My Darling Husband

by Kimberly Belle

  “Now? I don’t know of any dentist in town who works past five.”

  “This one’s open until six thirty.”

  Beyond her in the den, Baxter’s figured out how to turn on the mic. Heavy breathing punctuated with an occasional and serious “testing testing one two three,” syrupy with synthetic echo.

  Tanya waves her hand in a “who cares” gesture. “Don’t worry about it, then. They’re probably hours behind by now, which means you’ve got a good thirty, forty minutes of leeway.”

  “Still. Would you mind taking Baxter for a bit? You know how Beatrix can be such a handful, and she’s terrified of the dentist. I promise I’ll swing by to get him as soon as we’re back. Shouldn’t take longer than an hour or so.”

  Tanya checks her watch and pulls a face. “Oh, sweetie, I would, but I’ve already got two extra kids in the house and you know what those Montgomery twins are like. They—”

  “Please.” My voice cracks on the word, and I force myself to slow down, to calm down. “Please, Tanya. You’d really be helping me out.”

  “Oh... I don’t know. It’s really not the greatest time, and I haven’t even started on dinner.”

  “I’ll return the favor anytime. Any weekend night you want. You can go out with the girls.”

  Still, she looks undecided, so I latch on to her arm, all five fingers locking on to her wrist. My upper body pitches forward, leaning into Tanya’s personal space for a change, getting right up in her face.

  Help.

  I mouth the word, and just in case, I dart my eyes in the direction of the man and his gun concealed behind the wall, clamping down hard on her wrist. Her face twists in pain, in confusion.

  “Sweetie, are you okay?”

  When I don’t respond, Tanya frowns, her gaze sinking to my lips. I carve them around the word again: Help.

  Three breathless seconds pass while she holds my gaze, three seconds while my heart booms so hard in my temples I wonder if I’m having a stroke. Tanya pats my hand, peels my fingers one by one away from her arm and stares with wide eyes into mine. “Hey, Bax?” She yells it without turning her head.

  My knees go slushy, my eyes wet with relief. She’s going to take Baxter out of harm’s way, which means if I survive this shit show, I will have a lifetime supply of flowers and Sancerre delivered to her doorstep. I will kiss her on those coral lips and bow down to worship her pedicured feet. I will take out a full-page ad in the AJC telling everyone in Atlanta and beyond how she saved Baxter’s life by whisking him out of the danger zone and carting him across the street to safety.

  He pokes his head around the corner, the microphone in a fist. “Yeah?”

  Tanya turns to him with a held-out hand. “I was thinking about pizza for dinner. How does that sound?”

  Bax looks at me for confirmation, and I nod. Pizza is his favorite, and normally it wouldn’t take him long to decide. Now, though, he stands there, uncertain.

  “What about my shoes?” He looks down at his bare feet, sticking out from the Batman pajamas.

  “You don’t need ’em,” Tanya says, coaxing him with a smile. “I already told the kids we’re eating in.”

  Baxter frowns, his gaze bouncing between us, and I pray he doesn’t say anything about the man hidden behind the wall. I pray he goes back to ignoring the man with the gun, to playacting like this is an ordinary afternoon, and we’re not being held captive in our own house. On the way down the driveway, he can tell Tanya all about the masked man, just not now. Not yet.

  Baxter shrugs, tosses the mic to the couch. “I guess.”

  Now that she’s caved, Tanya seems anxious to get across the road. She plucks Baxter’s hand from the air and drags him toward the door. “Okay, well, call us on your way home, and clean up that glass before somebody gets hurt.”

  I try to think of what to say—Take care of my baby, wait, don’t go—but come up empty. Instead, I stare at their retreating backs, the way her shirt is gathered around her hips, how it’s snagged up on one side by something in her back pocket.

  At the door, Baxter turns to wave, and I blow him a kiss.

  “And thanks again for helping out with the auction, Jade. You and I are going to raise so much money for my sweet niece. I’ll see you when you get back.” She turns to holler over her shoulder, “Good luck at the dentist’s, Beatrix.”

  And then, just like that, the door swishes shut, closing with a sharp click.

  I take a shaky step into the living room, just far enough to watch Tanya lead my son down the hill, and tears sting my eyes, but I manage to hold my shit together because Baxter is safe and Beatrix is hidden and I can’t cry, not now. Not until Cam shows up with a big bag of money he trades for me and the kids, not until the cops kick down the door and slap some handcuffs on the maniac at the other end of the hall, not until after they rip off that mask and I know who’s under there and why he chose this house out of all the bigger, nicer ones on the street. Not until Cam and I have both kids safe in our arms, a Lasky family sandwich. Then, and only then, will I allow myself to cry.

  From behind me comes a tightly controlled voice. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  J A D E

  5:46 p.m.

  “What do you think, that I’m stupid?”

  The voice comes from directly behind me, as low and threatening as when he stepped out of the shadows in the garage. I flinch, half expecting his gloved hands to wrap around my throat and squeeze, or the cold sting of the gun pressing into the back of my head—but there’s nothing but hot breath in one of my ears.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  I say the words, the desperate questions cycling through my mind. Did Tanya pick up on my clues? Will Baxter tell her about the masked man? Will she run home and call the police? Maybe...just maybe she thought to alert the neighbor on East Brookhaven. I can’t remember his name, but Tanya will, and she’ll know he’s a former navy SEAL turned real-estate investor who would know how to defuse the situation until the police can get here. My gaze sweeps the windows to the patio and backyard beyond, searching for a muscular body creeping through the trees, but there’s nothing out there but squirrels.

  “Nice try, getting rid of Baxter, but I could have sworn I told you to get rid of her. Did I not just tell you to get rid of her?” He puffs a disappointed sigh, his breath stirring up my hair, tickling my neck with the strands.

  In my head I’m doing the math. Sixty seconds for Tanya and Baxter to walk down the hill and across the road. That’s a whole minute for him to tell her, for her to piece the clues together. The brother that doesn’t exist. My obvious desperation for her to stay. My silent pleas, two of them, for help. Surely, surely she knows by now. Surely she’s speed-walking across the road, hurrying home to her phone.

  I just pray the police know to come without sirens.

  “It was the easiest thing in the world,” he says. “Sorry, Tanya, I’m really busy. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. That’s all you had to say.”

  Now, finally, I dare to turn around. “I never ask her to leave, and you heard what a talker she is. That’s probably the shortest she’s ever been in my house. She would have gotten suspicious.”

  He licks his lips. “Maybe, but what about the Sancerre?” He leans into his Southern accent as he says it: San-cerrrrr. “What about giving her your son? If he tells her about me, if she picks up the phone and calls the police, you know what’s going to happen, right?” He points the gun at my head, closes one eye in aim and mouths a single word: Pow. “And Beatrix is here somewhere. She’ll get one, too.”

  I take in the distance, two feet at most, the gun clutched in a fist, and something occurs to me. A memory from four, maybe five years ago, when my girlfriends and I took a self-defense class. An hour-long, hands-on workshop on the best way to survive an attacker. The beefy instructor told us to defy our i
nstincts and move in rather than dodge. To strike instead of flee. The best defense isn’t a defense at all, he said, but a full-throttle attack. You might get hurt, but it’s your best chance to walk away alive.

  And now, with Baxter safe with my neighbor and my hands free, it’s the best time.

  I rehearse the moves in my mind. A quarter turn so he won’t see me slide the screwdriver out of my sleeve, or the flash of steel when I grip it in a fist. I’ll have to make sure it stays hidden while I stay within striking distance, and then I wait. The second he looks away or twists his body just so, I will come at him from behind.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do. You are going to walk over to the front door, slowly and calmly, and flip the locks. I will be listening for the dead bolt to slide into place, so I will know if you try anything. And if you do, I want you to know it’s not you I’m going to punish. It’s the little girl hiding somewhere in this house. Do you understand?”

  I nod.

  “But first we need to set the alarm. And here’s the deal. Before the nosy neighbor lady, I might have trusted you enough to leave you here for a few seconds while I did it, but that’s over and done. You just showed me I can’t trust you, which means you’re just going to have to come with.”

  He grabs a handful of my shirt and tugs hard, and I lurch forward into the hallway, almost slipping on the glass. By the time I’m upright, he’s behind me, the gun aimed at my torso, and we march single file to the alarm pad in the bedroom, where I tick in the code.

  “Just 2-9-2-1,” he says from over my shoulder. “No funny business.”

  When I’m done, he tips his head in the direction of the wall and beyond to the front door. “Now go.”

  On my way, I pause to peek into the rooms on either side of the foyer, searching for signs of Beatrix.

  Nothing in the dining room, but there’s also no place to hide other than inside the antique buffet, which is jammed full of dishes we hardly ever use—the gold-rimmed wedding china that can’t go in the dishwasher and the hideous Christmas service Cam’s mother gave us as a wedding present. No way she could squeeze in there, not without making a racket.

  I look to my left, in the study.

  Many more places for her to choose from here—behind the doors of the built-in cabinets under the bookshelves, for example, or tucked inside one of the covered ottomans. I do a quick scan of the room, but the only sign either of the kids have been here is the mess spread across Cam’s desk, colored markers and tape and a messy stack of blank papers one of them pulled from the printer.

  There’s movement at the bottom of the hill. A teenager being tugged down the road by a black Great Dane, who stops to sniff around the mailbox.

  I glance behind me. The man is tucked out of sight, hidden behind the wall to the stairs. From his angle, he won’t be able to see how slow I’m moving, the way I’m shaking the screwdriver out of my sleeve while waving my free arm at the girl and her dog. I’m clearly in distress. Maybe this girl will see a panicked, frenzied woman freaking out inside her own front door and think to call for help.

  Look up look up look up.

  She doesn’t look up. The dog lifts its massive leg and squirts its scent all over my gardenia bush, but the girl is too absorbed by whatever is on her phone. She keeps her head down, scrolling with a thumb.

  “Jade.” The voice is low and impatient, and it carries an unmistakable warning. “What’s taking so long?”

  Down at the road, the beast gives a mighty tug, and the teenager lurches forward, her phone popping out of her hand. She catches it in midflight and doesn’t miss a beat. Walking and scrolling, walking and scrolling. For Christ’s sake, girl, look up. Not once does she lift her head.

  Shit. Shit shit shit.

  My ears ring with building pressure and the realization comes to me like a whisper. It’s up to me now. I clasp the screwdriver in a tight fist, testing the point on my palm. Good and sharp, but I’ll have to come at him hard. His neck, his temple, that soft spot between his shoulder blades. I’ll have to put all my weight and strength behind it. One chance, that’s all I get.

  “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 ac
ting 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.

  I bring my arm down hard, shrieking with fear, feral and black and sticky. At the last second he twists away, using the railing for leverage, hoisting himself up and spinning away. The shank misses his neck and slides down his shoulder into his back, slipping right through the fabric and skin and slamming against something hard. Bunched muscle? His shoulder bone? Whatever it is, it’s like hitting a rock wall, a sudden stop that jangles all the way up my shoulder.