AMANDA
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
Ben’s hand is shaking so hard I’m not convinced he could shoot me if he tried. But I am definitely not prepared to test that theory. I’ll call Carter. I’ll do whatever Ben says and fix it later. This stopped being worth fighting about the second there was a gun pointed at my head.
“I’ll make the call.” I twist my wrists against the ties. “If you were any kind of gentleman, you would press the call button for me. In case you haven’t noticed, my wrists are bound together.” I wonder if he can see my glare through the darkness. All I can see is the pale stream of moonlight from the windows glinting off the gun.
If they were better criminals, they’d just make the call and press the phone to my ear. If they were better criminals, they might have found a place to stash me that wasn’t so obvious. If they were better criminals, they’d’ve cooked up a revenge plot slightly more interesting than making me break up with my boyfriend over speakerphone. As freaked out as I am, I can’t help noticing how bad they are at all of this.
David lunges for the phone. “I’ll dial.”
Just then, there’s a noise outside, right in front of the door. It’s stones or bricks. Something falling. We all jump. Ben spins around, aiming the gun at the door. “The fuck was that?” His hands are shaking even harder than before.
“Wait here.” David slips the phone into his pocket and starts toward the door.
“Take this,” Ben says.
“Hell, no. Put that thing away, I’m serious. It’s probably just an animal. We get raccoons at the site all the time.”
Ben lowers the gun but follows David toward the door.
“Stay here with her,” David growls. “I’ll be right back.”
He opens the door slowly, and moonlight mixed with the glow from the streetlamps on Foster floods in. David props the door with a brick and slips outside. I think about running. My wrists are tied, but my ankles are free. I slide my feet silently out of my heels and press them against the unfinished floor. It would take maybe ten seconds to get to the door, tops. But this place is littered with bricks and nails and trash. And I’d have to run past Ben to get out. I wonder if he would really try to shoot me. Before I can make myself stand up, I know I’m not going to test it.
“Where’d you get the gun, Ben?” I ask instead. Now that he—and the gun—are bathed in light, I can see it’s longer and skinnier than the little black handguns you see on cop shows. The handle is brown wood, and there’s some kind of carving on the barrel. I don’t know much about guns, but this looks like a collector’s item. Maybe it really is a toy.
He jerks his head toward me. “Borrowed it from a friend. It’s a real gun, Amanda. I know how to shoot.”
“I bet you do,” I sneer. I should probably be more careful, but anger and fear are duking it out inside my brain, and right now, anger is winning. Ben takes a step forward.
“You’re really going to shoot me and spend the rest of your life rotting in jail because you’re pissed that my mother is allegedly enabling Carter’s dad to fuel his antique habit?” I ask, a challenge. My mind stutters back to the email I found in her purse and promptly forgot. N or V. Always V, my dear. In the end, always V. I’d considered the possibility of an affair, that Winston was my mother’s backup plan. But this . . .
“I don’t buy it, Ben. I just do not—”
But before I can finish, Ben is crumpled in a heap on the floor and the gun is spinning across the ground in a slow arc toward me.