Mark tried to slam the door shut, but the man in the ski mask stepped forward, pushed his weight against the door, and shoved.
Mark stumbled back several steps. “Call the police!”
“What?” Hillary shouted as she came out of the bedroom. “Honey, who is it? You can’t shout at me from downstairs. I can’t hear you.” Then she, too, saw the intruder and was likewise stunned into silence.
The intruder lunged at Mark, his right hand held out in front of him. It wasn’t until then Mark realized the man was armed with a Taser. He heard the crackle of electricity as the intruder activated it. He tried to move out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The current shot through his body, scrambling his thoughts and sending his muscles into spasms. He fell to the floor. If he could have thought at all, he would have thought he smelled his flesh burning. Then he felt a white-hot wave of pain wash over him as the intruder whacked him on the side of the head.
Hillary was frozen with fear. She saw the intruder hit her husband square in the chest with the Taser. She could tell Mark had tried to get out of the way but was unable. She watched in horror as her husband collapsed to the floor. The intruder looked up at her, then walked deeper into the house and, as such, out of sight.
She thought about running down to Mark to see if he was all right. She thought about returning to the bedroom to get her phone so she could call the police. Both choices felt wrong. How could she leave her husband alone down there while she went to call the police? But wasn’t calling the police exactly what she should do?
Hillary tried to think through her own chaotic emotions.
Call the police, she told herself. Do it now.
She was just about to follow her own instructions when the intruder returned with a wrought-iron candlestick. Hillary recognized it as one of two from their dining room table.
Call the police!
The intruder swung the candlestick at Mark’s temple. There was a sickening thud when it connected, and Hillary screamed again. Finally, she ran. Back to the bedroom. She looked around frantically. Where was her phone? Not on the side table. She grabbed her purse off the bed, shook everything out of it. Makeup, her wallet, a bunch of receipts, a Snickers bar she’d forgotten about . . . and her phone.
Hillary could hear the intruder charging up the stairs as she dialed 911. She ran into the master bathroom, pushed the button on the doorknob to lock it. That wasn’t going to hold long, but, God willing, it would hold long enough.
She leaned against the door just to make it that much harder for him to get inside and held the phone up to her ear.
An operator was already on the line. “Hello? Can you hear me? This is nine-one-one. Hello?”
“There’s someone in my house.” She sounded out of breath, terrified, and hearing herself that way only made her more scared. “You’ve got to get someone out here.”
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
The intruder slammed into the door on the other side. Hillary felt the wood shake and screamed. “Please, hurry. My husband . . . Right now . . . I don’t know.”
The intruder slammed into the door again.
“What’s the address, ma’am?”
“Don’t you have that?” she shouted.
“Ma’am—”
Hillary cut in, rattled off her address. Then the intruder hit the door hard enough for the lock to give way. The door swung inward, knocking Hillary off balance. She dropped the phone, felt all fifty thousand volts the Taser delivered pump through her system.
CHAPTER 6
Connor had made only one call the night his parents were abducted, and that was to his uncle, Henry Snider. He had decided Olivia was right—he shouldn’t be alone. Henry was his mother’s brother and was, of course, horrified. He had caught a plane that night to LaGuardia and arrived at Connor’s house just after three a.m.
Connor, who couldn’t sleep anyway, didn’t mind the late hour. In fact, he appreciated Henry coming as quickly as he did.
Henry was a big man, taller than average and, as Connor’s mom politely put it, well fed. He had lost most of his hair a few years back and, upon his wife’s advice, shaved the rest of it off. It did not make him look as cool as he thought it did.
His pressed gray shirt was tucked neatly into a pair of black slacks. When he entered the house, he loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Connor wasn’t sure why Henry always made a point of dressing up. It seemed unnecessary, especially on a night like this.
Then again, he had rushed straight to the airport. Perhaps these were simply the clothes he had worn to the office.
That first night, they had stayed up until dawn, drinking coffee and watching the cellphones that sat on the kitchen table between them. There were a lot of questions from both of them. Why would someone do this? What did they want? Were Kim and Frank all right? And there was the one question Connor suspected they were both thinking but neither said: Were Kim and Frank still alive?
There were no answers.
Connor didn’t tell Henry about the money because he hadn’t told Olivia. Eventually, he figured, he would have to tell somebody. But he needed some time to think it all through first. Two very long days later, though, during which Connor and Henry did nothing but putter around the house hoping for a call, he still hadn’t figured out what it meant and realized it would be even harder to bring up then. Because now Connor wouldn’t just be faced with the question of what the money meant but also why he hadn’t told anybody about it
