The man glances back, just long enough to flash me a wink. “Everything okay over there?”

This is all for my benefit. This man is manipulating me again, dangling my most precious carrot and daring me not to snap it up. Calling out to the kids now is punishment—for not taking his bait fast enough, for not playing along with his stupid, diabolical game. I’m a rat, trapped in his maze.

The words burst out of me, high and frantic. “If I really don’t know what?”

He lifts a finger to his lips and tilts his head, pointing his ear at the door.

“The commercials are taking forever,” Bax calls out. “But can you come over here? I got a cramp.”

The man puffs a laugh, turning back to me with a look I recognize through the mask. Crazy kids. He doesn’t know that this is classic Baxter, and that “cramp” is an excuse. A word that can mean virtually anything, from help changing the channel to bringing him a snack, getting him a glass of water, reading him another book, giving him your undivided attention. He says it so often, the word has infiltrated the Lasky family lexicon. When the recycling bin needs to be rolled to the curb, I tell Cam I have a garbage cramp. When Cam wants sex, he tells me he has a penis cramp.

And now Baxter is using the word with this man as if he’s here to help us, not hold us hostage. He’s too young to understand what’s really happening here. He’s too trusting to be scared. One stupid magic trick downstairs, and Bax is buddying up to the monster.

“If I really don’t know what?” I say again, red-hot adrenaline thumping in my veins. “Please tell me what you know about Cam’s business. Because if there’s some kind of problem, if he’s hurt you in any way, I can help. Cam listens to me. Please let me help.”

“You want to help.”

It’s not a question, but I nod anyway, a series of frantic and fast bobs of my head.

The man pushes off the bed. “I gotta tell you, Jade, I wasn’t expecting you to be this accommodating, not with that temper of yours. Remember when you lost your shit after the valet couldn’t find the key to your car? You threatened to have him fired.”