Chapter Three
Reagan awoke with that uneasy, creepy sensation that she was not alone. The room was pitch black, and it took a moment for her waking eyes to adjust to the darkness. She didn’t move, waiting for her visitor to think she had fallen back to sleep. Minutes stretched into eons as she imagined the dark corner morphing into a killer and lunging at her.
Had she set the alarm before she had gone to bed? She couldn’t recall. It was habit, but then she hadn’t been home in a while and could have forgotten. She knew where her gun was. It had been locked in her safe in her closet since before she left for Rome. If there really was someone in the room, she definitely didn’t have time to retrieve it.
Her shoulder muscles were tense with the anticipation and stress of holding completely still in forced relaxation. That’s when she heard the tinkle of breaking glass coming from downstairs. Despite the shock of the noise she still didn’t move, waiting to see if her mystery guest was more than her imagination. Ultra-alert now, she decided to wait no longer. Apparently she was alone in her bedroom. Perhaps she had been woken by the downstairs guest and not some noise in her room.
Reagan slowly slinked out of the bed, careful to make no noise that might warn the downstairs guests of her presence. Her white silk peignoir slid off the black satin sheets. The strap slipped off her shoulder and she pushed it back into place. She regretted her choice of night wear for a fraction of a second, thinking it much better to confront thieves and murderers in sweat pants than silk nighties.
Even so, its not like she could shout down, “Hold up a moment, I’m just going to change into something less revealing in case you take it into your heads to kill me. I don’t want revealing crime scene photos.” The thought nearly made her laugh. Nervousness and adrenaline sometimes made her giggle.
No doubt her mother wouldn’t think the request to the housebreakers out of line. But then, her mother, Maribelle-Louise, was a bit of an odd duck at the best of times.
Reagan racked her brain in the darkness for the location of some sort of weapon. Her tennis racket was still lying under the overstuffed chair in the corner. She silently picked it up. It was better than being un-armed. She quickly but quietly made her way to the bedroom door. It was not latched shut, just mostly closed. She inserted a finger into the breach and sent up a silent prayer for freshly oiled hinges.
The opening widened without sound and she moved into the hallway. Barefoot as she was, she had to be careful of the slap of skin on the hardwood floors, so she stepped quickly but put each foot down in a sliding manner. In no time at all she reached the stairway and the plush carpet runner that ran down it. She navigated it with ease, easily avoiding the two steps that squeaked.
The foyer was dark and the front door was unbreached and the light on the front door was off, letting in no extra light at all. She stopped to listen for more sounds from her unexpected visitors. She heard some rattling and perhaps whispering coming from the kitchen. “Moment of truth time, Reagan,” she thought to herself.
As she crept through the foyer, she hit the silent alarm button on the control box and moved to the back of the foyer. She was heading to the kitchen by way of the back hall that led between the kitchen and the dining room and the downstairs powder room.
She stood listening again at the entryway to the kitchen. There was at least one somebody in the kitchen, perhaps two or more. She couldn’t be sure in the dark. The kitchen windows looked out over the postage stamp-sized back yard that remained shadowed. Not even the moon offered a guide.
Swiftly she flashed the lights on in the kitchen, surprise offering her the best chances against an unknown number of assailants. She hoped to catch her visitors off guard with the sudden bright white of electric light. Immediately she moved farther into the kitchen and shouted an instinctual “stop” as she brought her tennis racket into the ready position.
The two characters were rather shabby in appearance. The first was a beer-bellied short man with dark brown, wispy hair. He covered his pockmarked face under the glaring light. The second man seemed younger and more skittish. He was taller than his friend and was wearing a dirty green coat.
The younger man yowled as if in pain when the lights came on, but it may have been a howl of surprise.
“Don’t move!” Reagan instructed them authoritatively.
“What do we have here?” The first man leered.
“Jimmy,” the younger man nervously uttered as he glanced nervously at the back door, clearly he was seeking escape. “jimmy…”
“Shut up!” the older man barked.
“The police are on their way.” Reagan said, sensing violence in the first man and a nervous fit in the second.
“Goddam Bitch!” the heavy man screamed. He pushed his fellow across the kitchen toward escape, but the young man floundered, tripping on his own feet. In preventing his fall, he knocked over the canisters of sugar and flour that were on the end of the kitchen island. Flour poofed into the air like a small bomb had gone off, covering every surface in a thin powder. The sugar followed.
Reagan moved to follow the fast retreating men, hoping they would be urged to make their escape. Why wasn’t she hearing police sirens? This was her last thought before the burly man suddenly turned in the doorway and pushed her shoulders back. She tried to regain her balance, but the force was too much and her feet lost traction in the on the flour and sugar-covered wood floor. The tennis racket went flying out of her hands.
She went down hard, hitting her head and falling unconscious in a new flutter of sugar that settled like a soft white snow over her white-silk-clad young body.
