“Big news!” June said, trying to break the ice with her nieces that were normally much more raucous. “I have ice cream for later.”
“We can’t have ice cream...” one said soberly.
“No sugar...”
“Makes us wiggle...”
“And no juice after dinner...”
“We don’t sleep good...”
“Might wet the bed.”
“I see,” said June, doing her best to suppress a laugh at the tennis match dialogue. “Well, we better follow mommy’s rules, huh? But right now I have a big, big surprise!”
“Mommy gave us homework,” Koemi said. Her legs swung back and forth as she sat on the dinner chair. “Read the books first before we play.”
“Oh? You go to school now?”
Ruka began kicking Koemi under the table before June dragged her chair back.
“Mama gave us books to read.”
“Wow! Can I see one?”
Ruka scampered off to a guest bedroom to where their knapsacks sat on a bed. The room had been set up for the kids to use whenever they came for a visit. Ruka returned a moment later with a stack of kids’ books.
“These are my new books...”
“Mine too!”
“Oh, so cute!” June said, slowing flipping through the first book, something with comical pictures of animals speaking in short sentences to each other. “You’re big girls, learning to read now.”
“Just little words,” Koemi mewed in a tiny voice.
“We can write our names.”
“We’ll practice later, okay? I have lots of paper to use.” June looked at the next book, something that looked familiar from her distant past. “These books are very cute!”
She gave them both a book and asked if they could read something to her. While they picked through colorful pages, June put Amy’s new number into her phone, labeling it only as ‘new’. Once the girls had read what they could, June tried again to spring her surprise on them.
“Guess what?” she asked, looking back and forth between them. “Auntie has a big surprise!”
They looked up from their books.
“There’s fish in the pond!”
“Yellow fish?”
“Of course!”
Both the girls jumped down from their chairs and bolted for the back garden.
After feeding the goldfish in the small backyard pond, June worked the energy out of them with several games of hide and seek. Counting to ten one last time, June slipped the phone out of her pocket and made a call.
“What’s wrong?” Amy asked as soon as she answered.
“Nothing. Everything is fine. I just wanted to check the number is all.”
“Did they eat?”
“In just a few minutes. Right now it’s hide and seek.” June heard the girls giggling from their hiding places not far away. “They’re learning to read already?”
“Just stick the books in front of them if they get bored. If you want, you can read the stories to them. They like bedtime stories these days.”
“I heard about the ice cream rule.”
“Give them sugar after dinner and they won’t conk out till dawn.” Amy laughed. “And you really don’t want to give them something to drink in the evening.”
“Unless they find it themselves. But hey, who’s the guy?” June asked, still trying to pry information from her sister.
“We’ll talk later, ‘kay? Bye!”
The call ended abruptly.
“You rat...”
June pretended she was surprised when she found the girls in the same hiding places. All three had gotten bored with the game, so they turned back for the sliding patio door that led into the living room.
Just as June looked up, she stopped and grabbed the girls.
June pulled the girls back and hid them behind her.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked.
“New friends,” a man said. He had a Ronald Reagan Halloween mask over his head.
Standing just outside the patio door, he raised his arm, a pistol in his hand. Two other men in rubber masks raised their hands with guns in their grips.
“What the...”
The man posing as Ronald Reagan fired a shot. The little girls shrieked. June pushed them down onto the patio floor, crowding them under her slender body as best she could.
“Don’t worry,” the man wearing the Ronald Reagan mask said. “The bullet was over your head. If I wanted you dead, you’d be that way. That shot was just to let you know the gun is loaded and that I know how to use it. If you’re smart about this, you’ll be just fine.”
Both the girls were crying. June looked up, still shielding her nieces while trying to comfort them. “If it isn’t too much trouble, why are you in my home?” June shouted.
“Get up,” one of the men demanded. The largest of the three, he wore a Bill Clinton mask.
“Leave us alone!”
The large man leveled his pistol at her. Still lying on top of her nieces, she had no idea of what to do. With three pistols aimed at her, she decided lying still was best. She kissed the backs of the girls’ heads and whispered soothing words.
“Get up,” Clinton insisted.
“Leave them alone.” Her voice changed to a quiet, steadier tone when she looked up at him. “I’m warning you...if you hurt them there would be no end to the world of pain I’d lay on you.”
Clinton took a step and stood at her head. He reached his gun hand down to her, June lowering her face as the gun got close. Laying her face on one of the girl’s shoulders, she felt the muzzle of the pistol press against the back of her head. “Try me,” he said.
“They’ll be just fine. It’s you that we’re concerned about,” Reagan told her.
Unable to watch what was going on, June heard steps around her.
One of them began talking slowly. “Tell the brats to park it on the couch. If the three of you do exactly as you’re told, everything will be just fine. Try to get clever and problems will start. Understand?”
June kept her eyes down, listening to her nieces whimper. In the calmest voice she could muster, she spoke quietly to the girls.
“Girls, we’re going to play a game with our new friends. Number One rule, be very good girls. Understand?”
They nodded in unison, sniffling tears.
“Number Two rule, only talk to me, okay?”
They nodded.
“Last rule, only listen to me, and not them. Don’t do anything unless I tell you, okay?”
“Auntie...”
“Shh.” June hushed her voice to a whisper. “Be quiet, baby. I want both of you to sit on the couch and be very quiet. In a few minutes you can watch TV while you eat your lunch.”
When she felt the muzzle retreat from the back of her head, June pushed up from the patio floor and shooed the girls in the direction of the couch. They got there at a gallop, crowding together at one end, their sobs turning to soft whimpers and sniffles.
Once they settled, June was led into the house, a gun pressed up against the back of her head by Clinton.
Through years of self-defense training, something she still trained at every Sunday afternoon, she knew a way to disarm and disable a man holding a gun to her head or back. But the method didn’t include two other armed men. The likelihood she could disarm all three without a shot being fired was nil. And she just wasn’t going to put the kids at risk while attempting something with such low odds of succeeding. She gave up on the idea, at least for the moment.
“Stop,” the large man behind her commanded.
She had to comply, but she would also ask questions. The more information she had, the better she would be able to defuse the situation. Standing directly in front of the kids in the middle of the living room, she tried to offer a reassuring smile to them.
“What is going...”
“Shut up.” Ronald Reagan stood a few feet away and aimed his gun at her chest. He kept his gaze set on June’s face. “Georgie, do your thing.”
It was obvious to June that Reagan was the boss.
Clinton kept his gun at the back of June’s head, pressing hard to make the point it was there. Off to the side, George Bush pocketed his pistol. He moved carefully toward June, one step at a time. From his back pocket, he pulled several loops of heavy plastic zip ties.