Chapter 21
OWEN
The breakfast driver leaves two paper bags on the front step, takes his picture, and walks back to his car barely looking up from his phone. Freddie and I stay tight against the stone wall where the lens can’t reach us, listening to the engine turn over on the other side of the house.
Simple. Let the car clear the gate. Wait for someone to open the door. Get inside.
The gate starts closing behind the driver, and Freddie shifts beside me. I catch his sleeve before he can move. “Not yet.”
He goes still again, but his breathing doesn’t. Too fast. Too shallow. He hasn’t made a joke since we got through the gate, and Freddie without a joke is Freddie a lot closer to breaking than he’ll ever admit.
The car turns onto the road. The gate seals behind it. I touch his arm once, and we move.
We cross the narrow strip of lawn and flatten ourselves on either side of the front door. The camera points down at the bags. Mason’s pictures put the edge of its view just before the right column. If he got it wrong, our faces are already sitting on somebody’s screen. Fuck it. We’re here now.
No alarm sounds. No voice comes through a speaker. The lock turns.
Freddie tugs his mask higher over his nose and shifts the cheap backpack against his shoulder. Then he bends over the breakfast as the door opens, seeming harmlessly confused. “Hey, sorry. They left part of the order at the?—”
The contractor looks down. Freddie drives his shoulder into the door before the man can close it, and I hit him from the other side.
His right shoulder starts moving before his hand disappears beneath his jacket.
I trap the wrist against the frame, turn his thumb toward the floor, and force him backward into the foyer.
A pistol clears the holster by an inch before something pops in his hand.
He chokes on the sound instead of letting it out.
Good training. Bad morning.
I put him face-first into the wall, strip the gun, tuck it against my back, and jam my forearm beneath his jaw. He goes still without going loose, knees bent and weight ready. He’s waiting for one bad grip. “Anyone else downstairs?”
He says nothing. Freddie closes the door and locks it. “The woman upstairs. Which room?”
The contractor looks toward Freddie. His eyes move between us. “I don’t know.”
Freddie steps closer and infuses every bit of menace into it he can muster. “You do know.”
“Upstairs. Last room on the left.”
I take his phone, radio, keys, and three folded flex cuffs from his vest. He tries to turn when I pull his arms behind him, so I put him on the marble floor and tighten one cuff around his wrists and the other around his ankles.
The injured hand is already swelling. It won’t kill him. “Cameras,” Freddie grinds out.
The contractor tips his chin toward a slim laptop open on a console beneath the stairs. Six exterior feeds fill the screen. The front step is empty except for the breakfast, and the gate camera shows the driver’s car disappearing at the end of the road. No footage of us on the live screen, anyway.
Freddie calls Mason while I drag the contractor into a guest bathroom off the back hall.
He keeps fighting the cuffs, so I hook my forearm beneath his jaw and count until his weight goes loose.
I lower him onto his side and check his pulse.
Steady. I attach his wrist cuffs to a pipe under the sink to make sure he doesn’t get clever.
His eyelids start moving before I pull the man’s black knit cap over his eyes, switch on the rattling exhaust fan, and close the solid door behind me.
By the time I return to the foyer, Freddie has the burner to his ear. “We’re in.”
“Don’t close anything.” Mason is already typing on the other end and explains the steps Freddie needs to follow to allow him access. “Open it, approve the session, then leave the screen alone.”
Freddie works one-handed, keeping the phone against his ear. A small box appears over the six feeds, and he clicks once.
“I have it,” Mason says. “Front, gate, both rear corners. Give me a minute.”
“Let’s go,” Freddie says to me, leaving the call connected as he moves for the stairs.
I look up before I follow. The foyer opens through two stories. Beyond the rear windows, the ground drops into a sunken courtyard. An upper balcony runs across the back of the house above damp flagstone, and a copper downspout brackets the far corner from roofline to ground.
The first bedroom is empty. So is the second.
Freddie keeps trying to crowd the corners, every part of him reaching for the last door before the rest of him.
Twice I catch the back of his hoodie and hold him long enough to clear the room first. He doesn’t tell me to fuck off.
He doesn’t say anything. At the end of the hall, light cuts beneath a closed door.
A man’s voice reaches us, low and angry. “Lift your chin, Omega. Nobody is paying for you to look at the floor.”
Freddie stops so hard I nearly hit his back, listening as his mother answers through the door. “Then I hope they all ask for refunds.”
Charles laughs, warm and indulgent, like she made a joke over dinner instead of refusing to help him sell her. “These men are expecting photographs. If I have to explain that you’ve become difficult, I may invite one of them to come early and take his own.”
Freddie’s head turns toward me, and we hit the door together. The lock tears through the frame.
“You bastard,” Freddie thunders as we enter the room.
Charles turns from the foot of the bed, phone raised in one hand. Colleen stands beside the mattress with nothing on, her arms crossed over her breasts and murder in her face.
Freddie shoves Charles into a wall. “Get the fuck away from her.”
Charles reaches for the open drawer beside him. I get there before his fingers close around the gun.
We hit the floor hard enough to shake the room. The phone skids beneath the bed. His hand catches the grip of the pistol, and I drive his wrist against the drawer until he releases it. He’s stronger than I expected.
His elbow slams straight into the healing hole in my shoulder.
Pain burns through my arm. My grip opens for half a second, and Charles twists beneath me, reaching for the gun again. A bronze horse sits on the bedside table. I grab it by the legs and bring the base down against the side of his head.
Charles goes slack. I throw the gun out of reach and find his pulse. His eyes react when I lift one lid, but too slowly.
“Mom.” Freddie tears the blanket from the bed and wraps it around Colleen. His hands shake once when they touch her shoulders. “Mom, I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
Colleen grips the blanket closed herself. Then she gets one hand around the back of his neck and pulls his face close, staring at the mask like she can see through it.
“Freddie. Oh God.” Her thumb searches along his cheek. “Your father had the news on. Michael and Rex—are they still at school? Is Bianca safe? Are you all?—”
“They’re safe. Bianca’s safe.” His voice breaks on her name, but he keeps his hands careful. “I brought clothes for you. They’re in the backpack. Come on. Let’s go to a different room.”
She looks at Charles on the floor, and her grip on the blanket tightens until her knuckles lose their color.
“He’s waking up,” she whispers. Charles hasn’t moved yet, but a tremor runs through her hard enough to shake the blanket.
“Not for long.” I reach under the bed for his phone and hand it to Freddie. “Get her dressed. Call Winston. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Freddie takes his mother out without looking at Charles again. I watch him check the bedroom a few doors down, then close her inside with him. Only after the latch catches do I turn back to the man on the floor.
Freddie
The blue shirt catches on Mom’s elbow because she refuses to let go of the blanket.
“I can dress myself.” Her teeth knock together hard enough to blur the words, but she keeps fighting the sleeve with one hand. The other stays fisted beneath her chin, holding the blanket closed.
“You can.” I pull my mask down now that the door is shut and kneel in front of her. “Let me help anyway.”
Her face folds when she sees all of me. Just like that, I’m a kid coming home from practice to find her waiting in the kitchen.
“Michael and Rex are safe,” I tell her. “Do you remember my friend, Winston? He’s a doctor - he’s going to meet us. We’re getting you out of here.”
She nods but doesn’t answer. I keep my eyes on her face while I help her into the pants. A low sound comes from outside the door, followed by Owen’s footsteps. Mom’s hand closes around my wrist.
“He’s afraid,” she whispers. “I can feel him looking for a way out.”
His fear crawls through her while I fight a sock over her foot.
“He won’t get to you.” I smooth the cotton over her ankle and reach for the second sock. “You’re leaving with me.”
“Don’t promise things you can’t control, Freddie.”
“Okay.” I put the sock in her hand instead of arguing. “Then I’ll promise I’m doing everything I can.”
She tries twice before her fingers stop working. I finish the sock without looking at her, and she lets me.
Winston answers before the first ring completes. “I’m here.”
“Stay there. We have her. We’re coming your way.”
“Is she conscious?”
Mom holds out her hand for the burner, so I give it to her. “I’m conscious, Winston, and I can answer for myself.”
I put my mask back over my face before I crack the door.
Owen has dragged the broken door across the opposite opening and tied Charles with the braided drape cords, wrists in front.
The knots face away from his hands. A personal laptop sits open on the desk behind Owen, Mom’s listing still filling half the screen.
One of the appointment slots flashes while she pulls on her shoes.
Charles makes a wet sound and tries to roll onto his back. Owen puts a boot against his hip and keeps him on his side. “Easy.”
“Don’t fucking tell me easy.”