It was what he was still telling himself when the thump-thump-thump of footsteps started coming rapidly in his direction. They were approaching from the jointed side of the door, so there was no telling who it was. But odds were good that even if it was his mom, the intruder would be right behind her.
He pulled the door shut. Since it had only been open an inch to begin with, he was hoping the intruder hadn’t noticed.
Chickenshit.
Then, right outside the door, he heard a loud crackle and the buzz of electricity, his mother screaming, and another thump. This one was not that of a foot. This was a whole body going down.
Connor wasn’t sure what had just happened. He suspected the intruder might have a Taser. Either way, there was no point in showing himself now. Let the intruder take what he wanted and go.
Connor’s hand had been on the doorknob when he heard his mother hit the floor. It fell slowly to his side. He stayed there for a minute, maybe two. Still and quiet. Ready to launch himself onto the intruder if he opened the attic door. He heard the intruder leave, come back, and leave again.
After he left the second time, Connor hurried back up the stairs, to the window, to see . . . well, whatever he could. The intruder sounded like he was taking furniture out of the house, which didn’t make any sense. How much furniture could you put in the back of a panel van? Maybe it was the TVs. Connor peered cautiously out the window.
It was neither.
The intruder had left the house the second time with Kim in his arms. He dumped her in the back of the van, leaned in to do something. Connor thought he saw the end of a rope.
No, no, no, no, no.
The energy in the words put his feet into motion. He ran back down the stairs, bounding straight through the door at the bottom of them. He had to find a phone. He had to call the police. Fortunately, his father always had a phone on him, and it was always charged—
But his father was gone, too.
Connor’s panic grew. He could feel it in his blood now, coursing its way through his body. He looked left, then right. For something. Anything. A solution. Help.
The fireplace poker.
Connor grabbed it and ran for the front door. He would stab the intruder straight through if he had to. This man wasn’t leaving with his parents.
He hadn’t quite made it to the door when the intruder stepped back inside for the third time. The man was slim, six feet tall, wearing black jeans, a black turtleneck, a ski mask, and leather driving gloves.
Connor froze. This man hadn’t come for just his parents. He had come for all three of them. Why?
The intruder pulled a Taser out of his pocket, aimed it in Connor’s direction. He fired it up for just a second, and Connor jumped back a step, dropped the fireplace poker. Then, perhaps sensing Connor would stay where he was, the intruder leaned over and picked something up. A cellphone. Was it the one that belonged to Connor’s dad? Had it fallen out of his pocket when the intruder was carrying him out to the car? It had to be. But why? Why did the intruder want his father’s cellphone? Why had he abducted Connor’s parents? What the hell was going on?
The intruder put a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. Then he backed out of the door slowly and closed it behind him. The message was clear: Don’t scream. Don’t follow me.
Connor did neither. He stayed where he was until the van’s engine turned over and the sound of it faded away.
He ran to the door, just to make sure the intruder was gone, then back upstairs to get his own cellphone. He plugged it in, waited for it to charge. He hated himself for not having the guts to run the fireplace poker straight through that son of a bitch.
The little white apple appeared on the center of the iPhone. “Come on,” Connor mumbled, willing the phone to launch faster.
Seconds later, he was on the line with 911.
CHAPTER 3
The house was overrun with police. CSI and the like. They seemed to be everywhere, examining everything. Connor had seated himself on the bottom stair that led to the attic, mostly so he could be out of their way. Hovering over him was a detective who had introduced herself as Olivia Forbes. She was a squat woman in a black suit. Her hair was parted down the middle and tucked behind her ears. Every so often, several strands would work their way free, and she would push them back into place without stopping her flow of questions or, it seemed to Connor, even realizing she was doing it.
“So the intruder,” she said, reading from her notes, “was dressed all in black. Ski mask, gloves. The whole deal.”
“His gloves were brown.”
She looked over the top of her glasses, thick spectacles that made Connor wonder how much she could really see. “Excuse me?”
“He was dressed all in black except the gloves. They were brown. They kind of looked like driving gloves, you know? With the holes on the knuckles?”
She wrote something down in her notepad. “How did he get in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he crawl through a window?”
“No. He came through the front door. Parked his car right out on the yard. And . . .” Connor trailed off. He had already told several officers what had happened. Each time had been harder than the last. As things stood, he was barely holding himself together. And, really, why put himself through it again if he didn’t have to? Certainly one of the officers he had told would have repeated the story to Olivia. Why was she asking him the same questions all over again? He shifted gears, decided instead to address
