I ran to the door and pulled on the handle. It didn't move.
"It's a magnetic lock," the man's voice said. "A nuclear explosion wouldn't break through it, let alone a little thing like you."
He can see me? I searched the ceiling until I spotted the dark glass circle of the camera's lens.
"Please," I said, hating the way my voice broke on the word. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. I, uh, I have a friend who lives around here. I thought this was the house, but—" It was an awful attempt at an excuse, but I couldn't think of anything better.
The sound of the man's laughter echoed richly around the room.
"You weren't sure of the address, so you thought you'd just climb in a window and creep around with a flashlight?"
"I, uh, he— I thought he might be sleeping, so…"
More laughter.
I didn't blame him. I sounded ridiculous.
"You think no one’s tried to rob me before?" He had the hint of an accent that I couldn't identify. "I can assure you you’re not the first. You are, however, the first one who’s managed get locked in my panic room."
A panic room. The pieces came together in my mind, and I wondered how I hadn't realized before. I'd known they existed, but I'd never seen one, and it hadn't occurred to me to expect it.
It only takes one mistake.
I decided it was time to beg.
"Please, sir. You’re right, I was robbing you, but I wasn't going to take much, and I wasn't going to hurt anyone. I needed the money. You have to understand."
"Do I? It seems to me that every thief believes he's justified in his crime."
"I'm not a thief!"
"I suspect the police will find otherwise when they arrive."
"You can't let them take me," I cried. "My sister—I'm all that she has!"
There was a long silence. I wondered if he'd walked away. I imagined him greeting the city police at the door and ushering them to where I waited, trapped like an animal. I blinked back tears.
"You're spinning me a sad story," he said, suddenly. "You needn’t bother, I'm no fool."
"I'm not lying to you. Her name is Marion. She's nineteen and a sophomore at Northwest."
"You barely look nineteen yourself. You should have come up with a better story than that. You should have said she was in grade school."
"It's not a story, and I'm twenty-three…"
"Then why aren't you in college, instead of invading homes in the middle of the night?"
I had been in college. I'd been a semester away from my pre-law degree, with plans to matriculate to Stanford. Then my mother died, in the same month I was notified that the scholarship I'd been receiving was being cut due to funding problems. I could have taken out loans to complete my pre-law degree, but there was no way I could have borrowed enough to pay for law school, too. It’s not like I would have been able to leave, anyway. Marion hadn't even graduated high school, and our mother's death devastated her. So I dropped out of school and moved back to the little house I'd shared with my mother and sister for almost ten years. Leaving school had made me miserable, but seeing Marion excel in her college courses helped.
"Not everybody gets to make the choices they want to," I said to the unseen man. "Right now, my sister needs my support. When she graduates, that’s when I'll start worrying about myself."
"Does your sister know that you do this? Rob innocent people two days before Christmas? I may despise the holiday, but at least I don't destroy the joy of others."
"No, she doesn't know anything," I said, struck by a sudden fear that Marion could somehow be implicated in my crime. "She has nothing to do with this."
He didn't answer me. Anger suddenly rose in my chest, surprising me. I understood why he'd called the police, but taunting me like this was pointless and cruel.
"Anyway," I went on, "why should you despise Christmas? You have everything you need. You can look down on what I do to survive because you've never had to do it. You have no idea what it's like to be poor. You have no idea how it feels to know that the person you love most in the world needs something you can't give them."
"You know nothing about my life," he shot back, his voice suddenly hard.
I looked up at the camera, wishing I could see his face. I felt somehow that, if I could see him, I could make him understand.
"Maybe I don't," I said. "But what I do know, what I am telling you with absolute honesty, is that, if I go to prison, an innocent person will end up suffering for it. I truly am sorry for the trouble I've caused you, but if you let me leave here, empty-handed, you'll never see or hear from me again. I swear it."
I stared at the camera, waiting. Minutes ticked by, but there was no response. I finally gave up and turned away, moving to sit down on the cot, my shoulders slumped. I let my head fall back and rest against the cold wall behind me.
I thought about when the mortgage payment on the house was due, and how long it would be before Marion didn't have electricity or heat. I thought about what she'd do when she was forced to leave school. Half of a degree in biology didn't get you much these days. She'd had plans for medical school. She'd have made an excellent doctor, but now she'd be a waitress, maybe a receptionist if she were lucky. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried not to cry.
A loud click startled me, and I opened my eyes just as the door of the room swung open. My heart raced, and I started to put up my hands, expecting police officers with guns drawn. But the man standing in the door wasn't a cop. He wore dark slacks and a tan sweater that was just a little tight over his broad shoulders and muscled chest. His feet were bare. He looked to be in his early thirties, handsome enough that I'd have looked twice at him no matter where I'd met him. His dark hair, golden brown skin, and strong, middle-eastern features matched the slight accent I'd heard.
He leaned casually against the doorframe and looked at me without speaking. I shrank back, but he didn't come closer. He didn't seem angry, just tired.
He glanced at the opened case in the corner.
"How come you didn't take the gun?"
"I wasn't planning on shooting anyone."
"You didn't want to steal it?"
"I don't steal guns," I said.
"Ah," he chuckled. "A thief with standards."
I shrugged, annoyed. I knew, of course, that I was a thief, but it stung to hear someone say it out loud.
"How many houses have you stolen from, before mine?"
Fifteen, I thought.
"Two," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "Fine, then. Don't tell me."
He stepped back from the doorway and gestured back toward the stairs. Eyes narrowed, I didn't move.
"You're welcome to stay in here, but unless you very much enjoy dry rations and your own company, I suggest you come out now."
"But the police..." I began.
"No police," he said. "They aren’t coming."
Hope leaped within me.
"You didn't call them?"
"Why would I do that?"
"There was a burglar in your house."
"You think I can’t deal with a skinny little girl with a knapsack on my own?" he asked, laughing. The sound echoed in the room. He saw my frown and put up his hands. "All right, all right. You're terrifying. Is that better?" He laughed again. "Now go on, you terrifying criminal. Go home to your sister or your boyfriend or whoever is actually waiting for you."
Haltingly, I got to my feet. I glanced at the stairway, now brightly lit with overhead lights, and back at him.
"I'm not going to hurt you, girl," he said. Our eyes met, and I realized that I believed him.
I took small, careful steps across the room to the door, watching him closely as I did. After a pause, I stepped past him into the close passage of the stairway, my arm brushing his chest as I did. He smelled faintly of alcohol.
He let me get a few steps ahead of him before following me down to the second floor.
"Turn to your right," he said when the hallway intersected with another one. "The stairs are just ahead of you. Mind your step."
A wide, curving staircase led to a huge marble foyer at the front entrance of the mansion. Ahead were the double doors I'd spied from the street when I'd cased the house. I looked up and, sure enough, the crystal chandelier gleamed overhead. My steps echoed through the space as I approached the doors. When I reached them, I turned back. I knew I wanted to say something to the man who'd caught me and let me go, but I didn't know what.
He wasn't behind me, though. He'd turned at the bottom of the stairs. I caught a glimpse of him just before he disappeared down a different hallway, and followed him out of a sense of curiosity.
I followed him down the long hallway, past numerous closed doors, to a darkened room. A single lamp cast dim light from a corner table. Ornate chairs and couches and dark wooden tables sank into the thick shadows of the room. Like the bedroom upstairs, the sitting room showed signs of neglect. Heavy, faceted crystal glasses sat empty and abandoned in various places around the room, on low tables and the long stone mantle over the unlit fireplace. Glass bottles that had once held expensive liquor were scattered among them, along with cigar butts, some in ashtrays, some left carelessly on the bricks of the hearth. I glanced down and saw a newspaper on the floor. The headline told me that the paper was at least a month old.
The man's back was turned to me. As I approached him, I saw that he was pouring a drink. That wasn't surprising, given the nature of the clutter I'd already seen. He didn't look at me as he took a seat in an armchair by the cold hearth, his full glass in one hand, a thick, leather-bound book in the other. The chair was old, beautiful, luxurious, but nothing about the man told me that he enjoyed anything about the wealth that surrounded him.
"Do you want to go to jail so badly?" he asked, and sipped from the glass.
It was a good question. Why wasn't I leaving? I didn't have a good answer to that question. Nor did I know why I felt so certain that this man meant me no harm.
"I… No," I stammered. "I just—"
His eyes met mine. Amid the weariness and impatience I saw in them was a deep sadness.
"You just…?"
"Why did you let me go?"
He looked away from me, not at the book, but at some point beyond it.
"You remind me of someone," he said after a pause. "She'll never get another chance, but perhaps you won't waste yours."
A second chance. If only it were that simple.
"Thank you," I said. The words felt much too small for the mercy he'd given me tonight. "I'm not proud of what I do, and I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you. You didn't deserve it."
Something in his face changed. I thought he'd speak again, but he just gave a small nod before looking back to his book. His jaw was clenched hard, and I didn't think he was reading the words on the page. I could feel him waiting, wishing for me to leave.
I could do that much for him, at least. I retraced my steps and found the front door again. It closed behind me with an echoing thump that I imagined he would have heard from his dismal study. I made my way down his driveway, to the sidewalk. With each step that took me farther from the house, I expected to feel some kind some safety, some sense of relief, but I didn't. Even though I was free from the panic room, and free from arrest, a feeling of guilt pulled at me.
I didn't look back as I hurried along the wet sidewalk, huddled against the chill.
THREE