Lotty tried to open her eyes, but they might as well have been glued shut. The little bit of light coming through her eyelids made the roaring pain in the back of her head throb. She squeezed them tightly until everything was black.

“Lotty? Can you hear me?” a soothing voice asked. A familiar voice.

Lotty groaned as she used all her strength to pry one eyelid open. A blurry Nikki stood over her. The light forced her to snap her eyelid shut again. 

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re awake.” She set her hand on Lotty’s arm. The warmth from her skin felt good. Calming. “Can I get you something? I have half of a protein bar in my purse. Or how about some water?”

“Thanks, Nik, but no.” Lotty sighed. She strained to remember where she was, what was going on. In a rush, it all came flooding back. Jocelyn’s house. Brent. Getting hit over the head. “Where are my boys?” she asked, breathing suddenly difficult.

“Ty’s on the other side of you. He fell asleep about five minutes ago and Aiden’s right here.”

Lotty lifted onto her elbows and Nikki rushed to place her hand behind Lotty’s head. Lotty winced in pain. She touched the back of her head where Nikki’s hand had been. Her fingers landed on a fist-sized knot. She tried again to open her eyes, covering them with her hand until they adjusted to the light. Her head pounded. “Uh, actually, you don’t happen to have some pain killers in that purse, do you?”

“I think I do,” Nikki said. 

Aiden threw himself into Lotty’s lap as Nikki walked toward her purse in the corner. Lotty kissed his cheek and put her arms around him.

“Go, Mama.”

“We will, honey. As soon as we can.”

Aiden whimpered and pointed at the door. “Go.”

Lotty squeezed him tighter and rubbed his back soothingly. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the light and landed on Ty, who was a couple feet from her, sleeping peacefully. Nikki returned with four ibuprofen tablets and her bright pink water bottle.

Lotty put all four tablets in her mouth and bit into them. The taste was horrific, almost as bad as the green juice at the gym, but she needed them to kick in as quickly as possible and waiting for them to dissolve would take several minutes longer.

“Nik, where’s Brent? Can we get out of here?”

“No. I don’t know where he went, but he left Brutus over there guarding the doors.” Lotty followed Nikki’s nod to a large leg. The rest of the man was behind the corner, but the size of the leg was enough to instill fear. 

“What permits is he talking about?” Nikki asked in a whisper as she sat back down by Lotty. “And why do you have them?”

Lotty moved closer to Nikki. “I’m not really sure. I found some papers taped inside our file cabinet in the attic. They were building permits for the houses in our neighborhood. They seemed strange to me so I pulled them out and showed Jason.”

“And the file cabinet in your attic is the one I gave you?”

“Yeah,” Lotty answered. “The one we had had a broken drawer so Jason put it in the garage and used it for user manuals and whatever other papers he needed out there. We put the one you gave us in the attic to store all of our important papers.”

“So, Brent mixed them up.”

“Those permits must have still been taped inside the cabinet when you gave it to me. That’s why he was so upset when he found out you’d given it away. He tried to find the papers in the cabinet in the garage, but they weren’t there.”

Nikki nodded. “Okay, but why? Why building permits?”

Lotty shook her head.

“You know how he mentioned he did this so our kids could have a nice house?” Nikki asked. Lotty nodded and Nikki continued. “It just made me think. Several years ago, I wanted to do a little remodeling on the house. I suggested we take out a second mortgage. He thought it was a horrible idea. He’s always overseen the finances and knew better what we could afford so I let it drop.” 

Lotty tried to focus on what Nikki was saying, but her aching head made it difficult. She set her head in her hand as Nikki continued. “Anyway, after a while, I decided I wanted to look into our finances and see if we could afford it so I called our bank and requested copies of our mortgage documents. The weird thing was, our monthly payment was way more than I knew we could afford.” Nikki shook her head. “I asked Brent about it and he explained to me that someone else was making our payments and we were paying them a smaller amount. He said it was a sort of loan within a loan and it was completely normal and legal.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“Brent helped the developers of Strawberry Lake Estates a lot in the beginning. They wanted a police officer to help with their dealings with the city. They thought it could speed up the process by months, maybe even years. In return, they helped him afford one of the homes in the development.”

“That seems strange to me. How could a police officer help? And why didn’t he tell you right away? He waited until you’d figured out something was off.”

“Yeah. He apologized and told me he was afraid it would make me worry to know we were living beyond his salary.” 

Lotty shook her head. They were missing something big here, but it seemed out of her reach. She used the wall as leverage against her back and stood up, still holding Aiden. His breathing had evened out. Hopefully he was close to falling asleep. Gently rocking him back and forth, she walked toward the monitors.

She stared at the screen showing her and Jason’s bedroom and his ugly owl mirror. An emptiness filled her chest. Where was he? She walked along scanning the other screens, Ty’s room, the office, the kitchen. She wondered how long these monitors had been set up, how long her family’s lives had been a show for anyone in Jocelyn’s old living room.

She got to the monitor showing the living room and froze. It couldn’t be. Heart hammering, she leaned closer. Where the other rooms were difficult to make out because of the darkness, the living room was well lit. There was no mistaking what she was seeing. Still, she opened her eyes wider thinking the image might change. There in the middle of her living room sat her mom. She was in one of the chairs from the kitchen and her hands were tied behind her back. A large rope ran across her stomach and around the back of the chair. Even her ankles were tied together.

Lotty pushed past the tables holding the monitors and sprinted for the door. How was her mom involved? Even as mad as she was at her, it broke her heart to see her sitting helplessly, tied to a chair. As she threw the door open, a large hand grabbed her wrist and jerked her back. She winced in pain and looked up at the man attached to the large leg. He was nearly a foot taller than she was and solid muscle. He motioned for her to go back next to Nikki.

All the commotion woke Aiden, who’s bottom lip jutted out as he broke into heartbreaking sobs. Lotty tried to calm him as she walked back. The door opened and shut and Brent appeared.

“Look who woke up. Have you had a mind change yet?” He said, his face and voice void of emotion. 

“I don’t even understand what’s going on, Brent.”

“Oh, so we’re still playing that game?” He grabbed Lotty’s chin in his hand and jerked it toward the monitor which displayed Doll tied to the chair. His hand tightened on Lotty’s jaw and she winced. “I’m not sure you appreciate the gravity of the situation,” Brent growled in her ear.

Lotty watched her mom shift uncomfortably in the chair. She was yelling at someone, but Lotty couldn’t tell what she was saying or who she was saying it to. However, the disapproving expression on her face was one Lotty was quite familiar with. Brent released her and Lotty looked away.

“Look, Lotty.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m afraid you’ve already sealed your own fate, but there’s still hope for your mom.” He nodded toward the monitor and then toward the corner. “And your boys.”

Lotty looked at the ground, hoping she could hide her emotion. She would appear cool and collected, not let him see. But thinking of harm coming to her boys made that impossible. Maybe it was time to tell him about the papers she found. She wasn’t even sure what concealing them was gaining her. What was going on? What was she fighting for?

“Oh, Lotty. You really shouldn’t have taken those permits.” He shook his head and made a tsk tsk sound.

“What permits, Brent?” Nikki yelled from the corner. “What is going on with you?”

“It took a lot of work for me to get those from City Hall. I had to spend months getting to know the right people,” he said, ignoring Nikki. His eyes were locked on Lotty. “You’d think it wouldn’t be too hard for a police officer. Well, at least that’s what I thought. But...everything seems to take time and the proper motivation. Right, Lotty?” He stuck his gun under her chin and tilted her face toward him.

Lotty shook her head. “City Hall? What?”

Brent brought his face closer to Lotty’s. “Yeah, but it turns out that was the easy part. I taped them to the underside of a cabinet drawer and there they stayed, perfectly safe. That is, until my wife decided to give the cabinet away. Without. A word. To me.”

“What are they?” Nikki yelled again.

“I don’t get it,” Lotty began. “If you staged the robbery to try to find these permits you’re looking for, why have someone rob your own house?” Then answering her own question, she nodded. “So no one will suspect you. Then, the arson. You needed another distraction to find the permits, but you burned Jocelyn’s whole house down. Was that a mistake or were you already planning on using this place as your little headquarters? And lastly, what in the world were the grave robberies for?”

“Not even close, Lotty. I wouldn’t plan a robbery or burn houses down just to get a file cabinet. I could wait until you and Jason were both away from home for an hour to do that. Anyway, time’s up. Where are the permits?”

“I don’t know.” She really couldn’t tell him if she wanted to. They were in the van with Jason, wherever that was.

Brent said something into his phone and pointed to the monitor. “This will be good. You’ll want to watch.”

Lotty held her stare on the ground.

“You’re going to miss it, Lotty. Yeah, he already put the silencer on. You don’t have much time.”

Once again confused as to what he was talking about, she glanced at the monitor out of the corner of her eye just in time to see the large man from earlier aim a gun at Doll.”

“No!” Lotty yelled and jumped up.

Brent shoved her back down. “Stop being dramatic. There’s no time to stop it now. You don’t even like her. Besides, he’s just...”

He trailed off as the man pulled the trigger and Doll’s face contorted in pain. All the air went out of Lotty. 

“Shooting her in the arm,” Brent finished. Sure enough, the left sleeve of Doll’s blazer turned crimson and her face clenched in pain.

“How could you?” Lotty growled through closed teeth.

Brent shoved his face in front of Lotty’s until she could feel his breath. “How could I? How could I? I’ve tried to keep you alive, despite your obvious death wish. I tried to make you leave the neighborhood. You don’t toy with these people. Now, tell me where the permits are or the next shot won’t be to her arm.”

Lotty tried to move back, but Brent moved closer. “Actually, I’m done, Lotty. You don’t care enough about your mom.” He took two long strides to the side of the room and grabbed Aiden.

Aiden’s cry filled Lotty’s head.

“Brent, no, don’t. You’re better than this,” Lotty screamed. Tears blurred her vision as she reached for Aiden. Brent pulled him back. Aiden’s terrified scream continued as he held his arms toward Lotty. She tried to keep the panic out of her voice and comfort him. “It’s okay, bud.” She offered a week smile. 

“Oh, Brent, you wouldn’t,” Nikki said. “Think of our babies. Pretend that’s Michael in your arms.”

“I’m doing this for Michael. For all of you. If I don’t get those permits, we’re all dead.”

“Brent, I did see those papers. I didn’t know what they were.” Lotty sobbed. “But I promise I don’t know where they are now. They were in the van, but Jason has it somewhere and I don’t know...”

“That’s too bad,” Brent said quietly, placing the gun against Aiden’s side.

“Daddy,” Aiden yelled, holding out his hands toward the door. 

Daddy? Lotty followed his eyes to the open door, where Jason stood. He sprinted inside and glanced around the room, trying to make sense of the scene. He moved toward Aiden, but Brent, seeing Jason was unarmed, stopped him. “Stay back, Jason,” he said. Jason, finally seeing the gun pointed at Aiden, turned gray and his eyes widened.

“Brent? You? I can’t believe this,” he muttered.

“Now you said the permits were with Jason, right?” Brent asked, a smirk spreading across his face. Before Lotty could answer, she heard a gun fire. Brent, with Aiden still in his arms, hit the floor. Officer Netley stood in the doorway, his gun aimed at Brent.