Free House of Glass by Sophie Littlefield Page A

Jen gently pulled her hand away and sat back onto the couch, reaching for the last of the quilts.
    “Good night,” she said softly, and turned off the lamp, casting them all into total darkness.

Chapter Nine
    “Mom. Mom!”
    Jen woke to Livvy’s urgent whisper, her daughter shaking her by the shoulder. Groggily, she sat up. She’d finally fallen into a dreamless sleep, and it took her a second to remember. She was alone on the couch, and Ted was asleep on the floor with Teddy.
    Livvy’s face was stark with fear. “I can hear them up there!”
    Weak light streamed through the window wells. It probably wasn’t even seven yet. Jen didn’t have a watch—who wore them anymore?—and Dan had taken their phones, all three of them. Livvy would have received dozens of texts by now, from her many friends. Jen wondered if Dan had thought of that. Then again, she doubted any of Livvy’s friends would notice anything amiss for a while. Sometimes Livvy got into a mood and refused to text anyone back. She was known among her friends for being a bit artistic, a bit prickly. Sensitive, Jen would have said, though some days her daughter seemed anything but.
    She pushed the quilt out of the way to make room for her daughter. Livvy sat next to her, stepping over her dad and brother, who didn’t even stir. She was holding something tightly in her hands, one of Teddy’s colorful toys. “I can hear them,” she repeated. “What do you think they’re doing?”
    “I don’t know.” Jen tried to think, to force herself to process what was happening. Of course she had hoped they would be gone, that they would have loaded up their cars with everything they could fit and driven away in the early hours of dawn.
    That hadn’t happened, which begged all kinds of questions, all of them ominous. But she didn’t want to communicate her fear to Livvy, to make things any worse. She caressed her daughter’s cheek, pushing a wayward lock of hair out of her eyes. “I imagine they’re doing what anyone does in the morning. Using the bathroom, maybe getting something to eat. But don’t think about that, sweetie. It doesn’t matter. You’re here with us. With me and Daddy.”
    “Mom. They’re criminals. ”
    “Oh, baby, I don’t think they’re all that dangerous,” Jen said, praying it was true. “Guys like this, they’re probably just in a jam. You know, with the economy the way it is, everyone struggling, all it takes is a missed paycheck or two and normal people start facing difficult decisions, and they do desperate things.”
    “Yeah, but they don’t go around holding people hostage in their basements. You have to be sociopathic to do that.”
    Jen hugged Livvy tighter. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”
    Livvy opened her hands, revealing the stubby little purple-and-orange plastic receiver of a walkie-talkie set that Ted had recently given Jake for his birthday. It had been a double-edged gift—the real reason Ted wanted Jake to have it was so that he would play with it with Teddy. It had led to an argument with Jen; she hated it when Ted tried to second-guess the speech pathologist, when he complained that Teddy’s progress wasn’t fast enough. But she had to admit that the toy had been a huge hit: Jake called every night from his bedroom in Tanya’s apartment across the ravine in Hastings, and Teddy answered. If Ted didn’t mind that he was the one who ended up talking to Jake when Teddy got tired of playing with the buttons, then Jen supposed it was a good thing, especially because Jake could certainly use a father figure.
    “I found this,” Livvy said. “When Dan brought Teddy’s toys down from the living room, this was in the pile. Jake probably called after dinner, but we missed it because it wasn’t turned on. But look, it’s still charged.” She pushed the button and the little light glowed orange. “Maybe we can call Aunt Tanya.”
    “That’s—that’s a great idea, Liv,” Jen said. “But they