Then her face when I asked if I could trust her. Even with the gun I’ve been waving around like a stick of dynamite, this old Beretta Cougar I dug out of storage especially for today, the kid just sat there. Clamping down on her molars, cussing me out with her eyes, looking for all the world like she’d swallowed her tongue just to spite me. My Gigi used to look at me like that, too, when she was about Beatrix’s age. I looked at her and I saw my daughter’s face and, damn, it was hard to keep mine straight.

But what Beatrix hasn’t quite figured out yet is that stubborn streak of hers? It’s not a strength but a weakness. It makes her predictable. Easy to manipulate, like kid-shaped putty in my hands. These next few hours are going to be a lot of fun pulling that kid’s strings.

“Let’s go.” I direct the words to Jade, but it’s Beatrix I’m looking at, and not just from the corner of my eye. She’s the one I’ll be keeping my eye on.

Jade’s arm tightens around the little guy on her lap. Baxter—what kind of sissy name is that for a boy? Poor kid probably gets the shit beat out of him on the playground. Beatrix, too, though she seems like the nerdy type, an awkward loner who reads a book while all the other kids play. Her gaze sticks to me like a shadow.

Jade frowns. “Go where? Where are we going?”

She looks nothing like she did the first time I met her, at the opening for Cam’s restaurant on the West Side. That night she looked like she’d stepped out of a magazine, all glossy hair and glittery makeup and this complicated silver dress that had to cost more than what a normal person pays for a month’s rent. She shook my hand, and even with all the people and the commotion, I heard those diamond bracelets rattling. I remember thinking she’d better be careful on the way to her car. A good $50K on that one arm alone. Prime mugging material.

Now, though, in those workout clothes, I barely recognize her. Her hair is loose and wild around her head, her face bare but for two pink spots high on her cheeks. The jewelry is gone, too—only a watch, a diamond wedding band and a honker of a stud perched on each ear. Worlds apart from that flouncy Barbie I saw hanging from Cam’s arm. Prettier, too. For a fleeting second, I wonder if I misjudged her.

I gesture to the snacks spread across the bar. “Aren’t y’all going to eat?”