Loverboy

by Bowen, Sarina

  I laugh into his shirt collar. The things he’s saying are so seductive to me. I don’t really need a man in my life. But I sure want this one, damn it.

  “We’re not over, you know. This wasn’t just a convenient fling.”

  “Yes, it was,” I argue. “It’s about to become really inconvenient. You’ll see. In a few days you’ll be back to your old life, and you’ll forget about me.”

  “Look, I don’t have the details figured out yet,” he admits. “But I want to try to see you. And if you’d let your guard down for five minutes, you’d want to as well.”

  Yup, my hormones weigh in. We’re here for this.

  “Tell me we have a chance,” he presses. “I probably have to go to California soon. But I want to come back.”

  “YOU CAN COME BACK!” Aaron yells from downstairs.

  Oh boy. “Aaron, get back in that bed. It’s late.”

  “I want to see Gunnar! Are you going to let him come back?”

  “Yes!” I yell, just to get rid of him. But who are we kidding? If Gunnar says he wants to see me, I’m not crazy enough to say no.

  “Goody,” Gunnar says, taking my face in two hands. He leans in, smiling.

  His kiss lands softly on my mouth, and it’s so wonderful that everything goes dark.

  No, wait. Given Gunnar’s noise of surprise, I determine that everything really did go dark. The power is out.

  We break apart, just as a little voice down the stairs says, “Aunt Posy! My nightlight went out!”

  “Can you reach your flashlight?” I ask my nephew.

  “Sure can,” he says. “I’m coming up there.”

  So much for kisses.

  “Does this happen a lot?” Gunnar asks, stroking a thumb across my cheekbone. “Is your electrical on the fritz?”

  “Not really,” I have to admit. “What if …?” A terrible thought occurs to me. “Saroya did this. Spalding looked at that video and went apeshit on her. And now she’s getting even with me.”

  “Hmm.” Gunnar looks thoughtful. I can see his face, because it’s never really dark in New York, and light bleeds in through the windows. “How would she get access to the electrical panel?”

  “It’s a shared space,” I whisper. “Spalding has a key to that basement. That’s how she planted the rats.”

  Now here comes Aaron, flashlight in hand, looking for a reason to stay up with the grownups. “I don’t want to be alone downstairs. I heard a noise in the hallway.”

  “You did, huh?” I ask. “What kind of noise.”

  “A monster, prolly. Can we watch TV until the lights come back on?”

  “That’s not how power outages work,” Gunnar says. “I’m going to go take a look at your electrical box in the basement, okay? Where can I find it, Posy?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” I grumble. “I’ll do it.”

  “Hey,” he says, catching my hand. “I got this. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m around for all of it. The fun, the pie, and also the circuit breakers. You stay put.”

  Oh my. Gunnar knows just what to say to a girl. “The basement door is just past the mailboxes in the vestibule. Let me grab the key.” I find my purse in the dark and pull out my keychain. “It’s this one—on the end.”

  “Got it,” he says, pocketing my keys. “I’ll be back in less than ten minutes, okay? If I’m not, I want you to call The Company switchboard and tell them I’m having trouble.”

  A frisson of fear runs through me, and I cross to where he’s standing by the door and lower my voice so Aaron can’t hear. He’s already playing with my phone on the couch, though. “Be careful,” I whisper, putting a hand on Gunnar’s chest. “What if she’s really cracked?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he says, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Just sit tight for a few minutes and I’ll let you know what I find.”

  I love you. The words are right there, but I gulp them back. It’s way too soon.

  And anyway, the door is already clicking shut behind him. So I sit beside Aaron on the sofa. “What are you looking at?” I ask him.

  “You only have lame games on your phone,” he complains. “Maybe we should download a new one.”

  “Maybe you should go back to bed,” I counter. “Your mom could come home any minute and find you up. She’ll yell at both of us.”

  “She won’t yell,” Aaron argues. “Not that much.” He starts up a Lego game.

  And I let him. Because I’m a softie, and we are in the middle of a power outage.

  A minute later, though, I hear a noise on the stairs. “Ginny?” I call, nudging Aaron playfully. “We’re up here. Both of us.”

  But no voice calls out in greeting. I hear heavy footsteps on the stairs. And the hair stands up on the back of my neck. “Ginny?”

  The heavy footsteps approach slowly. I grab the phone out of Aaron’s hands and fumble for the flashlight setting, then I shine it toward the stairway. A bald man appears there. A stranger. Fear freezes me in place. Because he’s pointing a gun at us.

  “Put down that light,” the man says icily. “Do it now.”

  I drop the phone onto the couch. Then I reach out and shove Aaron to the floor between the coffee table and the sofa. “G-get down.”

  “Don’t move,” the man says. And we both freeze. “I won’t hurt you if you do exactly as I say.” He’s arrived at the top of the stairs. And my heart almost fails when I see there’s a second man behind him. They both advance slowly. “Whose laptop is that?” the bald man asks. “Your boyfriend’s?”

  “Y-yes,” I stammer. “Take it.”

  The second man slides forward and grabs it in gloved hands, tucking it into his jacket. He also grabs my phone off the sofa and pockets that.

  “You have a land line?” the bald man asks.

  “No.” I shake my head vigorously.

  “Any other phones in the house? The kid have one?”

  “No,” Aaron says from the floor. I put a hand on his small back, and I notice that we’re both shaking.

  “Smart watch? Cellular tablet?”

  “No. Nothing,” gasp.

  “Good. Now stand up.” I pop up like a jack-in-the-box and do as he asks.

  “Good work. Turn around. Hands behind your back. I need to restrain you.”

  Panic sizzles through me. The idea of my hands tied up makes me want to vomit. But I will hold myself together for Aaron. Slowly, I move my arms. And then I remember the sound of Gunnar’s voice telling me what to do. Brace your fists end to end.

  Quaking, I do it.

  The other man advances, and I feel something like a plastic loop tighten around my wrists.

  “Sit.” I’m maneuvered back onto the sofa. “Now, I want the kid on your lap.”

  “Come here, sweetie,” I say to Aaron, and he wiggles immediately into place, huddling against me.

  “Hold still,” says the man with the gun, while his silent friend approaches us with a roll of duct tape. “Hands together in front, kid.”

  Please don’t put that on my mouth, I inwardly beg. I’m so afraid right now. I don’t know why that’s the one thing I don’t think I can bear. But somehow it is.

  The man stretches out a long length of tape and then wraps it around Aaron’s skinny wrists. Then he tapes the two of us together, the tape circling us so many times—around our waists, and then our legs.

  It’s probably been less than three minutes since they entered the apartment, but it feels like an eternity. I can smell his sweat and his breath and I have never been so scared.

  I don’t say a word, though. I press my cheek against the back of Aaron’s head, and I silently ask for his patience. I’ll get us out of this buddy. I don’t know how, but I will.

  Then it happens. The man takes another piece of tape and slaps it over my mouth, ear to ear.

  And then he tapes Aaron’s.

  My nephew whimpers, and big fat tears gather in my eyes, and I blink them away. I can’t cry. I can’t.
r />   “Listen up,” the bald man says, his gun still staring at me with its dark sinister eye. “You don’t move. You don’t scream. Nobody can hear you anyway, with all these windows closed, and a whole floor between you and the neighbors on three.”

  I nod, to show I understand how right he is.

  “Don’t move off that couch until morning. You don’t show up in the pie shop tomorrow, and someone will come lookin,’ right? You stay silent until then. You understand?”

  I nod one more time. I need him to leave before Ginny shows up.

  They recede toward the door. “Hurry,” the bald man grunts at the other. “He needs you in the basement.”

  The basement. I gag behind the tape. Gunnar.

  The door closes with a click, and I start moving my mouth right away, fighting the tape. I free my top lip, at least. “Aaron,” I whisper. “You can get your mouth open if you try really hard. But we have to help Gunnar. We’re going to head for my bedroom.”

  That’s where the panic button is.

  “He said not to move!” Aaron says, his mouth already free.

  “We’re doing this for Gunnar. He needs us.”

  And so will Ginny, if she happens to come home at just the wrong time.

  I inch my butt toward the end of the couch. I’m afraid to lose my balance and fall onto Aaron. I use my knee to force the coffee table a few inches away from us, and it makes a horribly loud creak.

  But I don’t care. Those men will be halfway to the basement already.

  Aiming my torso toward the open rug, I lean forward and rise to my feet. My thighs are screaming because the tape keeps me from straightening up. I start inching along, limping toward the bedroom, Aaron a heavy, destabilizing weight.

  “You’re strong, Aunt Posy,” he says.

  I am strong, damn it. Strong enough to get to that panic button. “Work on your hands,” I grunt. “Can you get them free?” I wriggle one hand against the other one. I’m not sure there’s enough room to get free.

  But the panic button is only twenty feet away. Dragging us into the bedroom seems to take forever, but it’s probably less than a minute. I can’t think about the basement or Gunnar or those men. Just the button. It’s on the bedside table. When I get there, I lean heavily against the table and try to figure out how to push it.

  “See that button?” I wheeze, still trying to get my hand out of the zip tie. “Let’s see who can press it first.”

  “I can!” Aaron says. “The tape doesn’t cover my fingers. Get me closer.”

  That’s when I finally manage to wrench my hand out of the restraints.

  Aaron’s finger and mine pile onto the button at exactly the same moment.

  “It’s a tie!” he says happily.

  Suddenly, there’s a soft red glow in the darkness as the button does its thing. For two seconds, I’m filled with relief.

  Then I hear a gunshot. And Aaron bursts into tears.

  31

  Gunnar

  It's pitch dark in the hundred-year-old staircase of Posy’s building, so I’m using the flashlight function on my watch to illuminate the shadowy stairs. I ease past the apartments on the third and second floors, listening. But all is quiet.

  Meanwhile, my watch is pinging with error messages from the security equipment we installed in the pie shop. Loss of power Camera One. Loss of power Camera Two, and so on. If the power is out in the bakery, that means it wasn't just a circuit breaker or two that was flipped.

  Someone's cut power to the entire building. I take a second to tap out a message on my watch. Power out in Posy’s building. I don’t like it. Taking a look in the basement.

  I suppose I could wait for backup. But there’s a five-year-old kid who needs his nightlight. And It’s probably Saroya making trouble with the circuit-breakers.

  It gets brighter near the first floor, as the soft glow of the lights from Prince Street filters in through the front window. I haven’t heard the front door open or close these past few minutes. And I don’t see anyone. Although I can’t see the basement door until I've reached the main level.

  As I step off the last tread into the vestibule, I turn slowly to face the rear of the building, where the basement door is. But someone is standing there in the shadows.

  “Who's there?” I call in a nonthreatening voice.

  Two things happen at once. The shadowed person in front of me holds up a high wattage light, blinding me. And the front door wrenches open behind me.

  I go for the gun in my waistband holster, getting my hand on the revolver, but I don’t shoot, because I haven’t identified the threat.

  There are moments in everyone’s life when split-second decisions will matter. And this is one of them. By the time I turn my head to see who’s coming through the door, it’s too late. The goon behind me is already attaching his iron hands to my elbows, yanking my arms back into a vice grip. His partner advances toward me with that brutal light held high in the air like a weapon.

  It’s not Saroya.

  I can’t raise my arms or move my body. But I can angle my hand toward the floor behind me, and fire off a single, deafening round.

  The goon behind me screams, and his buddy kicks the gun out of my hand a split second later. I wrench out of his grasp and pinball off the wall to try to break toward the door.

  But it’s no good. The guy whose foot I shot has not given up. He blocks my path, and his buddy sweeps my feet out from under me. And—worse—the pounding of feet coming down the stairs accompanied by whispered curses tells me the rest of the bad news.

  There are four of these guys.

  “Don't fucking twitch, or I’ll blow off your head right here,” pants another large man with a gun as he leaps down the last stairs and into the vestibule. “Your girlfriend will have to clean it up.”

  I go perfectly still. But I'm rapidly forming several conclusions. First, I fucked up big time. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. They were waiting for me. Second—even worse—I never should have left Posy and Aaron alone upstairs.

  I push that last thought aside, though, because I can’t help Posy until I get out of this jam.

  “Get up nice and slow now,” the new guy says. “You’re going to log into your computer for us.”

  The fourth guest at this party pulls my laptop out of his jacket and opens the lid. The last time I saw that computer, it was a few feet away from Posy. That was only five minutes ago, though. They couldn’t have done much damage upstairs.

  “The laptop is biometric,” I say carefully. “Once you walk away from me, the machine shuts down.” This isn’t strictly true, but it could keep me alive. And right now The Company security system alerts should be lighting up more brightly than the Empire State Building.

  “Fuck it. We’ll just remove the hard drive, then,” says the goon-in-chief. “Take him to the basement. We gotta do this quick.”

  Shit. My guys better hurry their asses up.

  I’m prodded to my feet and shoved toward the basement door. It’s dark down there, and my arms are pinned, making the descent tricky. I reach the bottom and spot a chair and a table waiting. But in my peripheral vision I catch a glimpse of something that makes me cold inside.

  One of the goons is pulling on a gas mask. And there’s a red ribbon looped over his arm.

  I'm hit with so much dread I actually stumble, causing the man holding my arms to yank hard on them. Max says there’s nobody braver than a man with nothing to lose.

  That’s not me anymore. I have everything to lose.

  Taking a deep breath, I force myself to walk carefully across the room, taking in my surroundings. The space is lit only by one of the goons’ flashlights. But aside from the chair, there’s very little down here that I could use as a weapon. I spot that narrow little window Saroya broke—the pane is still damaged.

  The men shove me toward the chair.

  “Hurry,” the boss chides.

  As soon as my ass lands on the seat, someone moves behind me a
nd grabs my hands. I make fists, hoping for a zip tie instead of cuffs.

  I’m rewarded by the bite of plastic against my skin. Thank fuck. But then someone places a metal canister on the table in front of me. It looks like a miniature oxygen tank.

  But there won’t be oxygen inside it. I don’t know what that substance is, or how fast it can kill me. I only know it won’t be pretty.

  Now all the goons except the gas mask guy are backing away from me. This is it. Either I’m going to save myself in a big fucking hurry, or I’m dying in this basement.

  I've walked into a trap without even telling Posy that I love her. I missed my fucking chance. But if I survive the next hour, I’m not wasting any more time.

  Mr. Gas Mask walks over to the circuit box and flips a switch, probably restoring electricity to the building. A single lightbulb flickers to life over my head. The other men hustle up the stairs.

  It’s time to make a decision. Am I going to try the stairs, where the goons may be waiting with their guns? Or try the tiny window? I’ll only get one chance to get out of here.

  Before I make up my mind, things start to happen fast. Mr. Gas Mask walks over and pulls a pin from the canister. I take a deep breath and hold it just as I hear a hiss.

  He bolts for the stairs.

  “GUNNAR!” shouts someone in the distance.

  I hear another gunshot. Followed by more shouting.

  The window it is, then. I’m quickly shucking off the zip tie, just as my eyes start to burn. Holy fuck. I clamp them closed. I stand up, feel for the chair, and grab it. Raising it blindly into the air, I poke the chair legs in the direction of that window. My lungs are burning, but I hear glass breaking, and I stab at it a few more times, needing to clear as much glass as I can so I can get out of that small space.

  It’s chaos behind me. I hear muffled shouts from the gas mask guy. Is he trapped down here too?

  I drop the chair and risk my eyes for a peek at the window. I’ve cleared about eighty percent of the glass, and it will have to do. Hopping onto the chair, I tear my palms to shreds at the first touch of the tattered window frame. But I need clean air, and I need it right now.