He stared at her, unmoving. What should he do? He pulled out his phone, wishing Xandria would call at any minute and say, “Kill the boy!” But the sight of the phone scared him. What if Xandria didn’t come through? What if he let the boy die and then the police came and put him away for life? Objective one: Keep the kid alive. It was the first objective, the most important objective. Objective two would only come into play if the kid’s parents failed to do their job. And they wouldn’t, would they? Not with the life of their only son at stake.

“Please help him!” Grandma wailed.

Joe snapped out of his confusion. He ran over to the boy and leaned down. At first he heard nothing but a graveyard silence, but then he heard the faintest whistle from the collapse of Charlie’s airways. “He’s still alive,” he said to Grandma. The comment didn’t seem to lessen her anxiety.

He raced into the kitchen, knocking down a chair and a framed picture of Charlie along the way. He felt out of control. Where had Grandma said the inhaler was? Next to the refrigerator? The toaster? He raced around the room, peeling back flowerpots and napkin holders, looking for the little plastic gadget that could save the kid’s life. Where was it?

He stuck his head out the kitchen doorway to ask. Grandma was hunched over in the chair—at least, as much as the ropes would allow—eyes closed and apparently unconscious. He yelled at her. She didn’t respond. He turned back to the room and decided to take a sweeping approach, quite literally extending his arm and removing everything from the countertops. Pill bottles and coin jars and salt and pepper shakers and everything went crashing to the floor. Joe dropped to his knees and violently started sifting through the junk, hoping to stumble across the inhaler.

It was a broken coffee mug that finally reminded him where to look. He glanced around the fallen kitchenware. He needed to find the coffeemaker. Where was it? He looked up. It was on a small table across the room. Next to it, he saw a small white-and-orange device: the inhaler.

Rising, he glanced back at Charlie but could see only his feet. Was the kid still alive? He tried to remember how long a person could go without air. A minute? Two? Twelve? Hadn’t that magician gone for the record in a barrel of water and failed? And how long did he go without air? Five minutes? Six? How long had he been searching? His head was dizzy.

The lights swirled as he swam over to the coffeemaker and grabbed at the inhaler. It slipped from his hand and broke apart on the floor. He picked up the two, no, three pieces and ran back across the kitchen toward Charlie, trying to put the inhaler back together.