A blanket of darkness masked everything like a thick veil beneath a moon-filled sky. Crickets chirped in a cacophony from every direction, their incessant stridulations filling the cool air of night. A time when most predators were still inactive.
One sizable human predator was present and very much awake. Sitting quietly among the dense foliage, he watched from the large grouping of bushes just beyond the perimeter of a broad unmanaged lawn.
So far, there appeared to be only one person inside the house. On the second floor. In one of the bedrooms, or perhaps a converted office. A patch of white hair could be seen in the window over the top of a computer monitor.
The man in the bushes scanned the yard again, ensuring that his eyes were fully adjusted. Oversized and unkempt, the lawn presented over a hundred feet of open, unobstructed space he would have to traverse.
Option two was circling around the perimeter of the property, among the foliage, until reaching a line of trees on the opposite side, but that would put him within view of a neighboring house. It wasn’t worth the chance of accidental detection.
Instead, he chose to remain still. Waiting in a crouched position for an opportunity. He had plenty of time.
It was less than twenty minutes before the target rose from his seat upstairs and turned away from the window. Heading through the doorway and into what looked to be an upstairs hallway.
A bathroom break.
The figure in the shrubs waited several seconds before rising smoothly from the darkness, ensuring that there was no sudden return by the man upstairs. Then he darted forward over the tall grass in light, quick steps, settling into another shadowed spot less than ten feet from the large wraparound porch.
A few moments later, he could hear the abrupt flow of water through pipes inside, followed by a return to silence. The flushing of an upstairs toilet.
He turned and peered back over the grass, now searching from the opposite direction for anything he’d missed.
The move to the porch would have to be done slowly. Even in darkness, people could detect movement from a distance if it was sudden enough. But move slowly, and a neighbor would have to be looking almost directly at him to notice.
The biggest problem was the porch.
He was a good twenty feet from the door leading into a dimly lit kitchen, and that would take time.
Because old wood creaked.
He’d have to move at a snail’s pace. Carefully distributing the weight of each boot step as he rolled from heel to toe.
It took several minutes to reach the exterior door. One agonizing step at a time. Discovering, several times, the onset of a squeak before immediately raising and lowering his boot to a sturdier plank. When he finally did reach the door, a gentle turn of the handle told him which lock was engaged. To his surprise, it was the knob, not the dead bolt.
Slow and smooth, and with both hands together, he increased the torque until the old locking rod within the wood strained and cracked. Then, with more gradual pressure, the old knob failed and broke at the neck with a loud clunk—somewhat muted beneath the intruder’s thick gloves.
Keeping the knob fully turned, he pushed inward on the door, gently testing for resistance along the aged doorframe.
Upstairs, Perry Williams stopped reading at a sudden noise.
He remained still, while trying to remember if he’d left something out. Something that could have tipped over.
He pushed up from his chair, head cocked and listening; he heard nothing else. He took a few steps to the door and stopped again.
Silence.
Cautiously, he continued through the doorway and into the hall, stopping again at the top of the stairs to peer down over the railing.
The intruder hadn’t moved since opening the door except for one step inside and backward, around a corner, to conceal himself.
The kitchen design was a modern rustic, with a large island in the center, surfaced by a giant polished slab of dark wood. Elegant. But not ideal.
When the man came downstairs, and he would come, there were two options for entering the kitchen. That was a problem.
He waited, listening to the subtle movement upstairs.
Williams lingered at the top of the staircase but heard no other sounds. After a few moments, he turned and walked carefully toward the master bedroom. With ears still tuned, he moved gingerly over the carpet to his oversized closet, reaching high above the doorframe and coming down with a set of keys.
One more pause before inserting the key and unlocking his gun safe.
He would come down.
They always did. Given enough time.
Investigating a noise that was never quite loud enough for them to guess what it was.
The easiest, of course, was to simply turn on the faucet.
The faint trickling sound of water was enough for most victims to conclude they’d accidentally left it running.
It was always the easiest.
Contrary to popular belief, trying to locate a target within the house was never a good idea. Every house made noise, especially when stairs were involved. Much too noisy. And the absolute last place he wanted to be was trapped in a stairwell by an armed homeowner.
Coercing them downstairs was always better. Because it rarely took more than five minutes for the victim to eventually lower their guard and come down to investigate. So, his position had to be near their entry point: in this case, the bottom of the stairs. Somewhere to conceal himself while still close enough to reach the target quickly. Ideally, when they were examining the faucet and had lowered any potential weapons.
And then, of course, was the cleanup.