Chapter 2 - The Long Walk
The hallway felt like it stretched on for miles. Every creak of the floorboards under my slippers sounded like a gunshot.
Marcus walked right behind me, the cold tip of the pry bar pressing occasionally into my lower back as a reminder of who was in charge. My mind was racing, calculating the time. It had been roughly three minutes since the phone call ended. If Sarah had called the Elmwood county dispatch immediately, Deputy Miller would already be in his cruiser. I just needed to buy time.
"You don't want to do this, Marcus," I said softly, navigating the dark corridor toward the master bedroom. "Breaking and entering is one thing. Home invasion with a deadly weapon? That's a twenty-year mandatory minimum in this state."
"Shut up and walk!" he shoved me forward. "You rich old boomers sitting in these big houses while the rest of us scrape by. You owe me."
I wasn't rich. I was a retired high school history teacher who had pinched pennies for forty years to pay off a mortgage. But men like Marcus didn't care about the truth; they only cared about their own entitlement.
We reached the master bedroom. The moonlight spilled through the blinds, casting long, prison-like shadows across the quilt Eleanor had knitted by hand.
"Behind the painting," Marcus ordered, pointing the pry bar at the framed landscape above my dresser. "I saw it when I was working outside your window last fall. Open it."
May you like
I stepped up to the dresser and pulled the painting aside, revealing the steel keypad of the wall safe.
"Open it," Marcus repeated, stepping uncomfortably close, his breath smelling of stale coffee and cheap tobacco. "And if you try to put in a panic code, I'll crack your skull."
