***

With satin sheets above his waist, Zach Taylor reached for the television remote. Yawning, he aimed the device at the 32-inch screen and clicked the OFF button. Thirty minutes of Jay Leno offered more than enough brain candy for one night. “Honey?” he asked, hearing the shower door slide open inside the master bathroom. “What time are you getting up?”

Jenny Taylor emerged from the steamy bathroom with a towel around her slender figure. Damp blond hair clung to her shoulders where water trickled to her lower back. “Five at the latest.” She glided to her antique armoire and rubbed scented cream on her hands.  The top drawer held a Victoria’s Secret ensemble that included among other things a variety of lace bras and panties. She chose the red and white striped panties and a pair of pink pajama bottoms before slipping into her favorite robe.

“That early?” Zach asked.

“It’s teachers’ workshop tomorrow. I have a ton of grading to catch up on.”

     Clad in pink terry cloth, she took her toothbrush from the crystal jar atop the marble vanity. She rubbed a clear spot on the mirror and squeezed a dollop of mint flavored Crest on her toothbrush. One more day and the weekend’s mine. With 31 students in her class, the extra workload took a toll on her physical and emotional stability. More students meant more papers to grade, more report cards to evaluate, and more parents to contend with after school. Impromptu conferences were the norm, as well as parents who had no interest in volunteering for classroom projects. She needed a vacation from the dreary winter weather.

Zach squatted beneath the fireplace mantel. Beside him sat a copper basket with kindling and a stand with an assortment of brass-handled tools. He used the poker to nudge the charred remains of a half-burned log toward the back of the brick-lined cavity. Ash floated toward his face as he slipped his hand inside the chimney to open the flue.

Leafing through the pile of unread newspaper, he crumpled the first few pages of the Wall Street Journal where headlines read, ‘Stocks Plummet for Third Consecutive Quarter’. He used several sticks of kindling to form a wood foundation above the paper. “Baby, do you know where the matches are?”

Jenny rinsed her mouth and spat. “Don’t fool with that tonight. It’s late.”

Zach stood up and glanced above the mantel. Black ink stained both hands. “I need something to light this with.”

      Jenny left the sink. “You’ve got soot all over your face.”

“Where?”

“Right there.” She pointed at his cheek with her toothbrush. “And your hands are filthy.”

Zach wrapped his arms around her waist. He could see his wife’s reflection in the full-length mirror. He admired the way her breasts peaked out from the front of her robe.

      “Don’t touch me with those hands.”

Zach followed her to his end of the marble vanity. At the second sink, he turned the faucet handle with his elbow. “Do you know where the matches are or not?”

Jenny rinsed her toothbrush. She wiped her mouth on a hand towel and tore a length of floss from the plastic dispenser. “If we have any left, they’re probably downstairs on the fridge or on the bar in the basement.” She worked the upper teeth first, starting with the back molars before flossing around the front. Talking with her fingers in her mouth, she asked, “Why don’t you turn on the mattress pad instead?”

Zach dried his hands, tugging at his wedding band to dry the wet spot beneath the gold ring. “I thought the fire would be more romantic.”

“That’s sweet, but not tonight. I have to get up way too early.”

Zach nodded and retreated from the sink. He found the mattress pad control at the edge of the king-size bed. With the setting turned on high, he tapped the brass lamp off and pulled the covers over his waist.

“What’s that?” Jenny asked from the bathroom, swabbing her ear with a Q-Tip.

“What’s what?”

Jenny flicked off the bathroom light. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. Why?”

Jenny slid beneath the sheets and pulled the covers to her chest. Rolling on her side, she rested her damp hair against the down pillow. Facing away from Zach, she felt his hand rubbing her buttocks. “My feet are cold.”

Zach rubbed some more. “This isn’t.”

Jenny pictured her husband’s hand in a cookie jar. “I’m too tired for sex tonight.”

Zach moved his hand to her thigh, prompting Jenny to roll over and kiss him. “What am I going to do with you?” she asked.

“Everything…”

Jenny planted a wet kiss on his lips. “I love you, but I need my sleep.”

Zach withdrew his hand and kissed her shoulder. Wired from a pair of double lattes, he started thinking about the market. The damn market; the one thing in life he’d mastered; the only thing he knew well enough to manipulate and achieve the financial success his parents never could; success that brought him the good life with a house Jenny dreamed of and a pair of high-end cars in the driveway. Jewelry, clothes, and dinners at four-star retreats became the norm. But now a downturn that refused to correct itself threatened everything he’d worked for. Next quarter would turn around. With a little finagling and some serious ass kissing with upper management, he’d land himself a nice promotion and start climbing out of his financial sinkhole.

Jenny rubbed her feet together. “Did your bonus check come in yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I was hoping we’d get it this week. I mailed the mortgage payment this morning, but I don’t think we have enough to cover it.”

“We both get paid on Friday.”

“I know, and both car payments are due. So are my student loans.”

“How short are we?”

“Almost two thousand.”

“Pesos?”

Jenny sat up against the headboard and rubbed her eyes. “I’m serious. The bills keep piling up. I don’t want the mortgage check to bounce again.”

“It won’t,” Zach grumbled through his pillow. “I’ll transfer more money from savings.”

“What savings? We burned through our money market last month.”

“Then we’ll tighten our budget.”

“That’s what you said last month.”

Zach lifted his head from his pillow. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Zach pulled the sheets off and rolled out of bed. “I think someone’s downstairs.” He made his way to the walk-in closet and flicked the light switch. His eyes burned from the intensity of the 100-watt bulb. Rows of slacks and blouses lined one side of the closet along with suits and ties on the other. A shoe rack sat against the back wall. Standing beneath the attic entrance, he looked around, pawing through junk piled behind his wardrobe. Digging through the contents like a dog in heat, he rummaged through computer books, Good Will clothes, and empty Christmas bags before retrieving his Louisville Slugger. Nicked and dinged from years of college baseball, the wooden bat felt solid in his hands.

“What are you doing?” Jenny whispered from the bed, watching her husband pace frantically about the room.

“Call 911.”

Jenny grabbed the phone beside the alarm clock and dialed. “Stay in here,” she pleaded as Zach shut the bedroom door and headed down the third floor hallway.

Zach tiptoed in the dark, his footsteps masked by the thick, pile carpet. Peering around the corner at the top of the stairs, he waited and listened beneath a chandelier suspended from the vaulted ceiling where moonlight reflected off the crystal fixtures. Then the clanking noise came again, followed by whispering voices.

He tightened his grip on the bat, holding the wooden club like a caveman.

He descended the stairs one step at a time, hanging close to the guardrail for balance. When he saw a shadow leap out from the kitchen, he froze and held his breath, his heart pounding in his throat.

Another step brought him closer to the second floor landing where a dried pine needle pricked his foot. He cringed from the pain, drawing a sharp breath as a flashlight beam traced the wall in front of him. Crouching along the wall, he felt every muscle in his body contract at once.

When the light disappeared, he glanced around the corner to the living room, grimacing at the sight of an empty stereo cabinet and a missing plasma screen.

He made his way toward the edge of the basement entrance. From the top of the stairs, he leaned over to look between the gaps in the wooden banister. Below, a tall man in a ski mask carried a laptop under one arm with his shirt hanging out of his pants. A flashlight rested on top of the big-screen television; its beam reflected in the mirror behind the wet bar.

Zach crept forward, shifting his weight to his foot on the lower step. In the darkness, he could make out a second man in a ski mask, holding a black canvas bag and a gun.

    Do something, Zach thought. But at five-foot-eight and 170 pounds, all he could focus on was the gun. Part of him wanted to go back and wait with Jenny for the cops. Part of him wanted to defend his residence and the property that belonged to him.

He swallowed dryly, clenching the baseball bat. Prepared to charge down the stairs, he changed his mind at the last second, slipping one foot off the step. In a split-second effort to regain his balance, he stumbled and knocked the bat against the wall.

He slipped again, driving one knee against the edge of the step. Losing his balance completely, he tumbled backwards to the bottom of the stairs, his head colliding with the bat as he fell. For a moment, he felt dizzy and disoriented. Then the world as he knew it went black.

2

Rubbing the back of his neck, Zach paced inside the kitchen beneath a panel of fluorescent lights humming overhead. Every lamp in the house stayed on, including the bulb in the hood fan above the stove. When the heavy-set officer came back, Zach’s emotions went sour. “You scared the crap out of me.”

The police officer shook his head. “We were simply following standard procedure.” A twelve-year veteran of the Alexandria Police Department, the patrolman spoke in well-rehearsed tones. His dark, beady eyes had the warmth of a rattlesnake. He wore his uniform with extra starch and his shoes with high-gloss polish. A patch on his sleeve bore the gold department emblem with the words To Protect and Serve stitched beneath. His partner, a rookie with two months on the job, scribbled furiously on a black memo pad. Though dressed for the part, he lacked the poise of his older, more seasoned counterpart.

Zach sighed in disgust. “What took you so long to get here?”

“Mr. Taylor,” the senior officer started, his dark mustache twitching as he spoke, “we responded as soon as your call came in.”

“My wife dialed 911 an hour ago.”

“Maybe 45 minutes,” Jenny corrected as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Would you like some?” she asked the officers, her eyes puffy and dark.

“No thank you,” both men declined as garbled voices broke through the radio static. “Mr. Taylor,” the senior patrolman continued. “Could you tell me what items are missing from your possession?”

Zach glanced up at the ceiling. “Jesus, what isn’t missing. They got away with my laptop, DVD, plasma television…”

“And my Rolex,” Jenny added. She frowned at Zach. “I left it in the kitchen. I never thought someone would break in and take it.”

“Anything else?”

Jenny sipped her coffee. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll need you to fill out an itemized list of all missing property, along with serial numbers or distinguishing marks you’ve identified it with.”

Zach shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea what the serial numbers are.”

“Do the best you can. I’ll need your list of items for my report.”

“How long will it take to get our stuff back?”

The rookie put his pen in his shirt pocket. “We’ll do our best.”

Zach pressed his temples with his fingers. He could feel a migraine coming on. “I really need the laptop back. There are files on there that I never backed up. I’m screwed without them.”

“I understand,” the seasoned officer acknowledged. “Did you see anyone in the house?”

“I saw two men downstairs.”

“Can you describe them?”

Zach shrugged his shoulders. “They were tall and thin. One wore a ski mask.”

“Were they younger? Older? Black, white, Hispanic?”

Zach shook his head. “I couldn’t tell.”

“What about their clothes?”

Zach inhaled through his nose. The hazelnut decaf smelled good, but a stiff shot of whiskey seemed more in order. “I can’t remember. I don’t know. One of them had a gun.”

Jenny shook her head. “A gun?”

“What about their voices? Did you hear them at all?”

“I heard someone whispering. That was it.”

“And your wife; where was she?”

“In the bedroom. I told her to call 911 when I first heard the noises downstairs.”

Jenny set her coffee cup on the granite counter. “Are these people gangbangers? Could they be hiding out in our attic?”

“Ma’am I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this. These were probably punk kids looking for a quick snatch. They’re long gone by now.”

“What about the basement?” Zach asked, walking the patrolmen through the living room. Disgusted with himself for not doing something more to stop the thieves, the reality set in that every piece of computer hardware was gone except for the mouse and keyboard. He could replace the computer equipment, but the files were gone for good – files he should have saved on the server at work.

Downstairs, the two officers inspected a small blood smear on the wall by the basement doors. Glass shards crunched beneath their feet as they stepped around the entrance to examine the broken window.

“So much for gloves,” the rookie murmured to himself.

“Shouldn’t you send a blood sample to the lab?” Zach asked.

The senior officer shrugged. “This is not a homicide investigation. For all I know the blood is yours.”

Too tired to argue, Zach watched the cop prowl about the finished basement before poking his head inside the furnace room. “What are you looking for?”

“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Taylor? Anyone that might want to steal from you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you ever keep cash in the house?”

“Not really. Maybe some spare change on the bedroom dresser.”

Content with what he saw, the officer led his partner to the kitchen upstairs. A textbook B&E. The perps broke in, got what they wanted, and left.

In the kitchen, Jenny dumped the contents of her coffee mug in the sink. Opting for alcohol instead, she pulled the cork from a bottle of Merlot and poured herself a glass just as Zach emerged with the officers. “Now what?” she asked.

“We’ll file a report and start an investigation. A number of similar burglaries have been reported in neighborhood.”

“How many?”

“Several.”

“Are the same people responsible?”

“We don’t know yet, but we’re looking into that possibility.”

Zach stuffed his hands in his sweat suit pockets. “How soon will I have my stuff back?”

The patrolmen exchanged glances. “The probability of full recovery depends on a number of factors.”

“Like what?”

“Recovery of stolen property usually hovers around ten percent depending on how quickly the stolen goods are bought and sold. We’ll investigate the local pawnshops. With any luck, your belongings will turn up there.”

“And if not?”

“Then it could take a little longer. At this point I can’t make any promises. What I can tell you is that our department will do its best to recover your stolen items.”

“That’s it?”

“For now,” the officer confided, handing Zach a business card. “If you think of anything more, please let us know. And one more thing. Burglars tend to strike the same house twice, especially ones they feel are easy targets. If I were you, I’d leave plenty of lights on downstairs.”

“Should we buy a security system?” Jenny asked.

“That’s your decision. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t.”

“Buy a big dog,” the rookie chimed in.

Zach shook his head. “I’m allergic.”

The officers escorted themselves out the front door and walked back to their patrol car. “Have a nice evening,” the rookie said before turning his back on the house.

Zach closed the front door and turned to Jenny. “Are you all right?”

Jenny downed the last ounce of wine in her glass. “I don’t know if I can stay here tonight.”

Zach embraced her with both arms. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”