Mom rolls her eyes. “Don’t let her fool you. She talked about trying to put a saddle on Miggy more than once.”
“Who, me?” Livvie takes mock offense. “I mean, maybe. It was a passing thought.”
We joke and make fun and act like overtired teenagers on a sugar high, and before we know it we’re all saying our goodbyes and promising to talk again soon. It’s bittersweet, my heart aching when my baby sister disappears from the screen, but we still have face masks to rinse off and chocolate-covered strawberries to eat.
Charlie’s just put her phone away when she freezes for a second, tilting her head.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Nothing. I thought I heard something, but I think it was just the wind. Anyway, let’s get our masks rinsed off. Mine’s getting a little itchy.”
“You can go first,” I say, gesturing at the plate of cheese in my lap.
“Sweet.” Charlie turns up the soothing music for me and then goes into the bathroom.
A few minutes later she pops back out, her skin looking dewy and fresh.
“Your turn,” she says. “I left a towel out for you on the sink. It’s a little messy. Try to use cold water, otherwise it kinda melts on.”
“Thanks.”
Just as I’m finishing rinsing my face, I hear Charlie’s voice from the other room, but it’s muffled by the door and the running water.
“What’d you say?” I ask, still patting my face with the towel as I exit the bathroom.
I stop dead in my tracks.
The towel drops from my hands.
Charlie is being held by two men, one of them with his huge hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. My ears start ringing as every muscle in my body tightens, my flight instincts kicking in.
But before I can even think about running, another hulking figure lunges from the doorway, and the floor rushes up to meet my cheek with a hard crack.
I’m dazed at the impact, the wind knocked out of me.
My scream dies in my throat as the man’s shadow falls over me.
23
Frankie
Charlieand I are tied up with torn bedsheets and made to sit on the floor against the bed while two of the men have a short conversation.
Black spots flash behind my eyes as a wave of dizziness washes over me. Charlie leans her shoulder against mine. Her breathing is rapid, yet soft, and I wish she’d say something so I could be comforted by her voice. But neither of us wants attention right now. Besides, the third man just came back trailing the sickening scent of gasoline, and I need to pay attention.
Gasoline gives us a cursory glance and then tells the others, “We’re changing the plan.”
“That wasn’t the agreement,” the shortest of the three says. “We burn it down to ash.”
A small whimper escapes my throat, my pulse pounding so hard I feel dizzy. As they continue to argue, it becomes obvious that they were sent here to set fire to the house—so that my piece of shit father can claim the insurance money. And from the sounds of it, there won’t be anything left afterward. Our childhood home, and everything in it, will be destroyed.
Even worse: Charlie and I are now a liability. There weren’t supposed to be any witnesses. I can feel my sister’s body go taut as a wire next to me as the men bicker about what to do with us.
Gasoline finally grabs the smaller man by his coat collar and shoves him against the wall. “Don’t you get it, asshole? We have the wives of twovery rich menin our hands. We’ll get a hell of a lot more from them than trying to burn down this shithole for the insurance.”
“I’m in,” the other man, who looks like a ‘roided-up gym rat, agrees. “Insurance payout’s gonna takes months, and if Abbott gets caught—if he’s in jail—we don’t get paid. But we ransom these bitches, we might just get the money we’re owed after all. With interest.”
He leers at both of us. It makes me think the “interest” he has in mind isn’t monetary.
