“Caleb,” he said. “Caleb. Ezekiel. Faith. I guess Mommy likes her Bible names.”
She did, which was why Jeremy’s middle name was Abraham and Faith’s first name was Hannah. Why had Faith chosen Emma’s name because it was pretty instead of honoring her mother’s tradition? Evelyn had suggested Elizabeth or Esther or Abigail, and Faith had been stubborn just because she didn’t know any other way.
“This is where he grew up, too, right?” Caleb waved the gun, indicating the house. “Your precious Jeremy?”
Faith hated the sound of her child’s name in his mouth. She wanted to punch it back down his throat with her fist.
“Watched TV. Read some books. Played some games.” The bottom cabinet of the bookcase was open. He kept one eye on Faith as he pulled out the board games and tossed them on the floor. “Monopoly. Clue. Life.” He laughed. “Sorry!”
“What do you want from us?”
“Damn, you sound just like her.” He turned back to Evelyn. “Ain’t that what you said to me, Mommy? ‘What do you want from me, Caleb?’ Like you can pay me off.” He stared back at Faith. “She offered me money. What do you think about that? Ten thousand bucks to go away.”
Faith didn’t believe him.
“All she cared about was protecting you and your spoiled bitch kid.” The platinum tooth glimmered in the low light. “You got two kids now, right? Mommy can’t keep her little brown baby, but you got no problem keeping yours.”
“It’s different now,” she told him. Evelyn’s condition may have been a secret, but Faith had brought down enough shame on her family to last a lifetime. Her father had lost longtime clients. Her brother had been forced into exile. What would they have made of Evelyn Mitchell raising a child who was obviously not her husband’s? There had been no good choice. Faith could not begin to imagine how her mother had suffered. “You have no idea what it was like back then.”
“Two for two. Mom said the same thing.” He pointed to her pocket. “Are you going to get that?”
Her phone had started vibrating again. “Do you want me to?”
“SOP,” he said. Standard operating procedure. “They wanna know my demands.”
“What are your demands?”
“Answer the phone and we’ll find out.”
She rubbed her hand on her leg to wipe off the sweat, then pulled out the phone. “Hello?”
Will said, “Faith, this guy is—”
“I know who he is.” She stared at Caleb, hoping he could see every ounce of hate she had for him. “He has demands.” She held out the phone to Caleb, praying that he would come get it.
He stood rooted to the floor. “I want milk and cookies.” He paused as if giving it some more thought. “I want my mom to be there every day when I get home from school. I want one day to go by where my ass isn’t dragged to mass at the crack of dawn and my knees aren’t sore from having to pray every night.” His hand swept in an arc toward the bookshelf. “I want my mom to read books to me about happy goats and moons. You did that with ol’ Jaybird, right?”
Faith could barely speak. “Don’t say his name.”
“You took little Jay to the park and to Six Flags and to Disney World and to the beach.”
He must have memorized every picture in Jeremy’s keepsake box. How much time had he spent in her home? How many hours had he spent pawing through Jeremy’s things? “Stop saying my son’s name.”
“Or what?” He laughed. “Tell ’em that’s what I want. I want y’all to take me to Disney World.”
Faith’s arm was shaking from holding out the phone. “What do you want me to tell him?”
He snorted in disgust. “Hell, I don’t need nothin’ right now. I got my family around me. My mom and my big sister. What else do I need?” He went back to the bookcase and leaned against the shelves. “Life is good.”
Faith cleared her throat. She put the phone back to her ear. “He has no demands.”
Will asked, “Are you okay?”
“I—”
“Speakerphone,” Caleb said.
Faith looked down at the phone so she could find the right button. She told Will, “He can hear you.”
He hesitated. “Is your mom comfortable? Can she sit down?”
He was asking for clues. “She’s in Dad’s chair, but I’m worried about her.” Faith took a deep breath. She kept her eyes on her mother’s. “I might need insulin if this drags on.” Caleb had been in Faith’s refrigerator. He would know she was diabetic. “My blood sugar was at eighteen hundred this morning. Mom only has enough for fifteen hundred. I had my last dose at noon. I’m going to need the next one by ten at the latest or my blood sugar will start swinging back and forth.”
“All right,” he agreed, and she prayed that he really understood the message and wasn’t just giving a quick answer.
She said, “Your phone—” Her mind wasn’t quick enough. “Do we call you on your phone if we need something? Your cell phone?”
“Yes,” he paused. “We can have your insulin there in five minutes. Just let us know. Let me know.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. She was talking too much, and neither Will nor Faith was good at this.
“Be careful.” Faith didn’t have to pretend to be scared. Her voice shook without any effort on her part. “He’s already killed his partner. He has a—”
“End it,” Caleb said.
Faith tried to find the button.
“End it!” he yelled.
The phone slipped out of her hand. Faith scrambled to get it off the floor. She remembered the revolver on her ankle. The S&W felt cold under her fingers.
“No!” her mother screamed. Her mouth had opened so wide that the tape finally pulled loose. Caleb had the gun jammed into her ribs. His free hand pressed against her broken leg.
“No!” Evelyn screeched. Faith had never heard another human being make that kind of noise. That it was coming from her mother was like a hand reaching straight into her chest and wrenching out her heart.
“Stop!” Faith begged, standing up, holding out her hands. “Please, stop! Please, just—please!”
Caleb released the pressure, but he kept his hand hovering over the broken leg. “Kick the gun over here. Slow, or I might kill the bitch anyway.”
“It’s okay.” She knelt down. A tremor rushed through her entire body like a seizure. “I’m doing what you said. I’m doing exactly what you said.” She lifted her pant leg, then pinched the gun between her thumb and forefinger. “Don’t hurt her anymore. Look.”
“Easy,” he warned.
She slid the gun across the floor at an angle, praying that Caleb would go back to where he’d been standing. He let the gun sail by, staying at Evelyn’s side instead.
He said, “Try something like that again, bitch.”
“I won’t,” Faith told him. “I promise.”
He rested the Tec-9 on the back of the chair, angling the muzzle down toward Evelyn’s head. The tape was dangling from her mouth. He ripped it away.