“The bed’s been slept in.”
“So? You make your bed every fucking day? Come on, let’s get to work.”
She heard the second guy walk out of her bedroom, but the man with the gruff voice stayed where he was, gun in hand. From behind the laundry hamper, she watched as he moved toward the master bathroom across from the closet and turned on the light. He paused in the bathroom doorway, and then headed for the closet.
He reached in and flipped the switch that turned on the light.
As light flooded the small room, Victoria saw that he wore a black mask with openings at his eyes and mouth. He stepped inside the closet.
Her heart began to beat so hard against her rib cage she was afraid he might actually be able to hear it.
She stayed absolutely still, praying he didn’t see her through the gap between the hamper and the wall.
A soft whirring sound came from the other side of the closet.
The man spun around, pointing his gun. Then he relaxed when he spotted a brown case, her automatic watch winder, sitting on a shelf. Tucking the gun into the holster at his hip, he walked over, opened the front of the case, and picked up her watch. He examined it for several moments, flipping it over in his hand, and then pulled a medium-sized cloth bag out of the front pocket of his black hoodie. After dropping the watch inside, he moved on to the jewelry box that sat next to the watch winder.
With his back to Victoria, he spent what felt like an eternity rifling through the jewelry box, then picked it up and dumped the entire contents into his bag. Something fell to the floor with a clink against the hardwood floors, and he crouched down to pick it up.
There was a loud crash downstairs.
Victoria started at the sound at the same moment the masked man shot up to a standing position. He shouted to his partner, “What the fuck was that?”
She heard a loud commotion downstairs. Someone shouted, “Police!” and then—
A gunshot.
Instantly, the intruder was out of the closet. Suddenly remembering the cell phone in her hand, Victoria put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“It’s okay, Victoria. I’m still here. Help is on the way,” the 9-1-1 operator said.
The unwanted memory washed over her with the force of a tidal wave, carrying her back to a stranger’s voice on the other end of a phone line, all those years ago.
Hang in there, Victoria. Help is coming, I promise.
Suddenly, she felt . . . off. The space between her and the hamper began to contract, closing in on her. The air seemed stifling hot, and she felt dizzy.
“Victoria? Are you there?”
The voice sounded faint, far away, and she couldn’t tell if it was real or in her head. Past and present blurred together.
“Are you okay, Victoria?” the voice repeated, more urgently.
As her vision narrowed and darkness closed in, her last thought was of course she was okay. Victoria Slade could handle anything. She was tough, she was strong, she—
—was blacking out from her first-ever panic attack.
One
A month later
“THOUGH I WALK through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me . . .”
As the priest wrapped up his homily, Ford Dixon’s eyes fell once again on the photograph of his father that rested on a stand in front of the casket.
They’d gotten lucky with the photo. As he, his mother, and his sister, Nicole, had realized when preparing for this memorial service, John Dixon had posed for very few pictures by himself, particularly in recent years. Fortunately, they’d been able to crop a photograph taken just four months ago, one of him holding his granddaughter, Ford’s niece, in the hospital after she’d been born. It wasn’t a professional-quality photo—Ford had taken it with his phone—but his father looked happy and proud.
It was a good memory, one that he and his mother and sister could look back on without the uneasiness that clouded many others.
Any moment now, it would be his turn to deliver the eulogy. Never having given a eulogy before, the investigative journalist in him naturally had done his research. He was supposed to keep his remarks brief, but personal, and he was supposed to focus on a particular quality of his father that he’d admired, or share a story that illustrated something his father had enjoying doing.
Most of the people attending the funeral service knew that, in truth, there had been two John Dixons: the larger-than-life, gregarious man always up for a good time—who, sure, rarely had been seen without a beer in his hand—and the moody, angry drunk he could become when he’d had one, or four, drinks too many. Ford could wax poetic for hours about the first John Dixon, because that man had been his hero, the father who’d spent hours playing catch with him on weekends in the field next to their townhome subdivision. The man who used to make up funny bedtime stories with different voices for the characters. The man who’d organized water balloon fights for the kids at family barbecues, the cool dad who’d let him have his first sip of beer at a Cubs game, the guy always getting a laugh out of the crowd of parents sitting on the bleachers during one of Ford’s Little League games.
But the other John Dixon?
That guy was a lot harder to warm up to.
Get away from me, kid. Don’t you have any damn friends you can annoy?
Ford cleared his throat just as the priest looked in his direction.
“I think Ford, John’s son, has some remarks he’d like to share with us today.”
Ford stood and walked to the lectern located to the right of the altar. He looked out at the decent-sized crowd and saw a lot of familiar faces, a mixture of family acquaintances, relatives, and close friends of his and his sister who’d come to offer their condolences.
With a reassuring glance at his mother and sister, who sat in the front pew, Ford rested his hands on the sides of the lectern. He hadn’t written any notes, planning instead to rely on the innate storytelling instincts possessed by all good journalists—instincts he’d inherited from the man who lay in the casket behind him, a man who, once upon a time, had woven epic tales about Ford’s stuffed animals while tucking him in at night.
Today, that was the John Dixon he chose to remember.
“The Fourth of July when I was eleven years old, my father decided we had to have the biggest, most elaborate fireworks display in the neighborhood. Ah, I see some of you out there smiling already . . . You know exactly where this story is going.”