Home Invasion (5 page)

A few days ago, Kathy would have answered “no” to both questions. She’d always been such a good girl. The child who always did as she was told. The teenager who always had her homework done. Kathy had never given her parents any real trouble. She’d always followed the rules. Kathy wasn’t a risk taker. She wasn’t a rule breaker.

And yet, the last few days had changed all that. Since Michael had looked her up on Facebook, Kathy had turned into someone she barely knew. She’d become a woman who kept secrets. She’d become a woman who snuck around and did things behind her husband’s back. How had she let that happen? How had she allowed Michael, who had caused her so much pain, to invade her life again?

Kathy held her breath as Bobby pushed himself off the sofa. Then he suddenly sank back down. “Well, what do you know?” Bobby said. “The cap came off.” He laughed as he threw the bottle cap to the floor. Then he put his dirty boots
back up on the coffee table. He took a long drink of the whisky. “That’s better,” he said with a smile. “Much, much better.”

Kathy sighed with relief. As long as Bobby kept drinking, she might have a chance. She might cut through the rope that bound her wrists behind her back. She and Jack might have a chance of getting out of the house alive.

Kathy could see that her husband was badly hurt. Jack’s breathing was as jagged as the piece of glass between her fingers. “I love you,” she whispered to him.

“Did you say something?” Bobby asked. He was staring at the floor.

Again Kathy held her breath. Had Bobby noticed the broken glass on the carpet? Had he figured out what she was up to?

Bobby lifted his feet off the table and stretched out on the sofa. He laid his head against one of the sofa’s soft brown pillows and took another sip from the whisky bottle. He closed his eyes. “I’m watching you,” he said.

Was he? Kathy wondered. Or was he about to pass out from all the liquor he’d been drinking?

Kathy began gently rubbing the piece of glass in her hands against the rope. Back and forth, back and forth. Soon gentle snoring came from the sofa. Seconds later, the almost-empty bottle slipped from Bobby’s hands and fell to the floor.

Kathy waited until she was sure that Bobby was asleep. Then she pushed herself onto her knees. “Bobby,” she called softly. Then again, a little louder, “Bobby!”

Bobby said nothing.

“Bobby,” Kathy called a third time. She wondered if Bobby was really asleep or if he was just playing with her.

Bobby snored again.

I don’t have much time, Kathy thought. I have to move fast. Bobby might not sleep for long. Steve would phone any minute to tell Bobby he had the money. It would be Bobby’s turn to “take care of the rest.”

Kathy tried harder to cut through the rope at her wrists, but she had no luck. She kept losing her grip on the glass. “It’s not working,” she cried. “I can’t do this.”

Bobby flipped over onto his side. Now he faced her. Are his eyes open? Kathy wondered. Does he know what I’m doing? Does he think this is funny? Kathy stared through the darkness. She was afraid to move.

She sat still until she knew for sure that Bobby was asleep. Then she tried again to cut through the rope. But her hands were shaking. Once again, the glass slipped, cutting into her skin instead of the rope. Kathy cried out in pain as she dropped the glass.

Bobby stirred with the sound of her cry, but he didn’t wake up.

I’m so stupid, Kathy moaned. No wonder my stepdaughter hates me. Lisa thinks I’m stupid and silly and not worth her time. And Lisa is right. I’m useless. I can’t do anything. No wonder Lisa hates me.

Guilt suddenly stabbed her. When the two masked men had grabbed her in the hall, Kathy’s
first thought had been to blame Lisa. Steve and Bobby had likely got into the house through Lisa’s open window. She had felt pretty sure that the men were friends of Lisa’s. For a few seconds, Kathy had even wondered whether Lisa might be the brains behind this home invasion.

And all the time, it was my fault, Kathy thought now. I’m the one who let Bobby inside the house when he delivered my groceries. Kathy remembered leading Bobby through the front hall and dining room into the kitchen. She’d told him to put the groceries on the counter. She said she liked the spider tattoo on the back of his hand, even though she really found it creepy. Bobby, in turn, had pointed out the ants, just as he had in her dream. He even gave her the name of a product that would get rid of the ants. “Nice house,” Bobby had said before he left.

At the time, Kathy thought he was a very sweet young man. Which just goes to show what a great judge of people I am, Kathy thought now.

She pictured Michael. Hadn’t she once thought Michael was very sweet, too? In high school, she’d been crazy about him, bragging about their great
love to all her friends. And then he’d dumped her without warning for one of those friends. What a jerk Michael had turned out to be.

And yet I answered Michael’s emails, Kathy thought. I met him for coffee, not once, but twice. After all these years, I let him steal back into my mind and my heart and my life. Why? Because Michael is handsome and charming and I’m restless and a little bored? Because I’m tired of trying to win over my stepdaughter and want to return to a time when life was easy?

When had life ever been easy?

I don’t want Michael, Kathy now understood.

I want my husband.

I love Jack and the life we’ve built together, Kathy thought. How could I have risked losing it?

Kathy glanced at her husband, who lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Please don’t die, she prayed silently. Please let us get out of here before Bobby wakes up and Steve comes back.

Kathy searched the carpet with her eyes for the piece of glass she’d dropped. Finally she found it. Once more, she gripped it between her bleeding fingers, then began rubbing it back and
forth across the rope. If she could just free her hands, then she could untie her feet. And then she could untie Jack, and together they could make their escape.

All at once, Kathy heard a pop and felt the rope snap.

Her hands were free.

Kathy moved quickly to untie her feet. “Jack,” she whispered. “Jack, wake up.”

A sudden noise made her look up. She feared seeing Bobby standing there with his gun pointed at her head. But Bobby was still sound asleep on the sofa, his gun resting in his hand. Can I get that gun out of his hand without waking him up? Kathy wondered.

Just get out of here, she decided. Again she tried to wake up Jack. “Jack, Jack, darling. Please, can you hear me?”

Jack moaned and opened his eyes. “What’s happening?”

“Shh,” Kathy warned as she kissed Jack’s cheek. “Listen to me. The man fell asleep.” She started to untie Jack’s feet. “We have to get out of here before he wakes up. Do you understand?”

“I don’t think I can move,” Jack said. “I think my ribs might be broken.” His voice was so quiet Kathy could barely hear him.

“You have to get up,” Kathy whispered. “If we don’t get out of here, these men will kill us.”

“You go,” Jack said. “Go without me.”

“No way,” Kathy told him. “Can you try to sit up?”

Jack groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position. Kathy reached behind his back and untied the rope at his wrists. Then she grabbed Jack beneath his arms and tried to pull him to his feet. Jack let out a sharp cry of pain.

Kathy’s eyes shot to Bobby. Had he heard Jack’s cry?

Bobby flipped onto his back, as if he might be waking up. But in the next second, he settled back into sleep. Kathy saw that his gun was still in his hand.

Could she get it?

Could she use it?

“I don’t think I can do this,” Jack said.

Kathy looked around. She tried to figure out her next move. Then she remembered her purse. It was on the floor beside the sofa, near Bobby’s
head. My cell phone is inside that purse, Kathy thought.

If she could get to it, she might be able to call 9-1-1.

Kathy gently took her arms away from Jack and pushed herself to her feet. She tiptoed across the carpet to where her purse lay. Slowly she reached for it. Just then Bobby let out a loud snore and Kathy jumped. She grabbed her purse and returned quickly to Jack’s side. Then she reached inside the purse and pulled out her cell phone.

Kathy opened the phone and pressed 9-1-1. After several rings, someone answered. “I’m the victim of a home invasion,” Kathy whispered to the voice on the other end. “Please help me.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the woman on the other end said. “I can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.”

“I can’t,” Kathy said, as loudly as she could. She gave the woman her home address. “My home has been broken into,” she said, as Bobby stirred on the sofa. “Please, send the police. Hurry.”

“Just leave me here,” Jack urged. “Please. Just go.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Kathy said. Again she tried to lift Jack up. Again she failed. “You have to help me, Jack. I know it’s hard. I know it hurts. But you have to help me.”

Jack took a deep breath, pushed himself to his feet, and grabbed hold of Kathy. His body leaning into hers, they took the smallest of baby steps. The short walk to the hall felt like an endless journey. Would they ever make it?

Kathy pictured Bobby waking up and coming after them. Would Bobby yell at them to stop? Or would he simply shoot them in the back as they tried to flee? Would the police get here in time? Had the woman at 9-1-1 understood the address Kathy gave her? Did she understand that lives were at stake?

“Almost there,” Kathy whispered to Jack. They hurried as best they could across the hall to the front door. “Just a few more steps.”

They were almost at the front door when Bobby’s cell phone rang.

“No, please, no,” Kathy prayed. Her hand stretched toward the doorknob.

Bobby’s phone kept ringing. How long before the sound reached inside his brain and
shook him awake? How long before he opened his eyes? How long before he realized that Kathy and Jack were no longer in the room? How long before he came running after them?

Kathy’s fingers wrapped around the doorknob. At the same instant, Bobby’s phone stopped ringing.

“Hello,” Bobby said.

Kathy pictured Bobby sitting up and wiping the sleep from his eyes. She pictured him looking around the den. She pictured him peering through the darkness. She pictured him trying to make sense of what he saw. She pictured his panic when he realized she and Jack were gone.

“Are you ready?” Kathy asked her husband. Her fingers gripped the doorknob.

Jack nodded.

Kathy pulled open the door, and she and Jack stepped into the night.

And then everything seemed to happen at once.

In the cool night air, Kathy dragged Jack toward the road. The damp grass pricked her toes. Footsteps thumped behind them as sirens wailed down the street. “Stop!” Bobby shouted,
as police cars screeched to a halt in front of the house.

Sturdy arms wrapped around Kathy, leading her to safety. Someone yelled at Bobby to drop his gun. A minute later, she watched Bobby stumble toward a police car, his hands helpless behind his back. Just as hers had been only minutes before.

The police took Kathy’s statement, and an ambulance carried her and Jack to the hospital. Finally, tucked between the stiff, clean sheets of her bed, she understood that she and Jack were safe. Only then could she take a long, deep breath.

The next morning, Kathy phoned Lisa. She felt very thankful that her stepdaughter had slept over at her friend’s house. Kathy told Lisa what had happened. “I’ll be right there,” Lisa said.

In less than twenty minutes, Lisa was at Kathy’s bedside. She was crying, her pretty face swollen with tears. Her long, brown hair hung limp past her shoulders to her waist. “How’s my dad?” Lisa asked Kathy.

“He’s in surgery,” Kathy told her. “His nose was broken. And some of his ribs. The doctors might have to take out his spleen.”

“Oh, God. Will he be okay?”

“Yes,” Kathy said. “He’ll be fine. What about you?”

“Me?” Lisa looked surprised by the question. “Nothing happened to me.”

“What happened is pretty scary for all of us,” Kathy said.