Free Home Invasion by Joy Fielding Page B

will get tired of playing these games.”
    Except Ruth didn’t get tired of playing games. If anything, she got even better at them.
    “Things will improve as soon as Ruth meets someone else,” Jack said. “You’ll see.”
    Except Ruth never did meet anybody else. None of the men she’d dated since the divorce stayed around for very long. As the years went by, Ruth grew more and more bitter, and her dislike of Kathy grew stronger and stronger. Ruth spread that dislike to her daughter. By the time Lisa turned sixteen, she rarely spoke to Kathy unless Kathy spoke to her first. Sometimes not even then. Sometimes Lisa acted as if Kathy wasn’t even in the same room.
    To make matters worse, two months ago, Ruth got a new job and moved to Ottawa. Lisa had moved into her father’s house in order to finish high school with her friends. Kathy had hoped that she and Lisa would now have a real chance to get to know each other better. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Lisa still treated Kathy as if she didn’t exist. Sometimes Kathy felt as if her home had been invaded by a hostile alien. At other times, Kathy felt her house nowbelonged to Jack and Lisa. “I’m the alien,” Kathy said out loud.
    “What?” Jack asked from beside her in bed. “Did you say something?”
    “I’m thirsty,” Kathy said, although she wasn’t really thirsty at all. She got out of bed and walked across the hall to the bathroom. The bathroom tile was cold on her bare feet. She poured herself a glass of water. Then she stared at herself in the mirror above the sink. She wore a long white nightgown, and her blond hair fell around her shoulders in loose curls. Her skin was pale and her blue eyes sad. I look so tired, Kathy thought. Tired and old at forty-two.
    Again, Kathy remembered her high school boyfriend, Michael. “You look so beautiful,” he’d told her this afternoon. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
    Kathy sighed again.
    Then she heard the whispers.
    This time Kathy knew she wasn’t dreaming. She knew the sounds were real. She knew that someone else was in the house.
    Kathy heard footsteps on the stairs. She listened as those footsteps grew louder, camecloser. She stepped back into the hall. “Jack,” she was about to call out when she felt something cold against the side of her head.
    Even without looking, Kathy knew it was the barrel of a gun.

Chapter Two

    “Don’t do anything stupid and you won’t get hurt,” a man said. The man’s voice was low and as cold as the metal of the gun pressing against Kathy’s skin.
    Despite the cold metal, beads of sweat broke out across Kathy’s forehead. Her legs went weak, and her hands started to shake. She stared at the floor, afraid she was going to faint.
    “Who are you?” Kathy asked. Her voice trembled. “What do you want?”
    “Shut up,” a second man ordered. A gloved hand pushed Kathy toward her bedroom with such force that she tripped over her feet. The man grabbed the back of her nightgown to keep her from falling flat on her face.
    Kathy tried to make sense of what was happening. She told herself she was still dreaming, except her dream had turned into a nightmare. She tried to convince herself that there weren’t really two strange men in her house. Men with mean voices. Men who were wearing dark woollen ski masks and black leather gloves. She tried to tell herself that these men didn’t have guns pointed at her head and back. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was still asleep in her nice warm bed. Her husband’s arms would keep her safe. But one of the men pushed her again, and Kathy knew she was wide awake. Her nightmare was real.
    “Kathy,” Jack called from the bedroom. “What’s going on? Who are you talking to? Is Lisa home?”
    Before Kathy could even think of an answer, she was pushed into the bedroom.
    “What’s happening?” Jack asked. He stretched to turn on the lamp beside the bed.
    “Move and you’re a dead man,” one of the men