An instant after Stephanie and Jane hit the couch, the intruder appeared in the doorway. He swept the room with his flashlight and when he illuminated the couch he was shocked and embarrassed to have interrupted such an intimate moment. "Sorry," he mumbled, and turned to give them privacy. Then he remembered why he was there and pulled out his gun. "Stop that," he ordered. "Get up."
Jane tried to comply but Stephanie had both arms and one leg wrapped around him in an iron grip.
"Hey!" said Stephanie with great indignation.
"I said, stop it!" said the gunman. He was pointing his gun in one hand and his flashlight with the other.
"Get out!" Stephanie commanded. She blocked the glaring light with one hand, giving Jane a chance to extricate himself from her grasp. He stood slowly, with his hands raised in a gesture of surrender, stalling for time to think.
The gunman gawked at Stephanie's open blouse. She clutched it closed and stared at him in anger. He looked slightly disappointed, then said, "You stand up too." With some difficulty and no help from Jane, Stephanie managed to hold her blouse closed and get to her feet.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Why are you here?" the gunman asked in turn.
"Why are you here?" demanded Stephanie.
"There wasn't supposed to be a girl," said the gunman.
"There wasn't supposed to be two men," countered Stephanie.
Finally able to form a coherent thought, Jane said, "Let's take it easy and talk this through."
"Who is the girl?" the gunman asked him. "There wasn't supposed to be a girl here."
"Then let her go," said Jane, squinting into the light. "Then we'll talk about this, just you and me."
"Shut up and let me think," said the gunman.
Stephanie said, "Do you want me to open the safe? I can open the safe. There's not a lot of money in there but I'll open it."
"Her purse in on the desk there," offered Jane. "Wallet, credit cards… that watch she's wearing is pretty nice."
"Shut up!" said the gunman. He took a step closer to Jane and Stephanie. He was blocking the door and they had no where to go.
Jane maneuvered in front of Stephanie and said, "Think about what you're doing. No one has to get hurt here…" Partially blinded by the flashlight, Jane didn't see the man swing the gun toward his head until it was too late. Then he saw nothing at all.
Stephanie was nearly knocked off balance when Jane dropped to the floor at her feet. She opened her mouth to scream but the gunman was instantly on top of her shoving a bitter-sweet tasting rag in her face. The world became woozy and faded out of existence.
* * * *
Jane awoke with a mother of a headache and the feeling that he had been tossed down a flight of stairs. Half a flight, it turned out. He was in an unfinished half-basement with a concrete floor and walls and a couple of dusty florescent light fixtures suspended from the wooden rafters of the ceiling. Stephanie seemed to have been treated more gently – she was laid out on a blanket with a balled-up sweat suit under her head. She was breathing, snoring lightly, in fact. Why did women always deny it when they snore?
Patrick touched the side of his head and his finger tips came back bloody. It was sticky, so that meant it had stopped bleeding. He felt for his cell phone but it was missing. On to plan B then. He looked around the room. This basement was set up as a laundry room, with a washer and dryer, an ironing board, some boxes of holiday decorations. Two six-by 24 inch vent windows were on each side, but they were useless as a mode of escape. There was only one way in or out – a set of wooden stairs leading up to what was most likely the kitchen. A sliver of light came through under the door.
He got gingerly got to his feet and, fighting dizziness and nausea climbed the stairs. A few steps up allowed him a view through the gap under the door. No one was in the kitchen, but a chair had been braced against the door. On to plan C then. Plan B or C wouldn't have been necessary if Miss. "Follow my Lead" hadn't messed up plan A, Patrick thought. He went back down the stairs and eased himself to the floor a few feet away from her. Stephanie stirred but did not wake up. Who am I kidding? he told himself. I didn't have a plan A.
* * * *