She looks at me. “You do it,” she says. I look down at her hands. They’re shaking. So I take Lily from her.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to the baby. “Everything is going to be okay.” Lily looks up at me, her eyes sparkling with tears. If I didn’t know better, I could swear she knows I’m lying.
Metcalf puts the changing pad on the sofa and stands next to me holding everything else. He’s frowning. He looks like an angry magician’s assistant. Ray comes over as I lay the baby down on the pad. His gun is aimed directly at Lily’s head again.
I peel her diaper off slowly, trying to buy time. The diaper is filled with poop. “By any chance, did you bring a plastic bag?” I ask Metcalf.
“You didn’t ask for one,” he says.
Not wanting to risk getting poop on the couch, I put the dirty diaper on the floor. Both Taggart and Metcalf look disgusted.
“Hand me a baby wipe,” I say. (Blasting orders at Metcalf! I hope I remember this moment forever.) He pulls a few out of the pack and I wipe Lily slowly with each of them. There is total silence in the room. Everyone is watching me as if I’m performing the most delicate brain surgery.
“Baby cream,” I say as seriously as if I were asking for a scalpel. I squeeze some out of the tube and rub it into her little tush. “Now the baby cornstarch.”
Metcalf gives me the container. I’m leaning over Lily with Taggart still behind me. I open the container and shake some into my hand, then I bend down as if I’m going to sprinkle the powder on Lily’s butt.
As if!
Instead, I pivot quickly and toss the cornstarch into Ray’s eyes. Startled, he sputters and coughs, then takes a step back. That’s when I lunge at him and knock the gunout of his hand, and in the second before it goes off, my entire life flashes before my eyes: money under my pillow from the Tooth Fairy… Sammy Hagopian, my first crush… teenage angst… unprotected sex… my first internal exam… protected sex…
Then, a thunderous noise. The smell of something burning.
It’s me! I’ve been shot!
Everybody is rushing toward me. I’m screaming and bleeding and they’re all screaming too and the pain gets so bad I start blacking out, but before I do, I lift my left leg and kick Ray Taggart in the balls. He goes down.
The last thing I hear is a voice from outside, a booming voice echoing as if it’s coming through a megaphone: “FBI! Freeze!”
CHAPTER 81
“SHE’S REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS,” I hear a man say.Is he talking about me?
An ambulance siren is rattling through my head and it takes me a moment to realize I’m inside the vehicle, flat on my back. I open my eyes. Everything’s blurry. Two men are leaning over me.
“How’s the baby?” I ask.
“She’s fine,” one of them says.
Thank you, God.
“So’s the mom. And the older daughter.”
“And the others?” I ask.
“A bunch of ’em were carted off in cuffs,” the second man says. “It was an FBI raid. Don’t see many of thosearound here.” He seems proud to have been part of this, like he can’t wait to get home and share it with the missus.
I’ve heard the guy’s voice before. But where?
“Hey, I know you!” he says. I squint and blink a few times. He’s wearing an EMT uniform and a badge that saysFRED.
“Aren’t you the lady who got rear-ended?”
Am I?My thinking is as blurry as my vision. Then I remember.
“Yes,” I say.
“Boy, are you lucky,” he says.
