Page 80 of Bad Mother

“Hide,” Mirabelle said, her voice desperate.

“Hide? There’s nowhere to hide.”

“There is. There’s a pile of boxes near the corner,” Mirabelle said. “He’s re-creating that day. That last day. Oh my God.”

“We need to do as she says,” Sienna said, and Gavin must have heard the certainty in her voice because he gave a quick nod. She didn’t know whatthat last dayentailed, but she knew more about Mirabelle and Danny’s past than Gavin did, even if she didn’t understand the entirety of it. Also, they’d been sitting in this room longer than he’d been here, and they’d had a chance to note some of the layout.

Gavin grasped both Sienna’s and his mother’s hands, and they all crouched as they ran for cover. They ducked behind the boxes, barely illuminated in the low light, and then the lights blinked on. A gunshot sounded, hitting the spot where they’d just sat.

Sienna’s pulse spiked, her heart pounding as Gavin’s breath gusted against her neck. Danny was reallyshootingat them.

Three pairs of eyes met in the near dark as they knelt behind the cardboard barrier. “Tell me what we’re dealing with here, Mom. I want answers,” Gavin said, his voice hushed, even though the musicwas playing loudly enough to cover any noise they made. “I think it’s important. This isn’t a game.” He paused, and Sienna sensed his momentary indecision. “Also, Argus... Argus is—”

“I know, Gavin,” Mirabelle choked. “I went to his house. I know.”

Oh.Sienna brought her hands to her mouth. “No,” she breathed.Argus. Oh no.Gavin put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, trying desperately to hold back tears. She couldn’t cry now, though. Not now. Because if she started crying, she feared she wouldn’t stop, and she’d be useless as far as figuring a way out of this locked building.Come on, Sienna. Now’s the time to use your training. Pull forth your inner professional.And so she allowed herself only a brief moment of comfort in Gavin’s arms before pulling away.

“Who is Danny, Mom?” Gavin asked.

“He’s my son,” Mirabelle said.

“Your... son?”

“Yes. Your older brother. Your father abducted him from me when he was only seven years old.” The pain etched into her features was so profound that Sienna’s hand itched to reach for her, to offer comfort, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to risk halting Mirabelle’s will to tell her story to Gavin, her second-born son.

The lights blinked off again. “Three!” came loudly from beyond. “Four!”

Mirabelle screamed as Gavin hissed an expletive.We need to keep moving.“There’s something leaning against the wall about a hundred feet to our left,” Sienna said. “I think we can all fit behind it.”

Again, they ran, then ducked behind what appeared to be large sections of drywall that had been torn down but not carried away. The lights came on, a gunshot sounding and then what seemed to be the noise of the boxes they’d hid behind toppling. Gavin swore.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this? Why didn’t you ever mention Danny?”

Mirabelle released a breath, her shoulders lowering. They were standing so close Sienna could feel Mirabelle trembling. And she appeared smaller somehow. Breakable. “I was afraid.Ashamed.At first, I couldn’t talk about it at all, and you were too young to understand anyway. Too young to carry the burden of having to look over your shoulder. And so I did it for you. For us. And then...” She gave a small, listless shrug, her lips tipping in a sad smile. “And then it was too late. You had a life, such a bright future. What good would it have done to ask you to carry my heartache?”

He gave his head a small shake, his features still set in confusion, and Sienna could see him working to see the picture she was painting. The one he’d never known he was a part of until this very moment. “I might have been able to help,” he said.

“How, Gavin? Years had passed. Decades. I’d hired private detectives right after Roger disappeared with Daniel. Initially they traced him to Las Vegas, where his family lives, and then they lost him. It was believed his family had helped Roger gain a new identity, though that was never proved.”

“That’s why we lived there,” Gavin murmured. “Even though I was born here.” A muscle jumped in Gavin’s jaw, and he peeked out from the place they were hiding. “There’s a large cabinet of some kind over there,” he said, nodding in the direction of the wall that was now close enough to see in the dark. “We go there next.”

She and Mirabelle nodded, and when the lights went out again and two more numbers were shouted, they sprinted behind the cabinet, pressed their backs against the wall, and sat down.

“There’s a room over there,” Mirabelle said, gesturing toward the place where Sienna could now see a soft light emanating from beneath what looked like a door. “There aren’t any windows or exits inside, though.”

The lights remained on, but no gunshot sounded.

“It’s our best choice,” Sienna said. Because Danny had obliterated all their other options for cover. “We need to crawl to the door.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Mirabelle asked.

They raised their heads in unison when they heard the faraway echo of footsteps overhead. Danny was somewhere, but he wasn’t in that room. It might be a trap, but it might lead to a way out. And at the moment, it was the only possibility. “Let’s go.”

They crawled quickly to the door, pushed it open, and ducked inside. It was another large room, what appeared to have once been the industrial-size kitchen. There were still long steel counters on one side and open ducts where appliances had been. Sienna looked up. At least there was nowhere from which Danny could shoot them.

Both Gavin and Sienna immediately rushed to the door on the opposite side of the room, Gavin holding up the large cylindrical lock with a combination code. He leaned closer and peered at it. “It’s a number-code lock, requiring five digits,” he said. He jiggled it, but there was no give on the lock, and he dropped it.

“So we’re meant to use some unknown number code to exit this door?” she asked, looking around for a place to start.

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