House of Glass. Sophie Littlefield

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      Chapter Six

      “Oh, God,” Livvy said, a split second after they heard the lock at the top of the stairs. She was standing apart from her parents, her arms hugging her body. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “It smells so bad down here!”

      Ted reached for Livvy, and she fell against him. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close, and she sobbed against his chest. Jen picked Teddy up and rocked him gently, whispering that he shouldn’t worry about Livvy, that his sister would be just fine.

      After a few moments Livvy’s sobs subsided and she pulled away from Ted. She went to stand near the shelf where all her trophies were lined up—Mini Marlins swim, eight years of soccer, a few for softball, one from the American Legion speech contest back in middle school. Jen could see her shoulders trembling.

      “Honey, it’s going to be okay,” Jen said, handing Teddy to her husband and approaching Livvy cautiously. She had to keep her calm, had to make her believe she and Ted had things under control. “Once they get what they want, they’ll go.”

      “But what do they even want?”

      Jen put her hand on Livvy’s shoulder and gently turned her so she could look into her eyes. “Anything they can sell, I would guess. There’s the silver, my jewelry, the computers—any number of things. They’ll take it and they’ll go.”

      She could see Livvy trying, wanting, to believe her. She tried to make herself believe it, so her face would convince Livvy.

      “I need to talk to Daddy,” she said as calmly as she could. “Can you play with Teddy and keep him busy for a few minutes?”

      Livvy nodded. She looked a little better, some of the panic gone from her eyes.

      “His old toys are in here,” Jen said, getting a cardboard box down off the shelf. “I haven’t had a chance to get them over to St. Vincent De Paul’s yet. Go ahead and get them out. Whatever he wants.”

      Livvy talked softly to her brother, kneeling down on the cold concrete floor next to him and peeling the tape off the box. Jen and Ted went to the far side of the basement where the old living room furniture was stored, the pieces that Ted kept meaning to put on Craigslist. Ted lifted the old lamp shades off the couch and brushed off the cushions. When they sat down, he took her hands in his.

      “I don’t understand why they picked us,” Jen said in a low voice. “It’s not like we have the biggest house in the neighborhood. And we were home. Why wouldn’t they pick a place where nobody was home? I mean, all they had to do was keep knocking on doors until they found one that nobody answered. Then they could just go around the back and break in.”

      “I don’t know, maybe they were worried about alarms. Everybody’s got those signs in their yard, those ADT warnings.”

      “Not everyone,” Jen said. “Lots of people don’t.” They didn’t, for instance. They’d talked about a home alarm system, but they’d felt that Livvy was too young to be depended on to arm and disarm the system.

      “I think we have to assume it’s just random,” Ted said. “Just bad luck.”

      “But you’d think they’d at least watch the house for a few days. I mean, that’s what you always read in the papers—they watch the house to figure out when the owners come and go, right? But these guys came at exactly the wrong time. This is the time of day there’s most likely to be someone home. It doesn’t make any sense.”

      I’m scared, she wanted to say. She wanted Ted to put his arms around her and tell her everything was fine. She wanted him to do for her what he had done for Livvy, to hide his own fear and promise her they would be safe. But she wasn’t Livvy. She and Ted were the adults, and they had to face the truth.

      “I don’t know, Jen,” Ted said. His voice was oddly detached, and he was looking past her shoulder at the shelves behind her. “I’m guessing they’ll have one of us go up there and show them where everything is. Where your jewelry is, the safe, stuff like that.”

      “Oh, God.” Jen felt a wave of nausea, and she doubled over her knees, letting go of Ted’s hands. “There’s nothing in the safe but papers. What if they’re expecting more? Like cash or something—what if they’re angry that there isn’t more to take?”

      “Well, there’s the electronics, the silver—there’s lots of stuff,” Ted said, putting his hand on her back and rubbing absently. His offhand touch was the opposite of comfort; it made her flinch and shrink away.

      If the men upstairs were disappointed with what they could take from the house, they might take it out on her family. She pictured them opening the safe, and—once they had seen that there was nothing but insurance policies, passports, copies of the will—becoming enraged. In her imagination, Dan swung his gun around, his eyes accusing, and pointed it at her face.

      She whimpered.

      “Oh, hon,” Ted said. He gathered her into his arms and held her tightly. “You can’t let yourself think the worst. Do you hear me? We’re just going to take this one step at a time. We have to stay calm and trust that—believe that things will be all right. These aren’t some hopped-up drug addicts up there—they’re professionals. Professional thieves. Believe me, they want things to go smoothly just as badly as we do.”

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