I hold up both shaking hands, reaching for her until the man’s glare stops me. He shakes his head and my feet stick to the floor. “Please. I’ll do anything. Just...please.”

Beatrix stares at me in shock, in horror, her silent tears quivering with reflected light.

The man tips his head at the door. “Get us inside without screaming or making a run for it, and—” he glances down at Beatrix “—what’s your name, little lady?”

Beatrix gives me a pleading look that pierces me straight through the heart.

“It’s Beatrix,” I say. “Her name is Beatrix.”

“Okay, Beatrix. It’s up to your mama now. Tell her to be good, and I’ll put you back down as soon as she lets us inside.”

His implicit threat, my daughter in a strange man’s arms, a gun against her temple—it lights a fire under me. I dig my keys out of my bag, heave it onto a shoulder and Baxter onto a hip, and hurry out the door.

The breezeway is short, nine or ten yards at the most, and I don’t bother with so much as a furtive glance at the neighbors’ backyards. When we moved in a year ago, Cam overplanted for privacy. The hedges are thick and evergreen and, according to our lawn service, more fit for a forest than a backyard. Even if there were a neighbor home on the other side of all that greenery, which there’s probably not, they wouldn’t be able to see me, scampering down the concrete sidewalk to the back door with a masked man at my back, and I don’t dare call out to whoever’s within hearing distance—not with a gun pressed to my daughter’s head. There goes that plan.

Baxter clings to me, burying his face in my shoulder. His weight and my shaking hands are making things difficult. I fumble with the key, stabbing the doorknob multiple times before the thing slides into the lock. I twist my wrist and press the knob down with a hip, and the latch releases. The door swings open.

He rushes us into the mudroom and shuts the door.

From the alarm pad on the wall comes a long, shrill beep. I slide Baxter down a leg, and he darts behind me while I tap in the code—the real one, the only one I know for certain will disarm the system. I’m rewarded with three short beeps, the light on the pad switches from red to green, and then...silence.

The man flips the lock on the back door and points to the pad. “Good girl. Now arm it to Stay.”