to me. It wasn’t really his. I mean, hers. And the disguise didn’t improve on her looks a whole lot, if you get my drift. Bits of mask remained stuck to her face and dangled oddly causing her to look like some decaying, walking dead character from a Friday night scary movie marathon.
“Holy masquerade, Batman,” Colt grunted. “You really are Anita Abernathy. Damn I’m good.”
“How did you know?” I asked, almost more stunned at his comment than the revelation itself.
“I had minor suspicions, but wasn’t sure until now. I’ve been tracking his . . . her history since yesterday. I didn’t follow you here, Curly. I was following him. Her. Whatever.”
Shashi had neglected to mention this little twist when giving us the low-down back in the van. I wondered if that was intentional and was still worried that she wouldn’t be on my side if the going got tough. Well, if I was being held hostage for some sort of ransom, I wanted to know what it was. “So what are your demands?”
“I’m tired of this, let’s get them moving!” Krystle screamed. I had almost forgotten she was there.
Colt added his two cents. “My guess is they want their names to be erased from the FBI’s Most Wanted List.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” I argued. “Shashi’s right—if that’s what you’re looking for, this is a stupid plan,” I said, more thinking out loud than anything else. “So they meet your demands and take your names off the list and erase your photos from the databases. So what? They’ll just put them back on when you let us go.”
“Not when they see the little package we’ll leave behind for them,” WaldoAnita giggled, picking pieces of plastic from her face. That’s why the threat has to be real.”
Those little hairs on the back of my neck were springing up again. I didn’t like where this might be going.
“What package?” Bunny croaked.
Krystle’s lips curled like The Grinch’s when he got that wonderful, awful idea. She tipped her head at WaldoAnita. “You want to share?”
“I’m way ahead of you.” She threw a large, manila envelope onto the table and it landed with a THWACK that made me jump. “Go ahead,” he said to me. “Open it.”
With shaky hands, I reached across and pulled the envelope close, not sure I wanted to see the contents.
“Come on,” WaldoAnita said. “We don’t have all day.”
I pulled back the unsecured flap and pulled out what felt like a magazine. My breathing quickened, when a closer inspection told me it wasn’t a magazine at all. It was the size and thickness of a magazine, but the cover was of stronger, glossier stock. The words, Tulip Tree Elementary, were emblazoned in bright yellow across a blue tie-dye themed background.
“What is it?” Peggy asked.
“The school yearbook,” I said, flipping open the cover, then turning several pages. “This isn’t good.” I flipped and stared, flipped and stared. This wasn’t the bungled yearbook that Roz had described. This one did have pictures of kids other than Krystle’s son. Even scarier, were the pictures of Amber and Bethany, Roz’s kids, Peggy’s kids, Bunny’s kids, not to mention many other neighborhood kids, with notes written under each.
Roz shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s my own mock-up,” Krystle laughed. “You can get anything done at copy centers these days. Those notes you see under the pictures of your kids: we’ve done our research. Birth dates, social security numbers, school bus routes, soccer teams they belong to, their friends, their favorite places to play. I have to give you credit, Anita. You know how to get what you need out of those moms.”
WaldoAnita smiled. “Well, thank you. The disguise helped.”
Krystle continued. “We know it all. If our names end up on a list again, we’ll find those kids and we’ll hurt them. Survival of the fittest and all of that.”
My stomach churned and I felt sure I would throw up. Bunny started hyperventilating again.
“But you have a son,” I screamed. “Could you really do that to a child?”
“It’s because of my son that I have to do this. And trust me, I will do anything to get our lives back.” Her face turned tomato red and she screamed, “ANYTHING! Do you hear me?”
I heard her loud and clear. So did Roz and Peggy, who both started crying. My heart was breaking for all of us. How were we going to get out of this? Surely, the FBI would be along any minute and a negotiator would deal with these crazies,