Cam: Look, lady. You and whoever’s on their cushy couches at home can sit there and judge me all you want, but let’s talk again when it’s your wife chained to a chair, begging you to hurry home with money you don’t have while your children scream bloody murder in the background. Until then, until you’ve stood in my shoes with the weight of a thousand elephants on your chest because you can’t cobble together the ransom to save the people you love most, I suggest you save your judgment for someone else because you don’t know what that’s like. You can’t know until you’ve been there.

Juanita: Point taken. But tell me this, knowing what you know now, if you could go back and do things over, what would you do differently?

Cam: [leans forward in the chair] Every single goddamn thing.

J A D E

4:19 p.m.

The man watches me from above. “Who’s ‘him’?”

I frown, more concerned with the strip of duct tape dangling from his fingers like a shiny silver snake. My skin still stings from where he ripped it off the first time, and I’m not looking for a repeat.

“Please don’t put that over my mouth again. I promise I won’t scream.”

Screaming would only scare the kids, which I really don’t want to do. They’re being so brave, so sweet and quiet in their playroom, and I know from experience this peaceful state won’t last long. Especially if they hear their mother across the hall, screaming her face off.

And even if I did scream, the nearest house is a quarter acre away, separated by multiple layers of stone and plaster and double glass. No way anybody outside would hear, not even if they were standing on the front stoop.

He moves closer, and I crane my head back until it’s flush against the wall. “You promised to take me to my kids. You said you’d let me see them after the call.”

“Yeah, well, I lied. Now answer the question, Jade. Who’s ‘him’?”

“What?”

“Just now. Cam asked if I was him. You said you didn’t think so. Who’s ‘him’?”

I’m barely listening, still reeling from the fact that I don’t get to see my kids. I stare at the door and the slice of empty hall and try not to cry. “Just some guy who’s been following me around town.”

“You have a stalker? How very Buckhead Betty of you. But how do you know I’m not the same person?” He waves a gloved hand in front of his masked face, a demented Vanna White. “It’s not like I’m giving you much to go on here.”