LITMIR.BIZ

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come down here!” Livvy wailed frantically, and behind her, Teddy started to cry.

      “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ted said, getting up painfully and holding on to the handrail. Jen did her best to help him down the steps, as he favored his bruised hip. In the light she could see that the gash on his forearm wasn’t bad.

      Livvy seized her father’s good arm. “Daddy, you can’t go up there! They could have killed you!”

      “No, that was just...laying out the rules,” Ted said, managing a tight smile. “They never meant to hurt me. They’re not killers.”

      “How do you know that?” Livvy demanded as Jen went to Teddy, lifting him into her arms.

      “They’re just not.” Jen knew Ted was trying to reassure Livvy, to convince her they were safe. But even if the men fired this time as a warning, how could he be sure that next time they wouldn’t shoot to kill? “I don’t know what they want, but if they were going to hurt us they would have done it already. They’re probably just trying to figure out what’s worth taking.”

      Teddy whimpered against Jen’s neck, and she rocked him, trying to calm him, feeling guilty about the lie she’d told him.

      “That was scary, wasn’t it?” she asked quietly. “I don’t think I like this game anymore, do you?”

      Teddy shook his head against her neck. She felt the dampness of his tears against her skin. Looking around the room for something to distract him with, she had an idea.

      “Let’s do the wash, okay?” she said. “Do you want to help?”

      Teddy stopped snuffling and allowed her to put him down. “Laundry baseball,” he said, running for the basket of soiled towels.

      Laundry baseball was a game Jen had invented to keep Teddy occupied. She tossed items from the dirty laundry pile to him, and he batted them with a hollow plastic bat, sorting them into dark and light piles. She always had to sort them again afterward, but the sound of his laughter more than made up for the extra effort.

      Teddy found his bat under the folding table and swung it. Jen tossed the washcloths to him, and he batted them to the ground. She poured the detergent into the plastic cup and picked him up so he could empty it into the receptacle. They put the towels in together, and Jen held him so he could press the start button, and he watched as the water began to spray against the convex round window.

      She backed away cautiously, making sure he was truly distracted. He’d often stay rapt through most of the cycle when she let him, watching the slap of the drenched towels, the sloshing of the suds and waves of water.

      Ted and Livvy were picking the toys up off the floor and putting them back into the box, both looking dazed. Jen crouched next to Livvy and touched her shoulder, making her jump. “You’re doing fine, sweetheart,” she murmured. “You’re so good with Teddy. I’m so glad you’re here for him.”

      Livvy picked up the toys one at a time and tossed them into the box, her lips moving slightly, as if she were talking to herself.

      “Let’s let Livvy finish this up,” Jen said pointedly. Ted straightened up and they went back to the corner of the basement.

      “What were you thinking?” Jen hissed, the moment she judged herself out of range of Livvy hearing. “That was a crazy chance to take, Ted. You could have—”

      Ted held up his hands to stop her. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. It was...” He swallowed, looked away. “I thought maybe I could... I thought if something happened, I could at least hold them off long enough, and you and the kids—” He slammed his fist into the sleeping bags stored on the shelf, making the shelves shake.

      “Ted, don’t!” But Livvy hadn’t looked up. She had slumped against the coffee table, and she was trying to untangle a length of string that was attached to a toy spacecraft. “Please. I need you to keep it together. All right. I understand, you wanted to do something—”

      “To stop them. To protect my family.”

      “And instead, now Livvy’s twice as scared.”

      “I didn’t know they were going to shoot—”

      “You didn’t know? Two guys come in our house with guns and you didn’t know it was a possibility? And then telling her that they’re not going to hurt us, practically guaranteeing it, how can she trust you? She’s not stupid, Ted, she has to know how bad this is, and lying to her isn’t going to help.”

      “I wasn’t lying, Jen, I just really didn’t think—don’t think—they have any intention of hurting us. If they got caught, that would make the charges against them so much worse. They know that. They aren’t some out-of-control tweakers looking for their next fix. They’ve got to have a plan.”

      “Maybe, or maybe it’s like you said—they saw the house and looked it up on the phone and came in here just to take whatever they could find. I don’t think we can assume they’ve got a plan at all.” There was something off about Ryan, a crazy burning intensity in his eyes. “They don’t seem...stable.”

      Ted frowned and rubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and the day’s growth shadowed his face, making him look older. “Look, what do you want me to say here? I’m trying to stay positive. For you, for the kids. It isn’t going to do anyone any good if we start going to worst-case scenarios.”

      Jen knew he was right. Someone had to keep the kids’ spirits up; someone had to make sure Livvy didn’t get hysterical. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. It was just, the moment and the gun and then when you fell...”

      Ted took her into his arms. “You’re shaking,” he murmured, his face against her hair. “Sweetheart. It’s going to be okay. Come on now.”

      Jen closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the feel of his hands against her back, holding her, supporting her. She hadn’t known she was trembling until he held her, but now she felt the zigzag racing of her heart, the throbbing of her pulse in her temples, the weakness in her limbs.

      But she couldn’t give in, couldn’t let herself fall apart in his arms. For one thing, she knew that Livvy saw everything, even when she pretended not to. And for another, it wasn’t fair to Ted. It wasn’t fair to expect him to be the strong one, the only one to hold them all up.

      “I’m okay,” she said, gently pushing him away. She took a breath and pushed her hair away from her face. “I’m good. Really. Look, let’s try again. There’s got to be some—some sort of clue we’ve missed. About what they want. I mean, why not just take what they want and go, now that we’re stuck down here? What are they doing up there?”

      “Look at it the other way—now that we’re stuck down here, why hurry? Why not take their time and make sure they get what they came for?”

      “But leaving us in the basement for so long, that’s a risk, isn’t it?”

      “Not really. There’s only the one door and now we know they’re keeping an eye on it. And if they’re looking for big-ticket stuff, they might just be trying to break us down, make us less likely to resist when they come looking for it.”

      “But they can just take whatever they want. We can’t stop them.”

      “They don’t know where we keep things...so once they take the obvious stuff, the electronics and art, they’ll come down here and want to know what we have hidden away.”

      “But what are we going to tell them?”

      “Whatever they want to know. It’s all insured. We tell them where the silver is, your jewelry, everything. Hell, we’ll tell them where the suitcases are and they can pack it all up. We cooperate, that is the important thing. Make it easy for them to get the job done.”

      “Okay,” Jen said, nodding reluctantly. “I just, I guess I’m worried it won’t be enough.”

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