Stephen Small and his wife, Nancy, sit in their bed talking about plans for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. It will be the kids’ last big hurrah before school starts again, and they want to make it memorable. As they wrap up their conversation, Stephen leans over, kisses Nancy good night, and then takes off his glasses and sets them on the nightstand. He reaches to turn off the lamp, but stops. Downstairs, the telephone begins to ring.
“Who is calling at this hour?” Stephen says.
It’s after midnight.
Stephen pulls his legs out from under the comforter and slides his feet into a pair of slippers. The phone stops ringing.
“Ramsey got it,” Nancy Small says. “He’s up watching a movie, remember. It’s probably one of his friends.”
Stephen is putting his legs back under the blanket when Ramsey knocks gently on the door and pokes his head into the room.
“Dad,” the fifteen-year-old says. “The police are on the phone.”
“The police?” Stephen says.
“Yeah. He said he needs to talk to you. Said it’s important.”
Stephen gives Nancy a perplexed look and then heads downstairs to the phone.
“This is Stephen Small,” he says. “How may I help you?”
“Sir,” says a male voice, “I hate to bother you at this hour, but there’s been a break-in at the Bradley House. You own the house, correct? The one in the historic district?”
“Yes,” Stephen says, his heart pounding.
“We’ve caught the intruders,” says the voice on the other end. “We’ve got them at the Kankakee Police Station. But we need you to come down to the Bradley House and assess the scene, see if there’s any damage or anything missing we don’t know about.”
“Of course,” Stephen says. “I’ll be right there.”
He hangs up the phone and jogs up the stairs.
“I’ve got to run down to the Bradley House,” he tells his wife. “Apparently someone broke in.”
He explains that the perpetrators have been caught, but the police need him to take a look at the house and make sure everything is okay.
Stephen pulls on a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt. He slips his feet into a pair of loafers and grabs his eyeglasses off the nightstand.
“I love you,” he says, kissing Nancy on the cheek.
“Be careful,” his wife says.
Stephen hurries through the yard toward the detached garage. He unlocks the side door and steps inside. He presses the button to raise the garage door. When he opens the door to his Mercedes, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye.
A dark figure ducks under the opening garage door and bounds to the side of the Mercedes. He points a gun directly between Stephen’s eyes.
Stephen can’t see the armed man’s face. It’s covered with a motorcycle helmet. Stephen looks at his own terrified reflection in the helmet’s visor.
“What’s this all about?” Stephen says, his voice trembling.
“We’re going for a ride,” says the man with the gun.
His voice is muffled because of the motorcycle helmet, but Stephen still recognizes it. The voice is the same one he just spoke to on the telephone.