She started out in the produce section, taking more time than usual to test the freshness of the oranges piled on display. She dropped a few into a plastic bag, then moved toward the bakery.
She should’ve left the house hours ago, but she wanted to wait until she got the call from Zeke that Jeremy and Emma were safely ensconced in the visiting officers’ quarters at Dobbins Air Reserve Base. Just getting them all loaded into Jeremy’s Impala had taken forever. Zeke had yelled at the car seat. Jeremy was still pouting about his confiscated iPhone. Emma hadn’t cried, because her big brother was there to soothe her, but Faith had bawled like a baby the minute their car had disappeared at the end of the street.
Faith had assumed that the men who took her mother were as skilled as they were brazen. Tactically, they had always had the advantage, whether it was taking Evelyn or breaking into Faith’s house. But with two cops sitting in her kitchen and her six-foot-four brother stomping around like a bully spoiling for a fight, there was no way they would try the house again.
They had gone for Jeremy, the weakest link save for Emma. Faith felt her breath catch as she thought about her children. She had been so worried about her mother that she’d let the rest of her family slip. That wasn’t going to happen again. She was going to keep all of them safe or die trying.
Faith felt a presence over her shoulder. Someone was watching her. She’d felt eyes on her from the moment she left the house. Casually, Faith turned around. She saw a kid in a Frito-Lay uniform stacking bags onto the shelves. He smiled at her. Faith smiled back, then pushed her cart down the aisle.
When Faith was a little girl, the Charles Chip man would come every Monday to fill their brown metal tins with potato chips. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Mathis Dairy truck idled in front of their house while Petro, the driver, put fresh milk in the metal rack by the door in the carport. A half-gallon was ninety-two cents. Orange juice was fifty-two cents. Buttermilk, her father’s favorite, was forty-seven cents. If Faith was good, her mother would let her count out the change to pay Petro. Sometimes, Evelyn would get chocolate milk, fifty-six cents, for special occasions. Birthdays. Good report cards. Winning games. Dance recitals.
Cosmetics. Vitamins. Shampoo. Greeting cards. Books. Soap. Faith kept piling things into her buggy, willing whoever was there to make contact. She slowed her pace. The cart was nearly full. She checked Jeremy’s iPhone. There were no new messages on his Facebook wall, no emails from GoodKnight92. Faith backtracked through the store, returning the shampoo and the vitamins, perusing the magazines again. She looked at her watch. She’d been here almost an hour and no one had approached her. Ginger would probably start wondering what was taking her so long. The young detective hadn’t seemed fazed when she’d told him that she was going to the grocery store by herself. He was still licking his wounds over Faith taking his gun. She wasn’t sure how much farther she could push him without getting a hard shove back.
She angled her buggy around an old man who had stopped in the middle of the cereal aisle. Faith knew that they wanted her in the parking lot. They wanted her alone. She should just give in and get it over with. She put her hand on her purse, ready to take it out of the buggy. Logic intervened. They couldn’t abduct her in the middle of the grocery store. They might try, but Faith wouldn’t go anywhere. They would either have to bargain with her or shoot her. She wasn’t leaving this store without a deal that would get her mother back.
Faith stopped outside the restroom and left her buggy by the door. This was her third trip to the toilet since she’d gotten to the grocery store. She wasn’t just trying to draw them out. One of the many benefits of her diabetes acting up was that her bladder felt constantly full. She pushed open the ladies’ room door and held her breath at the stench. Grime covered the stainless steel walls and tile floor. The air felt greasy. Given a choice, she would’ve waited until she got home, but Faith didn’t have that luxury.
She checked all four stalls, then went into the handicap space because it was still the least filthy. Her thighs ached as she hovered over the seat. It was a balancing act. She had to keep her purse tucked to her stomach because there was nowhere to hang it and she was afraid the fake leather would become glued to the floor.
The door opened. Faith looked under the stall. She saw a pair of women’s shoes. Short heels. Fat ankles stuffed into brown support hose. The faucet turned on. The hand towel dispenser cranked. The faucet turned off. The door opened again, then slowly closed.
Faith closed her eyes and mumbled a prayer of relief. She finished going to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, then hiked her purse back onto her shoulder. The stall door didn’t exactly lock. The thumb latch was missing. She had to stick her pinky into the square opening and twist the metal spindle to get the door open.
“Hola.”
Instantly, Faith catalogued everything she could about the man standing in front of her. Medium build, a few inches taller than Faith, around one hundred eighty pounds. Brown skin. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Band-Aid around his left index finger. Tattoo of a snake on the right side of his neck. Faded blue jeans with holes at the knees. Black warm-up jacket with a bulge at the front that could only be a gun. The brim of his black baseball cap was pulled low. She could still see his face. The smattering of facial hair. The mole on his cheek. He was about Jeremy’s age, but as far from her docile, loving son as could be. Hate seemed to radiate off him. Faith knew his type, had dealt with it many times before. Hair-trigger finger. Full of spite. Too young to be smart, too stupid to grow old.
Faith put her hand in her purse.
He pressed the bulge under his jacket. “Wouldn’t do that if I was you.”
Faith could feel the cold steel of the Walther. The muzzle was pointing toward the man. Her finger was close to the trigger. She could shoot the gun through her purse before he even thought to lift his jacket. “Where is my mother?”
“ ‘My mother,’ ” he repeated. “You say that like she only belongs to you.”
“Leave my family out of this.”
“You ain’t the one in the driver’s seat here.”
“I need to know that she’s alive.”
He tilted up his chin and clicked his tongue once against the back of his teeth. The gesture was familiar, the same response Faith had gotten from just about every thug she’d ever arrested. “She’s safe.”
“How do I know that?”
He laughed. “You don’t, bitch. You don’t know nothin’.”
“What do you want?”
He rubbed his fingers against his thumb. “Money.”
Faith didn’t know if she could pull the bluff again. “Just tell me where she is and we’ll end this. No one has to get hurt.”
He laughed again. “Yo, you think I’m that stupid?”
“How much do you want?”
“All of it.”
A stream of curses came to mind. “She never took any money.”
“She done spun me out this story, bitch. We past that. Gimme the fucking money, and I’ll give you what’s left of her.”
“Is she alive?”
“Not for long, you don’t do what I say.”
Faith felt a bead of sweat roll down her back. “I can have the money tomorrow. By noon.”