“But it’s the good stuff.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No, it’s a role.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re both playing roles. You’re playing the role of the revenge-minded drug dealer trying to reclaim his product, and I’m playing the role of the family man desperately trying to get out of this mess. This isn’t real.”
The man held up a pistol. “This gun is sure real.”
“True. But the contents of that briefcase are every bit as real as your drug dealer credentials, so why not take it and go? I think we’ve both given fine acting performances. If you want to make this more real, I promise you, I’m willing to get as real as it takes to defend my family, and it’ll get bloody. There’ll be blood dripping from the ceiling when we’re done. Some yours, some mine. Why let it go that far? If you take the briefcase and leave, you’ve done your job.”
The two actors exchanged another glance.
“I need to make a call,” said the one who’d been doing all the talking. He walked out the front door.
The larger man just stared at Ethan.
“Can I get you anything?” Ethan asked.
“Nah.”
“Beer?”
The man shook his head. “No, thank you.”
They stood there silently.
A minute later, the other man came back inside. He walked over to the coffee table, closed the briefcase, and picked it up. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay?” his partner asked.
“Okay.” He looked at Ethan. “Thank you for returning our merchandise.”
“You’re welcome.”
The men left.
A moment later, Jenny pushed open the closet door that had been ajar. She leaned the axe against the wall. “Glad I didn’t need that.”
Rick’s mood was far from celebratory, but he was feeling a little better. The lack of bullet wounds, even superficial ones, would give Ethan a better chance in the later rounds.
He called Ethan. “Nice work,” he said. “I’m glad Jenny didn’t have to use the axe, too.”
“What’s next?” Ethan asked.
“Get some sleep. Continue your life as usual.”
“For how long?”
“Get some sleep,” Rick repeated. “Continue your life as usual.”
Actually, Ethan and the other players had about three days before the next challenge. This was partly so that the players who’d been less fortunate regarding the briefcase of cocaine had time to heal, and also to test everybody’s ability to stay sane as they waited that long for something to happen.
Gavin and Butch’s replacements arrived exactly on time. Their names were Quincy and Tyler and they’d clearly been told exactly why they’d been sent to Kansas City, since they glared at Rick a lot and had no interest in any kind of small talk. Rick was kind of worried to make any sudden moves around them.
Ethan and Jenny both called in sick to work the next day, and they called the school to say their sons were sick. Rick was worried about this, since it was technically a departure from their standard routine, but he couldn’t imagine that there was any way Ethan would send Patrick and Tim off to school. Fortunately, The Claw Man didn’t have a problem with them staying home, since the players who’d been shot had been encouraged to stay home as well.
The surveillance was extremely tedious, but they couldn’t stop being fully attentive. It was simultaneously possible that Ethan would get scared by the long stretch of nothing happening and decide again that they needed to flee, and that he’d feel emboldened by the long stretch and assume they weren’t paying as close of attention to him.
But the Caustin family didn’t do anything to cause problems. They didn’t talk about the game at all. They stayed home and watched a lot of television. Their behavior was perfect. Considering the circumstances, they were handling things very well.
Ethan thought he was going to lose his fucking mind.
He didn’t want to be called for the next challenge, but staying home from work, keeping Patrick and Tim out of school, and being terrified to do anything that might set off a red flag for Rick’s bosses was driving him insane. He was proud of Jenny and the kids, but they were unquestionably feeling the strain, and he was frightened that one of them would finally snap.
He’d often thought that it would be so nice to be able to just sit on the couch and binge-watch television shows with no sense of guilt over the stuff he should be doing, but now that he was in this situation, he couldn’t enjoy the experience. They might as well have been watching the same episode of the same show over and over, since he