“Say it.” The mask casts purple shadows on his face, making him look like a monster. His teeth, the golden flecks in his eyes—they flash yellow in the darkness, standing out like ugly headlights.

“Beatrix, sweetie, it’s safe for you to come out. I’ll show you how to play the Partita no. 2. You said you wanted to try a piece in C minor.”

The partita reference, I’m hoping, is a tip-off. Partitas are known for their difficulty, and this one from Johann Bach is long, and it’s fiendish, and it’s in D minor, not C. It’s the piece every violinist aspires to, one of the most difficult ever written, a good fifteen minutes of pure, uninterrupted hell. Me referring to it now is a secret message buried in what sounds like an ordinary sentence.

Come out means stay hidden. It’s safe is a warning of danger.

Without warning, Baxter pitches with all his weight to the left. “Mommy, there.” He stabs a finger into the darkness, at the spot where a bulky HVAC unit cloaks the concrete in ragged shadow.

The man whips his gun to the unit, and I stumble in that direction, too, mostly to hold on to Baxter. It’s like last summer biking on Hilton Head, when he leaned so far out of his seat I almost steered us into the bushes. Now he comes close to tumbling out of my arms, his weight dragging me with him.

“Good job, Baxter,” the man says, grinning. He keeps his eyes and the gun trained on the spot. “We got you, Beatrix. You can come out now. Tag, you’re it.”

“Not Beatrix. My bouncy ball with the stars on it and the dinosaurs. I thought I lost it.”

I let out a hoarse laugh, then swallow it when the gun swings back our way.

But now that Baxter’s seen the ball, there’s no ignoring it. I crouch down and pick it up, my gaze sweeping the concrete for a box cutter, a nail, something sharp and deadly. A weapon would be a game changer. But my hand comes away with nothing but rubber and dust.

I push to a stand, brush the ball off on my shirt and place it in Baxter’s sticky palm.

“Keep moving,” the man says, glaring because I’m taking too long. “You better hope she shows up soon.”