Baxter lays a clammy hand on my cheek and turns my face to his. “Mommy, Beatrix is not in the basement.” His voice is a shout-whisper, the kind he uses to tell his deepest, darkest secrets—like what I’m getting for Mother’s Day weeks before he and Beatrix present me with a package. Baxter thinks if he whispers something, he’s not spoiling the surprise.

But I wish he’d keep quiet, especially if he happens to know where his sister is hiding.

And even if he doesn’t, every word Baxter utters, every move he makes, puts him square in the spotlight, when it’s so much safer for him to fade into the background. I need him to keep quiet because I want this man to deal with me, not my children.

He stares at Baxter like he’s stuffed with gold. “Do you know where your big sister is?”

The screwdriver is like plutonium, tingling against my skin. If I slid it out of my sleeve right now, I could hold him off of Baxter for a second or two, but I only get one chance. The worst thing would be to waste it.

He steps closer, and Baxter and I lean back, knocking one of the frames from the wall. Great-Great-Grandpa Wally, who played shortstop in the army baseball league. His picture crashes to the floor with a sickening crunch, scattering glass shards across the hallway.

“No.” I shake my head. “Of course Baxter doesn’t know.”

Baxter might know. The kids play hide-and-seek often enough, and he knows all the best spots, places our captor didn’t think to look. Squeezed into the dead space between the laundry hamper and the long dresses in my closet, for example, or curled up inside the covered ottoman in the study. Bax can probably even rattle off a couple I don’t know about.

The man’s gaze whips to mine. “No offense, but when it comes to your kids, you’re not the most reliable witness. I prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” He scratches a gloved finger over Baxter’s knee. “Hello, horsey.”

It isn’t really a question, and Baxter doesn’t answer. I clutch his body tighter to mine.

“Come on, little guy, I thought you and I were friends.” A slight edge has snuck into the man’s voice, a not-so-subtle warning. “Friends don’t keep secrets. Now tell me where your big sister’s hiding.”

But this time Bax isn’t falling for it. By now he’s seen too much—the awful words this man has been slinging around, the gun in his fist and the switchblade in his pocket. Baxter knows the masked man is not his friend. He shrugs against my shoulder and mumbles, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

Baxter shakes his head.

“But you just said she wasn’t downstairs.”

He nods.