I laid on the couch in one of the rarely-used sitting rooms and thought I might save my mother a trip. I could hire some movers to pack it all up. She needn’t bothered.

I’d decided to divorce my parents in turn, not like they’d even notice.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I woke up, I heard my cell phone beeping first. Bryce and Corrigan had called. And then I realized I heard scuffling from the inside of the house.

I glanced at the clock in the sitting room and saw it was 2:54 in the morning.

No doubt the scuffling was from the guys. They must’ve come looking for me.

Yawning, I made my way slowly down the back hallway. I knew it by heart so I left the lights untouched. Even though it was nighttime, the moonlight filtered in through the windows and lit the side hallways that ran around the house. I passed our backdoor and I was able to see the bench that ran the entire length of the wall. My mom had stored various items into bins that were all underneath that bench.

The dining room opened onto the kitchen. There were two hallways that connected to the dining room. I had walked down the side hallway that’s never used.

So it was a bit disconcerting when I walked into the dining room and saw a man in the kitchen.

I didn’t recognize him and he didn’t know I was there. I had walked silently, like I always do, but the guy wasn’t Bryce or Corrigan. He wasn’t my father. And I hoped he wasn’t my mom’s newest bedmate.

Just then a walkie-talkie that was attached to his belt crackled to life. “Jimmy, are we clear?”

The guy snatched the radio from his belt’s holster and answered, “That’s a right-o, Jimmy John. We are in the clear.”

“You’ve checked your entire section.”

Jimmy sighed impatiently and snapped into the radio, “What did I just say? Did I not say that we are in the clear? That’s a right-o.”

It was surreal. He stood in the moonlight with his back turned to me and he was shifting through my kitchen’s drawers. I stood thirty feet from him, five feet from my doorway.

If he had looked, I might’ve resembled a ghost.

My heart pounded in my ears and I stepped slowly, silently, backwards. He kept shuffling through the drawers and I kept reversing until I was hidden in the hallway. At the back door, I took a calming breath and kneeled on the floor. Blindly I felt around until I found the flap that kept our security keypad hidden from eyesight.

I coded in the alarm and a second later, an earsplitting alarm sounded throughout my home.

Jimmy cursed savagely. And I heard more curses and shouts.

“Jimmy, what the hell happened? That code came from your section. We aren’t clear. We aren’t clear!”

Jimmy dropped whatever had been in his hands and a second later, I heard his pounding footsteps on the floor.

He searched the dining room. I could see his shadow get bigger until it engulfed where I had kneeled.

I scooted back until I was curled in a small hole just underneath the bench, in between two of the bins.

Jimmy couldn’t have seen me unless he walked into the back hallway and knelt literally right in front of me.

“There’s an entire hallway back here,” he cursed to himself.

He swept a flashlight beam up and down the hallway. It hit on some of the bins and just as he started down the hallway, his radio crackled, “The police are coming. We have to go, Jimmy.”

Jimmy continued to curse, but turned and sprinted from the hallway. It only took another second until the front door slammed shut and I heard two pairs of vehicles squeal from my driveway.

I slowly crawled back from my hiding spot. My legs trembled so much, I couldn’t quite stand so I crawled to one of the windows and pulled back the curtain.

I saw a lone figure dart across my yard, but it paused just before the shadows. It turned and I swear that it looked right at me. Startled, I dropped the curtain back in place and scooted into my hiding spot. I hugged my knees and rested my forehead against them until I heard my doorbell ringing.

My heart still pounded in my ear, but I was able to hear the doorbell.

Glancing up, feeling the blood drained from my face, I felt like weeping in relief when I saw the circling red lights of the police.

They rang the doorbell again and then knocked on the door with their batons.

It took me longer than normal because my legs were so unsteady, but I finally opened the door for them.

There were two of them. One was an older muscular guy that was balding on the head. His partner was a young blonde female. Both looked fit. That was my first thought, but then I looked again and saw the grave expressions on their faces. The female stepped forward and asked, “Miss, we got a call from your security company. Can you tell us why it went off?”

The male stepped back and raised a hand to the radio he had clipped to his shoulder. I heard him requesting back-up officers.

“I…,” I had to cough and clear my voice. “I…there were men in my home and I was the one who set the alarm.”

“Are men still in your home, Miss?”

“No.” I shook my head. “They heard the alarm and left.”

“Could we do a quick search, Ma’am?”

I nodded and stepped from the front door onto the patio as both of them moved inside cautiously with their guns drawn and ready beside their hips.

It seemed forever, but the alarm was silenced and the female officer returned.

“My name is Officer Patterson. You can call me Sheila, if you’d like.”

I nodded and sunk onto one of the patio loungers.

She stood above me. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I told her most of it. I left out the details about my mother, but I told them I had trashed most of my parent’s belongings in the office and bedroom.

Sheila gave me a questioning look and raised an eyebrow. “You trashed your parent’s belongings?”

“Just the important ones. I’m…they’re getting a divorce and they told me over a voice message,” I said numbly.

Sheila nodded like it made perfect sense. “We’ll need you to do an inventory of what you damaged and cross-reference it with forensics to see if the burglars took anything or damaged anything further.”

I nodded. Whatever.

“Do you have someone you’d like to call? We’ll need you to come down to the station for an official report.”

“Can I go in and get my cell phone?”