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“What do you want?”Shelby asked the woman with the sunken green eyes, wild brown hair and track marks on her arms. Shelby figured her to be in her midthirties, but it was hard to tell for sure.
She pointed a gun at Shelby. “Where’s Agent Hill?”
“He’s not here.”
“I can see that. Where is he?”
Shelby tried to keep herself together as she debated whether it was in her best interest to tell the truth or make the woman believe that Avery might be home at any moment. She chose the latter. “He’s on his way home.”
“When will he be here?”
“I’m not sure.”
Her phone rang and rang. She ached when she imagined what he’d be going through, knowing they were in danger.
Noah cried so hard, his little body shook.
“Shut him up, or I will.”
“You’d hurt an innocent child?”
“He’s nothing to me.”
The nonchalant way in which she said that terrified Shelby. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect Noah and her unborn child.
A man came into the room, looking as unkempt as the woman. His teeth were as yellow as his eyes. “Where is he?”
“Not here.”
“I can see that.” To Shelby, he said, “Where is he?”
“On his way home.” That there were two of them truly terrified her. “What do you want?”
“We want to talk to him. Shut that kid up.”
“He’s due for his bottle. I need to go downstairs to get it.”
“We’ll go with you.”
Shelby’s legs felt like rubber as she went downstairs with Noah in her arms, trying not to drop him. She shouldn’t have been carrying him. He was too heavy for her in the third trimester, but when that woman had appeared in her bedroom, Shelby had reached for her son and held him tightly to her chest.
She held him with one arm as she prepared the bottle he had only at bedtime now. Her hands were shaking so hard, she could barely function. Would they kill her and Noah if they didn’t get what they’d come for? And how had they gotten in? They must’ve already been there when she got home, but how was that possible? She’d set the alarm when she left for work. Hadn’t she? They’d overslept and had been running late. Had she forgotten? When she got home, had she disarmed it? Why couldn’t she remember?
When tears flooded her eyes, she refused to let them blind her. She used her sleeve to mop them up. Noah needed her to stay focused, so that’s what she would do. By now, Avery had sounded every alarm available to him, and help would be on the way.
She went into the living room she and Avery had put together piece by piece over the last year and sat on the brown leather sofa he’d wanted. Had she ever told him that he’d been right about the sofa? It was gorgeous and held up perfectly against the shenanigans of a toddler.
Shelby wanted to scream from the outrage of strangers in their home, of a gun pointing at her, Noah and their unborn child as she fed Noah his bottle. In this position, it would be so easy for the man to shoot them. The bullet would hit Noah first, a thought that would’ve brought her to her knees had she been standing.
“Call your husband. Find out when he’ll be home.”
“My… My phone is upstairs.”
To the woman, he said, “Go get it, and hurry up about it.”
“Fuck you, Willy. I don’t work for you.”
“Move your ass, or I’ll shoot you in it.”
