he had left to bring someone back, someone who would help turn a crime into an accident.
Another message appeared.
Do not run to the front door. The man with him is not police. Look behind the router. Black box. Pull the cord.
The router sat on a narrow shelf beside the pantry. Nora crawled to it, her shoulder scraping against the cabinet. Behind the familiar white box was something new: a small black device, warm and blinking red.
A jammer. Adrian had blocked the signal.
Nora yanked the cord free.
Her phone flickered from no service to one bar.
She dialed 911 again, pressed the phone beneath a dish towel on the counter, and whispered their address as fast as she could.
‘My husband drugged us,’ she breathed. ‘He removed the alarm batteries. He said it would look like a leak. My son is thirteen. Please hurry.’
The operator’s voice came through broken but calm. ‘Stay on the line. Are you in immediate danger?’
Headlights swept across the kitchen wall.
Nora’s throat closed.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
Car doors opened outside. Two of them.
Eli tried to sit up. Nora caught his wrist and pulled him down behind the table.
‘We have to hide,’ he whispered.
‘No. He expects us to be where he left us.’
It was a terrible choice. But hiding would make Adrian search. Running would make him chase. Their only chance was the lie he had already believed.
Nora dragged Eli back toward the table.
‘Face down,’ she whispered. ‘Loose arms. Do not react, no matter what he says.’
‘Mom, I can’t.’
‘You can. Look at me.’
His eyes found hers.
‘You are not leaving me tonight,’ she said. ‘And I am not leaving you.’
The key turned in the lock.
Nora collapsed where she had fallen before, one arm twisted beneath her, her face angled toward the floor. Through her lashes, she saw Adrian enter.
He had changed shirts. The one he wore at dinner was gone. His hair was damp from the rain, and his jaw was tight with irritation.
Behind him came a broad-shouldered man carrying a metal toolbox and a canvas bag.
‘You said they’d be completely out,’ the man muttered.
‘They are,’ Adrian said.
The man looked toward Eli. ‘That’s a kid.’
‘That’s an inheritance problem.’
Nora had thought there was nothing left inside her to break. She was wrong.
Adrian knelt beside Eli. For one unbearable second, his hand hovered above their son’s back. Nora remembered that same hand holding a plastic dinosaur, moving it along the edge of Eli’s crib while making ridiculous roaring sounds. She remembered Eli laughing so hard he hiccupped.
The memory vanished when Adrian gripped Eli under the arm.
‘Sorry, buddy,’ he whispered.
There was no sorrow in it. Only impatience.
Nora moved.
The cast-iron pan still sat on the stove. She grabbed it with both hands and swung at the toolbox first, not the man. The metal case crashed open across the floor, spilling tape, gloves, a wrench, and a roll of plastic tubing.
The stranger cursed and stumbled back.
Adrian spun around. ‘Nora!’
She stood between him and Eli, swaying but upright, the pan raised like a shield.
‘Back away from my son.’
For the first time that night, Adrian looked afraid. Then
