My Darling Husband

by Kimberly Belle

  He’s almost to the living room now. Only a few more steps and he’ll be in full view of anyone who happens to be outside. Runners. Bikers. Neighbors out walking their dog. We live on the edge of a golf course, and this is an active, busy neighborhood.

  Suddenly, he lurches to a stop, parking his soles at the edge of the keeping room. One more step and he’ll be in full view of whoever’s out on the street. If I were closer, I could plant both hands on his chest and shove him there, screaming loud enough to get their attention.

  But I can’t see from where I’m standing. I can’t tell if there’s anyone out there. Probably, but I only get one chance. I can’t waste it until I know for sure.

  Behind the dark fabric of his mask, his lips stretch into a thin line. “I heard you say something about a snack.”

  “You...” I shake my head. Is he playing with me? “You want a snack?”

  “No, the kids want one. Don’t you, kids?” He peers into the footed white fruit bowl perched on the edge of the breakfast bar and fishes out a red apple, holding it up like the evil stepmother. “Beatrix and—what’s the little guy’s name?”

  The bony arm wrapped around my thigh tightens. I don’t want to say my son’s name out loud. I don’t want his name on this monster’s tongue.

  The man waits. His smile disappears. He cocks his head with faux curiosity, and his eye sockets look bruised in the bright lights of the kitchen. I wonder if he’s tired, or maybe sick. I wonder if his health has anything to do with why he’s here, if this is about money or something else.

  He points to Baxter with the gun, a silent threat. “Jade, I just asked you a question.”

  “Baxter.” I push my son behind me, but I’m not exactly the best cover. I’m five foot four on the best of days, and I’m in yoga gear, skintight leggings over legs that have always fallen on the wrong side of skinny. “Please. He’s only six.”

  The man steps closer, his footsteps magnified on the hardwood. We scurry backward into the mudroom until there’s nowhere left for us to go, until we’re pressed between the shoe cubbies and a wall.

  He squats, putting him eye to eye with the kids. “Baxter. Beatrix. That’s some nice names you two got there. Real fancy. Are y’all hungry?”

  The y’all is genuine, as is his slight Southern twang. A detail I file away in my brain for later.

  Both kids shake their heads.

  The man pushes to a stand, gesturing for them to follow. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat.”

  He ambles into the kitchen like it’s his own, stepping to the opposite side of the breakfast bar, heading for the glass-front cabinet with the plates and glasses. He pulls out four plates, then spreads them across the marble-topped island. “How about you, Jade? You look like you could use a sandwich or something.”

  I don’t respond. The kids and I don’t move. We stare at him from the mudroom, our soles superglued to the floor.

  I eye the distance, a good forty feet and a long stretch of marble between us, then glance at the door we just came through, calculating how far I could get with a kid on each hip. Or maybe Beatrix could run on her own. She’d probably be faster than I would be anyway, plodding across the terrace in these flip-flops, Baxter flailing under an arm. We’d never make it to the gate before he chased us down, dragged us back inside and put a bullet in one or all of our brains. And even if I threw the door open and took off, it wouldn’t trip the alarm and alert the cops, not immediately anyway. He’d have a full sixty seconds to tick in the code he just watched me use twice now.

  Better to wait for a chance to escape out one of the other doors—the steel-and-glass ones that lead to the covered patio, or one of the French sets at the front of the house. That way, as soon as our feet hit the outside ground, the alarm will already be wailing.

  The man’s voice pulls me back. “Jade. Not a good idea.”

  I look over to where he’s standing, a plate in one hand and his gun in the other, watching me like he can read my mind. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Acid bubbles up in a fiery wave, like heartburn.

  He leans over the sink and taps the bar, three clacks against the marble with the butt of his gun. He nods at the chairs, four leather-covered stools lined up like sentries on the opposite side. “Don’t just stand there. Make yourselves at home.”

  A joke. A stupid, lame joke. He grins with demented cheer.

  I stare back at him, trying to appear fearless or at least courageous, defiant even though what I really want to do is cry. Big, shuddering sobs are threatening to burst up my throat, and I struggle to swallow them down. Maybe if I shove the kids out the door, I can hold him off long enough for them to get away. Maybe if I grab on to the doorway and plant my feet hard enough, I can turn myself into a human bottleneck. This man may be armed, he may be bigger and so much stronger than me, but I won’t think twice. I would gladly sacrifice myself for my kids.

  He shoots a pointed glance at the stools, nodding harder. “I said, sit. While the kids are eating, you and I can have a little talk.”

  With a shaky breath, I take Beatrix and Baxter by the hands, sweat-slick and sticky, and lead them to the kitchen. Frozen with fright, they just stand there, so I heave them onto the bar stools, first Beatrix, then Bax, and push the chairs flush to the marble so they don’t fall out. I sink onto the one in the middle and fight to control my breathing, to keep my little sips of air from turning into panicked gulps. I grab on to the kids’ armrests and scoot their chairs in close, until the pads of their seats are flush with mine.

  Wait him out.

  At some point he’ll make a mistake, and then I’ll have my chance. The trick is to be ready.

  “So what are y’all in the mood for? Fruit? Carrot sticks dipped in ranch sauce?”

  Beatrix stares at the counter. Baxter buries his face in my bicep, and I wrap my arm around him and press him to my side. The last thing any of us is thinking about is food.

  “Okay, then,” the man says, shrugging. “How ’bout I just surprise you, then?”

  As he moves around my kitchen, opening drawers and poking through cabinets, I note all the details I was too traumatized to take in before. His basic T-shirt, plain and black with no identifying logos or tags, the fabric stretched tight across a big barreled chest. Compared to his torso his arms are thin, the long sleeves loose all the way down to cuffs that bump up against tight-fitting gloves, the kind with rubber fingertips that work on a cellphone screen. His black sneakers are unscuffed, new and fresh out of the box. He pulls a knife from the block by the stove, and I catch a glint of something at his neckline, a flash of a flat golden chain, but it slides back under his shirt before I can see more.

  And most chilling, the back of his head is smooth. No lump of wadded hair under the mask, no pockmarks on his skin by his lips.

  I’m certain now: this is not the same man who was at Beatrix’s music lesson, the same man who’s been following me all over town. The realization slithers through me like an eel, ice-cold and slippery. This is someone different.

  He digs a box from a cabinet and jiggles it in the air. “Cheez-Its. Pretty sure every kid on earth likes these things.”

  He dumps some onto one of the plates and steps around to the other side of the island, choosing a strategic spot between the counter and the fridge. Holding his gun trained on us, he tugs on the handle with his other hand, taking in the contents of the fully stocked fridge with an impressed hum. The labeled shelves and bins, the outward facing jars, the neat stacks of plastic containers filled with sliced vegetables and fruits. A chef’s fridge is a beautiful thing.

  I watch him and I notice everything, committing every detail to memory so that I can recite it later—to the cops, in a courtroom.

  Assuming we survive.

  Either way, this will be all over the news. An armed and masked man, forcing his way into a celebrity chef’s h
ome in a country-club neighborhood. What happens here will go far beyond Atlanta’s nightly newscasts. Reporters all over the country will spend hours reporting on today’s timeline, nitpicking the second-to-second details, amplifying my every move and mistake. My picture and those of the kids will be flashed on every LCD screen across the country. Even if we don’t survive—especially then—people will know our names. They will recognize our faces. The kind of fame no one wishes for.

  He pulls out a packet of string cheese and studies the nutritional information. “If you’re going to eat this crap, you should probably go for the full-fat version. Because this just tastes like salty plastic, but hey. Eight grams of protein, so I guess it’s not all bad.”

  He rips off three portions and tosses them across the kitchen to me. The throw falls short, and they bounce off the edge of the bar and land in the sink with a slap. I leave them there while he washes a bag of green grapes at the far sink.

  Under the marble of the bar overhang, Beatrix’s hand crawls across my lap.

  No, not her hand. Something smooth and cool and hard, and I don’t have to look down to know it’s my iPhone.

  Clever, clever girl.

  I pat her leg in silent praise, then lift the phone from my leg, feeling around on the sides to figure out which way is up.

  “So.” The man shakes the water from the bag of grapes and carries it around the island. “Let’s talk about your security system.”

  Three feet between us at most, separated by a stretch of marble counter. I slide the cell phone down my leg, balancing it on a knee, trying to remember how to call 9-1-1 without using the keypad. Three clicks to one of the side buttons? Four? I try it, three rapid-fire clicks, but I don’t dare to look down because now he’s staring right at me. His squinty eyes pinned on mine, waiting for me to answer. I remind myself to breathe.

  “Hello, earth to Jade. Your security system?”

  I clear my throat. “What about it?”

  “Your pad has a panic button.”

  I nod. The technician, a potbellied man who told me to call him Big Jim, said if I ever pressed it, I had better make sure I meant business because the police would show up with guns blazing. He also said I had to press it for a minimum of three full seconds in order for the silent alarm to activate, and I remember thinking three seconds seemed like an eternity when there’s someone coming at you with a gun.

  Now I’m wishing I’d asked him to install a couple of strategically placed hidden ones—right here under this breakfast bar, for example.

  I duck my head, tucking a hank of hair behind an ear, using the motion to chance a glance at my iPhone screen.

  The screen is completely black. Shit. I waited too long.

  “Where are the other pads? By the front door, I’m guessing, but anywhere else? How many do you have?”

  My head jerks up. “What?”

  He pulls three paper towels from the roll and spreads them across the bar top, dropping on them clusters of grapes, distributing the snacks. When he gets to the cheese sticks, he needs both hands to peel back the plastic, so he places his gun on the island behind him. I stare at the weapon and wonder—could I leap across the marble and get there first? Could I grab the gun with one hand and a knife from the block with another? Cam’s sharpest Nesmuk with the carbon steel blade and handle of petrified bog oak. Could I use it to stab him in the throat?

  The moment passes, and when he finishes, he reaches for the gun. “Come on, Jade, I really need you to focus here. Where in the house are the other alarm pads? And before you answer, I’d advise you to think really long and hard, because if you’re lying, if you accidentally on purpose forget to mention one of the alarm pads, I’m going to find out. And then this little problem will suddenly become a big one.”

  “There’s one in the master bedroom,” I say, my heart sinking. “It’s on this level, down the hallway by the stairs. That’s the pad we use when we come through the front door. It’s the only other one.”

  On Big Jim’s advice, the second pad was installed on the bedroom wall instead of next to the front door, in case we ever needed the panic button in the middle of the night. From here, though, an impossible distance. Across the living room, around a corner, down a hallway, inside the door. A literal obstacle course where I’d have to dodge furniture, swerve around walls. Even if I left my kids here, which I never would, I’d have to hold the panic button down for three eternal seconds. I’d never make it there fast enough.

  “And cameras?”

  My heart gives a hard kick. “What about them?”

  He puffs a put-upon sigh, rolls his eyes. “Stop making this so hard. How many are there? Where are they located?”

  With shaking fingers I try my phone again. Three rapid clicks of a side button while looking this man in the eye. I make sure to look him straight in the eye.

  “We have six, all outside. Two on the front, one on each side and two on the back.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I nod. My heart is booming so hard I’m surprised he can’t hear.

  He frowns, watching me through squinted eyes. “No indoor cameras in a fancy place like this? I find that a little hard to believe. You sure you don’t have a secret camera somewhere, keeping an eye on the jewelry box in your closet maybe, or tucked behind a plant on a shelf upstairs?”

  My gut muscles clench. My ears ring with building pressure. “I’m sure.”

  He cocks his head, his lips pursing in thought. “Then prove it.” He stretches a long arm across the bar. “Show me the footage.”

  Dread throbs and expands in my veins. It’s like those last, breathless seconds right before your car slams into a tree. The squeal of locked-down tires, the tug of momentum, the sickening flash of understanding that there’s no stopping disaster.

  He snaps his fingers, a muffled slap of gloved skin hitting fabric on his outstretched hand. “Come on, Jade. A system like yours will have an app on your phone. Show it to me.”

  Beatrix jerks on the chair next to me, a quiet seizure of fear.

  And this is where I know I’m in trouble. Beyond the gun and the alarm and the unreachable panic buttons, there’s something deeply unsettling about the way this man is constantly one step ahead of me. This whole time we’ve been inside, while he was pointing us to our chairs and gathering up our snacks, his eyes have been alert. His mouth and hands were moving while his eyes watched. Scanning the room and our faces, coolly assessing our every move.

  This is what I’m up against.

  “Give me the phone, Jade, and no one gets hurt.”

  J A D E

  3:34 p.m.

  Deny or admit defeat?

  I stare across the counter at the man, and I want all of this to be over already. Did he see Beatrix dig the phone out of my purse? Did my body jerk when she slid it onto my lap? My nerves are so sizzled I can’t be certain. The only thing I know for sure is that he saw.

  And it’s not like I have much of a choice here. With a shaking hand, I pass the man my phone.

  Baxter is still squashed into my side, his face buried in my sweater and his body trying to wriggle closer, but there’s nowhere for him to go. Despite the armrests between us, he’s already more on my chair than his own, his bones pressing into my skin. I haul him onto my lap, and he crumples into my chest with a whimper. My other arm I wrap across Beatrix, a laughably ineffectual shield.

  “You’re scaring the children.”

  The man offers up a wry smile. “I should hope so. Because this should be a lesson to both of them, that trying to sneak something over on me is not wise. It will get you caught. Better yet, it will get you punished.”

  He lets the last word linger while he stares at the back of Baxter’s head, then shifts his attention to Beatrix. The guilty one. Every muscle in my body hardens into concrete. My lungs swell with breath and hold there
. If he goes for my family, if he so much as lifts a finger toward either of my children, I will take the blame. I will defend them or die trying. I am ready.

  The man taps a rubber-tipped finger to my phone, waking the screen. “What’s the passcode for this thing? And before you ask, yes this is a test. I want to make sure what you told me about your security system is on the up-and-up.”

  My back locks up, my mind racing with panicked thoughts. There are all sorts of apps on that phone, and it never occurred to me to disguise the ones I don’t want people to see. That’s what passwords and face recognition are for, to keep what’s on the phone private.

  And I’m too damn organized. If I give him the passcode, all he would have to do is flip through the pages to find every app that services this house. The pool controls, outdoor and indoor lighting, Sonos, the thermostats.

  The cameras I told him about.

  The ones I didn’t.

  He sighs and looks at me. “Jade. The password.”

  I could lie, but what then? I don’t see any other option than to give it to him. “It’s 2-9-2-1-9-2.”

  He ticks it in, and the lock screen dissolves.

  My one saving grace—the only one—is that the app for the security system isn’t anywhere near the others. You never know when you might need to get to it lickety-split, Big Jim told me, and this way you won’t have to go huntin’. At his advice, I saved it to my phone’s dock instead.

  The man finds the security app in one go, tapping it without asking the name or for me to point out the logo. It is password protected, of course, and he flips the screen around and holds it up to my face. The lock screen dissolves into a bold, red block—armed Stay—with below it, five camera feeds.

  “I thought you said there were six.”

  “There are.”

  He holds up the phone, wags it by his temple so I can see the five tiny squares. A birds-eye view of the front yard, multiple shots of the driveway and terrace, the stepping-stones on the right side flanked with trees shifting in the wind. “Then why’re there only five on this app?”