrix frowns. Her expression says, One of what? but she’s too proud to say the words out loud. Her left-hand fingers are going nuts, tapping out a silent melody against her thigh—something she does when she’s bored or nervous or uncomfortable.

The man knocks his skull with a knuckle, then leans with both arms onto the counter. “A hard nut to crack.” His arms are crossed at the wrist, the gun held casually in a fist. It jiggles as he talks, and the positioning is purposeful. “Obstinate. Headstrong. Admirable traits when they come in small doses, but beware, young lady. They can also be your downfall.”

I stare at the gun, tracing a line between the muzzle and a freckle just above Beatrix’s left brow. One tweak to the trigger and there’s a hole in my daughter’s head. The thought snags on repeat through my brain and echoes.

If this man shoots my daughter, I will murder him.

“So now I am gonna need an answer. A clear yes or no. I need to know you heard what I was saying just now about rules and boundaries. I need to know that I can count on you to follow them. Can I do that, Beatrix? Can I trust you not to do anything crazy?”

“The phone’s mine,” I say, tensing up on my chair. “Whatever you need to say, leave her out—”

“Shh.” The man punctuates the hiss with a flick of the gun in my direction. The laughing, chummy jokester from a few minutes ago is long gone, discarded like a crumpled napkin. The bastard aims the gun at my daughter’s head, and I brace, half expecting the pop of a gunshot, the gritty smell of gunpowder.

But there’s nothing, only horrible quiet.

I breathe through a flash of scalding panic.

“Answer the question, Beatrix. Can I trust you or not?”

I nudge Beatrix’s chest with my elbow. Give her knee a painful squeeze. The tapping stops, and her fingers freeze, then stiffen on her thigh.

Beatrix, for the love of God. Say yes to the man with the gun. Answer him.

Beatrix’s chest heaves. Her hands ball into tight fists, her silent struggle obvious. This is Beatrix arming for combat. Planting her flag, sticking to her guns. The seconds stretch, swelling with a torturous silence. Even Bax leans across me to prod her with a finger in the arm.

“Beatrix, please,” I whisper. “Please.”

“Yeah.” She frowns at the cheese sticks sweating on the paper towels, the bunches of untouched grapes, and sighs. “You can trust me.” The I guess is silent but unmistakable.

The man straightens. Nods. Eats another grape, and that’s that.

I wilt with relief, even though I know my daughter, and I know she doesn’t mean a single word.



S E B A S T I A N


3:39 p.m.


That Beatrix kid is a trip. Sneaking the phone out of her mama’s bag, slipping it into those ruffly denim shorts. Like I wouldn’t notice the iPhone-sized lump in her pocket, or the way her freckles lit up like stars when she passed the thing to Jade. I’m not blind. I saw her hand move to her mama’s lap, how when it landed, Jade jerked to attention in her chair. I saw every bit of it.

Then her face when I asked if I could trust her. Even with the gun I’ve been waving around like a stick of dynamite, this old Beretta Cougar I dug out of storage especially for today, the kid just sat there. Clamping down on her molars, cussing me out with her eyes, looking for all the world like she’d swallowed her tongue just to spite me. My Gigi used to look at me like that, too, when she was about Beatrix’s age. I looked at her and I saw my daughter’s face and, damn, it was hard to keep mine straight.

But what Beatrix hasn’t quite figured out yet is that stubborn streak of hers? It’s not a strength but a weakness. It makes her predictable. Easy to manipulate, like kid-shaped putty in my hands. These next few hours are going to be a lot of fun pulling that kid’s strings.

“Let’s go.” I direct the words to Jade, but it’s Beatrix I’m looking at, and not just from the corner of my eye. She’s the one I’ll be keeping my eye on.

Jade’s arm tightens around the little guy on her lap. Baxter—what kind of sissy name is that for a boy? Poor kid probably gets the shit beat out of him on the playground. Beatrix, too, though she seems like the nerdy type, an awkward loner who reads a book while all the other kids play. Her gaze sticks to me like a shadow.

Jade frowns. “Go where? Where are we going?”

She looks nothing like she did the first time I met her, at the opening for Cam’s restaurant on the West Side. That night she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine, all glossy hair and glittery makeup and this complicated silver dress that had to cost more than what a normal person pays for a month’s rent. She shook my hand, and even with all the people and the commotion, I heard those diamond bracelets rattling. I remember thinking she’d better be careful on the way to her car. A good $50K on that one arm alone. Prime mugging material.

Now, though, in those workout clothes, I barely recognize her. Her hair is loose and wild around her head, her face bare but for two pink spots high on her cheeks. The jewelry is gone, too—only a watch, a diamond wedding band and a honker of a stud perched on each ear. Worlds apart from that flouncy Barbie I saw hanging from Cam’s arm. Prettier, too. For a fleeting second, I wonder if I misjudged her.