I walked two blocks up a small hill, passing by my neighbors, most of whose lights were already off, and then stepped up to my in-laws’ one-story ranch-style house. The home sat on a spacious corner lot and had an incredible view of the downtown skyline from the back patio. Joe had purchased the home right after Taylor had graduated from college because he wanted everything on one level instead of the two-story house nearby where Taylor had grown up. I wondered if Carol would be able to afford to keep the house. I’d start figuring that out tomorrow. So much about the future was now up in the air. It all felt so sudden. Even when I’d lost my own father, I’d had some time in advance to think about the possibility.
I followed the driveway up to their garage and found the security keypad on the outside wall. Punching in the code, I watched the first garage door ease up into the ceiling. Joe’s shiny gray Mercedes sedan sat in the garage next to Carol’s Range Rover. For a moment, I just stared at Joe’s car. I’d watched him get in and out of that vehicle so many times over the past couple of years. There were car seats in the back for my girls. My in-laws took them everywhere. I again felt struck by the stark reality that Joe would never sit behind that steering wheel again. He’d never again open the back door for my kids to jump inside. He’d never give me that two-finger salute he always did before driving away with them—his way of saying, “I’ll take care of your girls for you.”
Sighing, I eased around the vehicle and made my way to the door to the house. Opening it, I was surprised that I didn’t hear the alarm beep go off, letting me know the house was currently secured. Had the neighborhood kid not been setting the alarm each night after feeding Lizzie and letting her out? Although I did not hear the alarm beep, I did hear Lizzie as clear as day. She was barking up a storm from somewhere inside the house. Did she hear me open the garage? Was that why she was barking? If so, why wasn’t she racing around the corner to the back hallway, where I now stood? My in-laws usually let Lizzie have free rein of the house, even when they weren’t home. Did they ask their dog sitter to keep her locked inside a room? The barking surprised me. Lizzie was not usually a barker, even when random people came to the front door.
I flipped on a light switch in the back hallway, made my way into the kitchen. The barking grew louder. It sounded like Lizzie was locked in a room down the long hallway to the bedrooms. I turned on the kitchen lights, walked across the living room toward the bedroom hallway.
“Lizzie!” I called out. “Calm down. It’s me.”
But she just kept at it. For how long had she been doing this? I opened the door to the first bedroom. Lizzie bolted right out and didn’t even pause for a moment to acknowledge me. She would usually try to lick me silly. Instead, she raced around the corner of the dark hallway, back toward the master bedroom. Now she was both growling and barking. What the hell?
“Lizzie, what are you doing?”
I hurried after her, turned the corner, then froze in place. I stood face-to-face with a man dressed in all black. I recognized him immediately. He was the same Mexican guy in the gray suit I’d spotted in the village crowd when Joe had been abducted. The same guy who had been watching me from a distance later that night before disappearing in the dirt alley. What was he doing here?
Before I could react, he charged at me, kicking at my legs and throwing a punch toward my face. I was able to block the punch with my wrist but couldn’t keep from tripping over his leg kick. I fell hard, straight onto my back on the hardwood. My head collided with the floor, and I completely lost my breath. The intruder did not stick around to further assault me. He jumped over me and ran around the corner. Lizzie took off after him, barking the entire way. I tried to push myself up but fell back again because I was dizzy. I heard a back patio door open and quickly shut.
I carefully pushed myself up again, got to my feet, and then kind of stumbled through the living room to the back door, where Lizzie was still yapping away. Staring into the backyard, I couldn’t see anyone in the glow of the landscape lighting. The guy was probably already long gone. Lizzie stopped barking but was still pacing and huffing in a tight circle by the back door. I reached down, scooped her up, and began petting her.
“It’s okay, girl. Everything’s okay.”
But my heart was racing. I pulled out my phone, dialed 911, told the dispatcher what had just happened. Then I hung up and waited for the police to arrive. I again stared into the darkness of the backyard. The whole thing had me rattled. I couldn’t believe the same guy from the village had been inside my in-laws’ house. Why? Was he robbing the place? If the guy was somehow involved with Joe’s kidnapping, he certainly could’ve had my father-in-law’s home address. Joe’s wallet was never recovered. But would he really travel all this way to rob a house? I did a quick search of the rooms. Nothing seemed out of place. I even found some of my mother-in-law’s expensive jewelry sitting out in the open in a jewelry box on top of her vanity. The guy hadn’t touched it.