I shove the thought aside before it can turn into a sob, force myself to think about Baxter. At least he’s doing okay. I hear his singsong voice floating on the air, no longer scared. He’s too young to understand how dangerous things are, how the man is manipulating both kids in order to manipulate me. That bullshit marshmallow trick with Baxter, the begrudging admission he pried from Beatrix—those stunts were a message to me.

See? he might as well have said. I control your kids, which means I control you.

That’s the kind of psycho I’m up against.

With all my might, I heave my body backward in the chair, then lurch my weight forward, but nothing happens. The legs don’t lift from the floor. The chair doesn’t so much as wobble. I remember the first time I sat in the thing, one sunny afternoon in the Jonathan Adler showroom. I loved the weight of it, the sturdiness, the way the horizontal brass bars at the base of the legs kept the chair stable, and always flush to the ground. Now the damn thing doesn’t even budge.

And honestly, even if I managed to tip it, then what? The legs aren’t legs but connected brass bars, a closed square holding up either side of the chair. Even if I were able to wriggle the rope down the legs, I can’t just slip it off the feet and be free. I could maybe tip this thing, but then what—crab-run down the stairs with a forty-pound chair on my back? I won’t make it very far, and I’d never leave my kids.

Shit.

Shit.

He knows this, of course. He knows as long as he stays with my kids, then I’m going nowhere—not without coming for them first. He knows if I did somehow escape, I’d come straight to them, which means he’ll be ready for me. I picture him sitting in a chair facing the door, tapping the gun on his knee. Waiting.

But why? For what? What does this man want from me?

Laughter comes from the other room, and my stomach roils in an oily wave. This is torture. He’s torturing me. SpongeBob’s voice bursts from the speakers. Is he tying them up? Turning up the volume so I won’t hear their screams?

I stare at the doorway across the hall and my hands shake with terror. With rage.

What is happening?

I have no idea, because I am tied to a goddamn chair.

I am struggling against the ropes when I hear footsteps—big ones, coming my way. Rubber soles slapping the hardwood, the feet carrying them too big, far too heavy to belong to one of the kids.