My Darling Husband(55)
“You’re gambling with your life here, Jade. With your children’s lives. If you want tonight to have a happy ending, I suggest you stop playing around and lock the damn door.”
With one last hopeful gaze up the empty street, I steel myself to what happens next. No more waiting on the cops or some heroic neighbor. No more waiting for Cam to save us. Now is my chance. I’m not about to miss.
I fill my lungs with air and courage, then flip the dead bolt.
J A D E
5:50 p.m.
I turn away from the door and I don’t break stride. I take the long way across the foyer tiles, making an arc around the entryway table so I can pick up some speed, gain some momentum. This man is bigger and stronger than me, but if I come on hard and fast, maybe I can take him by surprise.
I’m going to have to surprise him.
At the edge of the foyer, I pivot, turning my torso so the thin slice of steel I wriggled out of my right sleeve is concealed. I feel the weight of the screwdriver in my fist, the hard solidness of the butt my thumb is wrapped around.
One shot. That’s all I get. One risky, raging shot. Better make it count.
“Who’s Ruby?” He leans against the short slice of wall at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me. The gun dangles in a hand, his other wrapped around my iPhone. He holds it up, wags it in the air by his face. “Who is she, and why does she hate you so much?”
I probably shouldn’t be as insulted as I am. I blink, force myself to shake it off. “Ruby doesn’t hate me.”
He flips the phone around, giving me a flash of what he’s looking at—the long string of message bubbles from my bossy older sister. Ruby likes to dominate every conversation. “Who is she?”
“Ruby is my sister. And she doesn’t hate me.”
“Well, she doesn’t like you very much, that’s for sure.” He drops his head and reads from the screen, raising his voice a good octave. “‘I know you’re so so busy going to book clubs and managing your house staff and all, but stop being such a dick. Last time I checked, I was the single mom with the full-time job, not you, so stop with this princess bullshit and do your part for Dad’s party.’” He looks up with a half grin. “She sounds nice.”
Nobody has ever accused Ruby of being nice, least of all me, but now it’s like all those times when we were kids, when my friends would laugh at her Goodwill fashion finds or her latest Miss Clairol disaster—currently spiky maroon. I have an inexplicable urge to defend my older sister.
As if she knows we’re talking about her, another message dings my phone.
He glances at the screen. “She says you better have ordered the damn decorations. What should I tell her, Jade? Did you order the damn decorations?”
The decorations were the source of our latest vicious battle, after I told her to burn the black and gold monstrosities she bought from the dollar store. When the cashier refused to give her a refund, she sent me a Venmo request for twenty-seven dollars. I sent her fifty dollars and three fire emojis, just to piss her off.
My decorations, a dozen classy chalkboard signs and glass bottle garlands I plan to fill with fresh flowers and string with miles of twinkle lights around every tree in Dad’s backyard, are downstairs in the basement we just walked through, in one of those big boxes gathering dust.
“Tell her that she was supposed to order the decorations. Not me.”
One brow disappears behind the mask. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s going to like that.”
He’s not wrong. When Ruby gets that message, she’s going to lose her mind. But hopefully, once she stops screaming at the phone, once she calms down long enough to think, she’ll realize something’s not right.
“Let me ask you this, what if it was Baxter and Beatrix acting this way? Cussing at each other over text message, egging each other on just for spite? You only get one family, you know. All it takes is for one of you to switch things up and say you’re sorry, to change your behavior. My mama used to always tell me, you can’t change your sister, but you can change the way you respond to her.”
His sudden wisdom takes me by surprise, and though I don’t necessarily disagree, this is no time for a lecture. Not when it’s coming from an armed man in a ski mask, and definitely not when I’m clutching a screwdriver behind my back, silently debating the most vulnerable spot to sink it in.
His neck.
If I’m lucky the metal tip will slice right through his jugular.
I edge closer. “Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that we agreed she would do the decorations, and that I would handle the catering.”
He shakes his head. “You’re awfully stubborn. Has anybody ever told you that?”
I hold my breath. Wait.
The moment turns sharp, measured.
The instant his attention drops to the phone, one word whispers through my brain.
Now.
I body-slam him from the side, sending him stumbling toward the stairs. The phone flies out of his hand and goes spinning down the hall, bouncing off the floorboards like a pinball. His other hand, the one holding the gun, flails for balance.
Look where you’re aiming, Cam is always coaching the Bees. Never close your eyes to the ball. My ball is that spot at the base of his neck, a velvety patch just above his collar where the skin is marshmallow soft. I glue my gaze there, order my hand to strike there.