CHAPTER 1
The man’s voice cracked on the other side of the partition. “I’m going to prison for this, aren’t I?”
“You’re not going to prison,” I assured him through the gap in the door. A small, familiar giggle issued from the other side and the man whimpered. “What’s your name?” I asked him, distracting him with small talk as I rummaged in my diaper bag.
“Why do you want to know my name? Are you reporting me to the police?”
“I’m not going to report you. Trust me.”
“Trust you!”
“Do you seriously think I want this to end badly?” I listened to his ragged breaths, waiting for an answer.
“Mo…” he said tentatively. Another giggle came from behind the partition and the man cried, “Mo! My name is Mo! Dear god, please do something!”
“I need you to stay calm, Mo. Listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”
His voice climbed. “You’ve done this before?”
“Yes,” I assured him, “I have dealt with this before.” Just never in the men’s room of a Walmart. “Listen to me carefully, Mo. I’m going to bend down very slowly and reach into the stall. Whatever happens, don’t move.”
Mo started hyperventilating in earnest. “Wait, you’re going to what? I really don’t think that’s a good idea. There must be some other way—”
“There is no other way, Mo. Are you going to let me help you or do I need to call someone to unlock the stall door?”
“Don’t call anyone!” he begged. “Do whatever it is you’re going to do. But please hurry!”
I eased to the floor, cringing as I pressed my palms to the sticky tiles. I didn’t want to think about what might be growing in the grout between them as I lowered my head and peeked under the partition at Mo’s feet.
His slacks pooled around his ankles and a pair of Argyle socks were drawn high over his calves. My son’s light-up Buzz Lightyear sneakers flashed a few feet in front of the man.
“Zach,” I pleaded as he babbled and grinned at Mo. “Come out of there, right this minute.”
Thirty seconds. In the thirty seconds it had taken me to relieve my bladder, my toddler had managed to slither under the door of my stall and slip out of the women’s restroom and into the men’s, probably on the heels of some unsuspecting young person who had never been responsible for small children or zoo animals and hadn’t had the forethought to stop him.
Zach laughed as I groped under the partition for him. The baggy hem of his overalls slipped from my fingers as he retreated deeper into the stall.
“He’s coming closer!” Mo shrieked, his knees clamping together. “No, no! Stay back!”
“You don’t have much experience with children, do you?”
“No! Why would you ask that?”
“Just a hunch.” I dropped my shoulder under the partition, my arm outstretched. Forgoing two other empty stalls, Mo had chosen the larger accessible toilet, and the commode—and now my child—were in the farthest corner of it. “I can’t reach him. He’s too far from the door.”
“I thought you said you knew how to fix this!”
“I’m working on it. Don’t panic.”
“Don’t panic? Do you have any idea what happens to men who get caught in bathrooms with small children without their pants on? I was just in here minding my own business!”
Zach’s giggles fell suddenly, ominously silent. I dug furiously in my diaper bag. Where were the damn Cheerios when you needed them?
“Something’s wrong,” Mo said through a strained whisper. “The child is holding very still. I think he might be up to something.”
I wrinkled my nose. Zach was definitely up to something.
“He’s grunting and his face is turning red. I think he’s possessed.”
“He’s not possessed. He’s having a bowel movement.”
“He’s what?! That’s it! I’m coming out—”
“No! Whatever you do, do not stand up!” I buried my arm elbow-deep in my bag. There definitely wasn’t time to run out to the cereal aisle. The poor man would probably suffer a heart attack and wind up dead on the floor before I made it back, and the last thing I needed to deal with was one more corpse. Especially one with his pants around his ankles.
New year, new me. I wasn’t a criminal or a killer, at least not by my own choice. Harris Mickler, the sleazy accountant who had turned up dead in the back of my minivan three months ago, was not murdered by me, regardless of the fact that his wife, Patricia, had insisted on paying me to kill him. And yet, no matter how many times I explained to Mrs. Mickler that I was not a contract killer, disturbingly similar job offers continued to find me. The list of resolutions I’d adopted two weeks ago had included three very important bullets: no more junk food, no more men, and no more bodies in my minivan. Not necessarily in that order.
Zach finished his business with a delighted squeal, clapping his hands with exclamations of self-praise. He stomped toward Mo with an outstretched hand.
“I don’t understand!” Mo screamed. “What does it want from me?!”
I dumped the contents of the diaper bag onto the floor. My police officer sister, who would rather clean up crime scenes than wipe her nephew’s backside, had spent the last few weeks attempting to potty train my son despite my insistence that Zach wasn’t ready. While my barely-two-year-old now grasped what he was expected to do in the bathroom, Georgia’s training strategy had only managed to whet his appetite for bribes. “He wants a reward.”
“A reward?! Why would it expect a reward for this?”
I grabbed a plastic baggy of Cheerios and thrust it under the door. Zach turned toward the sound as I shook the cereal inside, his chubby hands chasing the bag as I drew it closer toward me. As soon as my son was within reach, I looped an arm around his waist and dragged him out of the stall.
Mo’s hands fell limp at his sides. I plopped Zach down on the floor beside me, wiping my brow as he puzzled over the seal on the snack bag.
“It’s safe, Mo. You can come out now.” I gathered the diaper creams, packets of wipes, and random mom-survival gear, stuffing them back into my purse. A quick glance under the stall revealed that Mo hadn’t moved. “Mo?” I paused, listening for signs of life through the door. “Mo? Are you okay?” For the love of god, let him be okay.
“I am far from okay.”
I released a held breath. “Do you need me to call for help?”
“I’d rather you just go,” he said, “and take the tiny demon with you.”
“Fair enough.” I plucked the bag carefully from Zach’s hands and scooped him up. Holding him over the sink on one raised knee, I washed both of our hands twice, rigorously and with plenty of soap, before returning the bag of snacks to him.
“It was nice meeting you, Mo,” I called out.
A stoic grunt issued from the stall. I comforted myself with the fact that at least Mo had survived. It was past noon, twelve days into a brand-new year, and I hadn’t broken any of my three resolutions—at least not yet.
CHAPTER 2
After a quick diaper change and several more rounds of handwashing, I hefted Zach into a shopping cart, handed him his threadbare nap blanket and a sippy cup, and pushed him around the store, searching for Vero. I found my children’s nanny in the women’s clothing department, scrutinizing a generic fleece hoodie, which did not jibe with the brand-name-wearing, hip fashionista I’d grown to know and love. She jumped nearly a foot when I rolled my cart up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I asked as she dropped the sweatshirt into her cart. She pushed a pair of oversized sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. I could hardly see them under the low bill of the baseball cap she’d been wearing since we left the house that morning. “You already have a black hoodie.” I gestured to the designer logo on the one she was presently wearing. She looked like a cat burglar in yoga pants.
“You can never have too many hoodies.” She darted cautious glances around the women’s department, giving a heavy dose of side-eye to a sketchy-looking man with a greasy comb-over who was talking to himself as he browsed through a rack of padded bras. He’d either shoplifted a pair of tube socks or he was sporting a boner—I didn’t want to think very hard about which. She grimaced as he gave a set of double D’s an inquisitive squeeze. “How much longer until the van’s ready?”
I checked my phone. “At least another thirty minutes. And we still have an hour before we have to pick up Delia at preschool.”
“Let’s head over to the accessories department. This guy’s freaking me out, and I could use a few extra pairs of shades.”
“If you were so worried about being seen in public, we could have taken my minivan to your cousin’s garage instead of bringing it here. Ramón probably would have changed the oil for free.”
Vero gave a vehement shake of her head. “No way. We’re safer here.” Her last address of record had been her cousin Ramón’s apartment, which, according to Vero, was too close for comfort to his auto repair shop to risk being seen there.
“I don’t get it, Vero. All this paranoia doesn’t make any sense. You’re in debt to a couple of sorority girls in Maryland, so you drop out of school and leave the state, and the second these girls’ parents show up at your cousin’s door looking for you, you run off to Atlantic City and take a marker from a loan shark? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just drive back to Maryland and tell your sorority sisters the truth, that you didn’t take their money so you can’t give it back?”
“I told them a year ago, and they didn’t believe me.”
“Then they’re not worth the effort you’re putting into avoiding them. Are you just planning to wear disguises and stay in the house indefinitely?”
“If a couple of sorority girls managed to track me all the way to my cousin’s place because they think I stole their stupid treasury money, how long do you think it will take a professional loan shark to find me after I lost his two hundred grand trying to pay them back?”
“You can’t hide forever. The spring semester at the community college starts in two weeks.”
“Doesn’t matter, because I’m not going.”
My cart lurched to a stop. Zach gripped the handlebar and giggled in his seat, spilling juice down his overalls. I used his nap blanket to wipe him up. “Vero, you’re only a few credits away from your accounting degree!”
“And smart enough to know that the more I leave the house, the higher the statistical probability people will find me. It’s a matter of karma.”
“Karma has nothing to do with it. Just because you made a few mistakes doesn’t mean you deserve to be miserable. Look.” I grabbed her hood as she skulked down the aisle. When her cart stopped, I turned her by the shoulders to face me. “Let’s focus on solving one problem at a time. Steven’s flying home from Philadelphia tomorrow. We both agreed it’s probably safe for him to come back.” My ex-husband had been lying low at his sister’s house for weeks after several attempts had been made on his life. (Don’t ask. It’s a long story.) “We have no reason to believe anyone’s trying to kill him anymore—”
“Because the universe is clearly punishing me,” she said, as if that proved her point.
I rolled my eyes and pressed on. “Steven hasn’t seen Delia and Zach in weeks. He’ll probably jump at the opportunity if I ask him to take the kids for a few days. Then you and I can drive to Atlantic City and negotiate a deal with this loan shark person.”
“Loan sharks don’t negotiate, Finn. They break kneecaps and chop off fingers.”
“He’s a businessman. I’m sure he can be reasoned with.”
“Like you’ve been reasoning with Feliks Zhirov?” I pressed a hand to her mouth, as if simply speaking Feliks’s name could conjure the Russian mob boss into the women’s sportswear department of a Walmart. I checked the surrounding aisles, making sure we hadn’t been overheard, but the old man in the lingerie section behind us was too busy sniffing the panties in the clearance bin to care. “Feliks is a businessman,” Vero insisted over my protests, “and I don’t see you waltzing into his office and reasoning with him.”
Copyright © 2023 by Elle Cosimano
