My Darling Husband

by Kimberly Belle

  My legs give out, and I collapse onto the chair.

  “Here.” Maxim pushes the cigarettes and lighter across the desk, and what the hell? I shake one from the pack and fire it up. “You and I have known each other a long time, Cam. We have history. And I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but whoever’s in your house right now is not one of my people. That’s not the way I do business. This has nothing to do with me. You have my word.”

  For the first time since college, I suck a lungful of cigarette, and it’s like riding a bike. My skin goes tingly, my brain blissed out on nicotine. “Then who?”

  Maxim shrugs. “I don’t know, but you could start by looking at who thinks you owe them seven hundred thousand and some change. The answer is in the number.”

  I nod. “Yeah, but there’s more than one possibility, if you know what I mean.”

  “You’ve burned some bridges, huh?” He leans back in his chair, shaking his head. “What did I tell you about loose ends, kid? You’ve got to tie them up, otherwise they come back later to bite you.”

  Maxim doesn’t mean this literally. He means bury the bodies under three feet of concrete, which is how he wraps up his loose ends. And though I may occasionally use Maxim’s money to bridge the tight spots in my business, I don’t operate the way he does. I’m a chef with money problems, not a mobster.

  But I also run a crew of oddballs and misfits, most of whom could stand to brush up on their anger management skills. Sometimes I’m the one stepping in to defuse the situation, other times I’m on the receiving end of the punches.

  But at the end of the day, a restaurant is a business. I’m the one out here taking the risks, doing the backroom deals with guys like Maxim in order to stay afloat. I’ll choose my family over any one of those knuckleheads every time. There are going to be some burned bridges.

  “As much as I’d love to deliberate which maniac is in my house right now, Maxim, I don’t have time. I have exactly—” I glance at my watch and the room goes upside down “—forty-eight minutes to get my ass home with a bag of cash. If you don’t loan me that money, I won’t... I can’t... I don’t think I can save them.”

  He stares across the desk at me. Rock-hard. Giving me nothing. No pity, no sympathy and, most importantly, no olive branch. Not even a teeny tiny twig. Every last ounce of hope I was holding on to with both hands fades away like a cheap buzz.

  I toss the cigarette in the ashtray and drop my head in my shaking hands, pressing down hard with my palms until my skull creaks. I wish I could go back and rewind this shitty, shitty day, and undo every one of my decisions. All of them.

  No, I wish I could rewind all the way to 2008, to my first time sitting at this very desk, when Maxim told me I was foolish to open a restaurant in the middle of a recession, and I did it anyway. I wish I’d been content with being somebody else’s chef, to whipping up fancy steak dinners on somebody else’s balance sheet so I could take paid vacations and the occasional long weekend and not stare at the ceiling until deep in the night, wondering how the hell I was going to make payroll. I wouldn’t be Atlanta’s Steak King, but come tomorrow I would still have a family.

  But I was too cocky, too damn eager to prove I was a better businessman than my father. I had to own my own shop, and I opened my doors when restaurants all over the country were shutting theirs. Maybe that’s my problem, that success the first time around ruined me. I’d already weathered what everybody was calling a once-in-a-lifetime recession. When I ran up against another wall, I just figured I’d scale it all over again. I figured I could overcome anything.

  George was right. I really am a dick.

  Even worse: I am my father.

  I reach for Maxim’s phone, dragging the machine around to my side of the desk, plucking the receiver from the tray.

  Maxim frowns. “Who are you calling?”

  “The police. If I tell them to sneak in without sirens, maybe they won’t get anybody killed.” I tap in the numbers and my sinuses burn, that achy feeling right before the waterworks. This is it. It’s time. I don’t have any options left.

  The line rings once, then goes dead. Maxim’s yellow-tinged finger is stomped on the button, holding it down.

  “Cam.” He shakes his head. “This is not a job for the police. Trust me on this.”

  “Then what? How?”

  Maxim leans back in his chair, looking over my head at the others, the two big bouncers and the man-bunned Nick, then back to me. “I have a few ideas.”

  T H E I N T E R V I E W

  Juanita: I’m sorry. I know we’ve covered this already, but I’m still stuck on the fact that you didn’t call the police. Especially once you realized you couldn’t gather the ransom. You knew you were out of options, you just told me you didn’t have the money to save them, and still you decided not to call the police.

  Cam: Is there a question in there somewhere?

  Juanita: Yes.

  Cam: [silence]

  Juanita: Don’t you want to answer it?

  Cam: No.

  Juanita: No, you didn’t call the police, or no, you don’t want to answer? Which one?

  Cam: Both. Next question.

  Juanita: Fine. You testified that you managed to stitch together just over $49,000 from numerous accounts, that you placed the cash for the ransom in a box on the floorboard of your truck, and then...what? Where is that money now?

  Cam: Maybe you haven’t heard, but I recently filed for bankruptcy. My property was seized and is being sold off to pay back investors and debtors. Whatever cash I had on hand, whatever else I owned of value...it’s all gone. My possessions were picked clean.

  Juanita: Yes, but that $49,000, there’s no record of it in any of your bankruptcy documents. I know I’m not the only one who’s wondering, where did that money go? Who has it now?

  Cam: [smiles] I don’t know, Juanita. But if you find out, I’d sure like to know.

  J A D E

  6:12 p.m.

  The man shoves me into the kitchen, where he points me to the bar stools.

  “Sit.” He punctuates the order by thrusting the gun at my face.

  I hoist myself onto a stool.

  “Stay.”

  I don’t move.

  Good dog.

  He moves around the counter into the kitchen, settling the gun onto the island. “Now, let’s try this again. Where is Beatrix?”

  With any luck, she’s in one of those boxes downstairs, or in a dark corner of the attic, or shimmying down a drainpipe and bolting for the neighbors.

  “I don’t know.”

  The man rolls his eyes, grabbing a kitchen towel and yanking open the freezer. While he fills the towel with ice cubes, I take in the damage I did with Cam’s screwdriver through the twelve-inch tear in his shirt. Underneath, almost as long, a seeping cut is slashed through the pasty skin between his collarbones, like a bloody ditch sliced through raw chicken. It leaks a red curtain down his back. Beneath it, all the way down to his waistline, the fabric is stuck to his skin.

  My skin tingles with a triumphant shiver. I didn’t kill him, but I made him bleed. I maimed him. That’s going to leave a nasty scar.

  “If you know where she’s hiding, you might as well just tell me now. Because I’m going to find her.”

  “I already told you. I don’t know.”

  He ties the four ends of the towel around the ice, picks up his gun and carries both across the kitchen. He stares at me, and my heart gives an ominous thud. “Here.” He stretches out an arm, the ice rattling in his hand. “This will slow down the swelling.”

  I take the makeshift compress and hold it to my cheek, hissing when it hits the skin.

  “Is it broken, you think?”

  I don’t respond. I’ve never broken a cheekbone before so I have no idea, and even if I did, I don’t know what the appropriate answe
r is here. Does he want it to be broken? Better to say nothing at all.

  “Where haven’t we looked?”

  “Upstairs. It’s the only place left.”

  And it’s possible. Maybe she snuck back up while we were searching the basement. Maybe she was going for the upstairs windows because she knows they’re the only ones in the house without sensors, so opening one wouldn’t have tripped the alarm. If she climbed out the playroom window, she could have crawled out onto a patch of roof that’s only gently pitched, the overhang right above the patio. From there, a drop to the terrace tiles below wouldn’t have broken any bones. Probably.

  Or no—Beatrix is smarter than that. Maybe she escaped when Tanya dropped by, and the alarm was unarmed. She could have slipped out the door in the master, or the back door by the garage. Either one would have dumped her in the backyard, with only a six-foot fence between her and freedom.

  Without thinking, I lean over the back of my chair for a better look out the back window. The ice shifts against my cheek.

  “What are you looking at?” He raises the gun, following my gaze out the window, pointing it at empty air. “I don’t see anything. Is somebody out there?”

  I turn back, press my lips together and stare at the counter. No telling what he’d do if he thinks Beatrix might have escaped this place. I just pray she made it outside without breaking a bone. I pray she got out and ran like hell.

  A chirp, one I don’t recognize, sounds from deep inside the man’s pocket. He digs out a battered Android and swipes at the screen with a thumb.

  Frowns.

  I study his face for clues, but that damn mask is like a shroud. He stares at the floor, his mouth a straight line, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Worry? Anger? His expression gives nothing away.

  Pride swells in my chest. My daughter has clearly caught this guy off guard. First escaping her bindings and now disappearing without a trace. Brave little Beatrix getting under this man’s skin.

  He taps at the screen and presses it to his ear. “Hey...Yeah, I know. We’re looking for her now.”

  There’s a long stretch of silence, and my mind whirs, searching for meaning. He’s talking about Beatrix, he must be, which means the person on the other end of the phone knows about the home invasion.

  How? And who? A conspirator of some kind?

  I stare across the kitchen at his phone, straining to hear, to understand.

  “No, she’s got to be here somewhere. Give me a minute and I’ll find her.” A pause. “Yes, I know what time it is, but the longer I stand here, talking to you, the longer I’m not looking for her.”

  I sit positively still, my mind buzzing. What is happening here?

  He sighs. “Just tell me how it’s going there. What’s the latest?”

  I take in his cryptic words, imagining some stranger stalking Cam around town the way the man-bunned man did me, taking note of his bag of cash, watching it grow fatter and fatter after each visit to a restaurant safe or the bank, reporting back on his progress. I think of all the preparation a home invasion plot like this would take, all the scouting and scheming. This operation would have demanded weeks of planning, sketching out every possibility, thinking through every potential consequence. And even the best quarterbacks have a deep bench of players and coaches to support them. Whoever’s on the other end of that phone call must be one of them.

  “Lemme talk to her.” The man glances up, frowning when our eyes meet.

  My gaze flits away.

  “Hey, pumpkin, how you doing?”

  Five little words, yet filled with so much meaning. Caring. Concern. Whoever this pumpkin is, he or she is loved.

  “I know. Try to get some sleep, okay? I’ll be home soon, and I promise to come—” He pauses to listen. “I’m at work, why?” Another pause. “Because I stepped outside to call you. The kitchen was too loud.”

  The word kitchen rings like a gong through my head, and I look up. Our eyes meet again, and he holds a finger to his lips. Shh.

  “Good. Now get your booty back to the couch, and put your auntie back on the phone, will you?”

  The compress has started to drip icy rivers down my neck, and I pull it away from my face. The skin underneath is on fire, part smashed cheekbone, part freezer burn.

  “Make sure she takes a nap,” he says, his voice going hard again, “but before that do another check of her levels. If they’ve dipped even the slightest bit then call our cousin, get her to come over. She’ll know what to do. In the meantime, watch her like a hawk, and keep me posted. I don’t like the sound of this.”

  Another long pause as I wonder who this cousin is, what problem she’s coming over to solve. Surely it can’t be worse than the problem currently brewing in this house.

  He frowns at the floor, and a shivery finger of dread runs down my spine. Whoever’s on the other end of that phone call, their message is not good. I rewind the conversation in my mind, stitching together the parts of it I’ve heard. Levels of something undefined. A cousin who better come over in a hurry. It’s like putting together a puzzle with only half the pieces...unless the other half is Cam. What if this cousin is the one tagging Cam?

  Still, it doesn’t make sense. Why would she need to come over—and come over where? Here?

  The questions flip through my mind in time with the throbbing in my cheek. I sit like a statue, watching and listening for clues.

  The man reaches up as if to run a hand through the hair at his temple, then remembers the mask. His arm falls back to his side. “No. Absolutely not. That will shoot us right back to the bottom, maybe even erase us entirely. Best thing to do is just sit tight and wait this out. And keep an eye on the numbers.”

  First levels, now numbers—but of what? A bank account? I can’t put the pieces together in a way that makes any sort of sense.

  I think of Baxter across the street, and I wonder what’s taking so long. It’s been what—a half hour since I watched him walk down the driveway? Plenty of time for him to ring the warning bell. So what’s the holdup, then? Did Tanya not believe him? Or maybe she did and they’re coming in silent.

  I wince in frustration, and my cheek throbs in response. It aches like there’s a knife stuck through it. Every movement is agony.

  “Yes, I’m sure. The alarm is armed, and we checked all the doors. Every window but the upstairs ones have sensors. She could have gotten out there maybe, but she’d break her neck trying.”

  If I didn’t know before, I’m certain now. Whoever is on the other end of that phone call knows why this man is here. They know about the ransom plot. They are a coconspirator. I make a mental note, add it to my growing list of clues, along with the one I just saw—that almost-swipe through his hair just now? It means he has some.

  “Jade.”

  I look up, but I take my time.

  “Does Beatrix know how to work the panic button?”

  It’s a possibility I haven’t thought of, mostly because I’ve never once explained to her the workings of the alarm. For Beatrix, the alarm has always been an annoyance, one last delay before getting in or out the door. Even if she knew where the panic buttons were, she probably wouldn’t have known to hold it in for three full seconds.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so. What does that mean? Yes or no?”

  “It means no.”

  “You’re sure.” Not phrased as a question.

  And even though I’m not sure—Beatrix is a smart kid, and she hears a lot more than Cam and I give her credit for—I nod. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  He speaks into the phone. “I’ve jammed it, but monitor the scanners just in case. The second somebody’s headed this way, I need to know about it.”

  He’s jammed our alarm—is that even possible?

  He leans a hip against the counter and fi
ngers his gun, watching me across the kitchen island.

  “Keep me posted, will you? I want an update every fifteen minutes or so. I agree it’s worrisome, but she’s done this before, remember? Just hang in there a little longer. We can’t pull the plug on this thing, not even as a last resort. This is our last resort, remember?”

  I stare at the counter, processing everything I just heard. So far he hasn’t said the first word about money—unless that was what he meant with the numbers he mentioned. Maybe post payment, he will take the cash and return to his lists and levels and whatever else this one-sided conversation has been about and disappear from our lives forever. I imagine Beatrix crawling out of her hiding place and rushing into my arms, the two of us racing across the street for Baxter. The police wrapping us in silver foil blankets and peppering me with questions while I hug my children and cry joyful, relieved tears. Maybe this day can have a happy ending.

  “I know, which is why I’ve got to find this kid and get everybody back upstairs, pronto. Text me in fifteen, okay? And hang in there. In another hour this will all be over.”

  At his words, the hairs on the back of my neck prickle with awareness. It’s that feeling you get right before the phone rings with bad news, that out-of-the-blue premonition two seconds before your tires hit the patch of black ice. I look up and his gaze meets mine, and that’s when I know. Every last bit of hope I allowed myself to feel drains away like muddy rainwater.

  What he means is, this will all be over for us.

  J A D E

  6:17 p.m.

  He slides his cell into the cargo pocket of his pants, his voice jolting me back into the moment. “All right, Jade. No more fooling around. Where’s the kid?”

  Curled into a ball in some cabinet, wedged between the boxes downstairs, pressed flat between a piece of furniture and a wall. Or maybe sitting on a chair at a neighbor’s house, a cup of something hot and sweet in her hands and a blanket draped over her shoulders, recounting her harrowing tale to the police so a sniper can train their gun through a window and shoot this masked-man in his face. Yes, let’s pray it’s the last one.