through the high glass windows as Jane crept through the seemingly empty mansion. It was 30 minutes after midnight when she saw the last light turned dark from her hiding place in the backyard. She made sure to stay close to the trees, hidden in shadows of the dense forest beyond, just in case someone decided to look outside and discover a creeping anomaly. She couldn’t risk it. Yet here she was, now tip-toeing silently through Dave Collins’s enormous home. She spent months watching and learning the routines of the family, countless hours mapping out the blueprints and discovering the easiest way inside.
This was her first visit to the mansion, but it would surely not be her last. Jane kept to the bottom floor, not wanting to chance waking one of the slumbering occupants. It didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust due to the amount of moonlight streaming in and across the high ceilings. The wind was wild tonight, and every little creak and groan set her teeth on edge. If she were caught now, all of her work would be for nothing.
She found what she was looking for in a study off the living room—a bunch of personal receipts and jotted-down notes that she instantly recognized to be in Dave’s handwriting. The way he dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s was forever embedded in her memory, but it was still good to have a reference for her future plans. A set of keys were shoved in the back of one of the desk drawers—Jane lifted them up to the light to discover they were the spares for Dave’s car. She pocketed them, assuming they might come in handy in the upcoming weeks.
Jane knew for years that this was the kind of extraordinary wealth Dave accumulated, but seeing it all now, actually being inside of his comfortable and beautiful home, made the blood pound in her brain like an untapped volcano. She wanted to slash curtains and tear down walls, she wanted to take a sledgehammer to their fine marble and burn every lush piece of furniture she passed. But Jane resisted. All of the physical destruction she could cause to their property wasn’t enough, for it could easily be replaced. The devastation she had in mind was much more psychological. And once the damage was done, there was no way of ever fixing what she was going to break.
Jane left the note on the refrigerator door, knowing Dave was always the first one up in the morning. A pattern he was unwilling to break, just like the rest of his perfectly organized and wonderful life.
“You’re special!”
...gleamed back at her from where she placed the sticky message.
Jane wondered if he would remember that saying, the one he’d told her over and over again. It seemed now as if that had been a completely other life—especially for Dave. Jane was curious how long it would be before he began to accept the truth. She took a deep breath and turned to sneak back out the way she’d come. There was no going back now. This was the first piece of the puzzle, the one that would begin to unravel her foe until he was left as exactly as Jane had been—terrified and alone.