Free Forty Acres: A Thriller by Dwayne Alexander Smith

did them a favor and checked in on the house a few times. Removed circulars from the doorstep, that sort of thing. “Wait a minute, don’t you still have the set of keys I gave you?” Martin said.
    There was a pause on the phone as Glen searched his memory. “Yeah! Yeah I do. But man, that was years ago. Do those keys still work?”
    “The front lock I know we changed, but I’m pretty sure the back door is the same.”
    “That’s great. What’s the alarm code?”
    “Two two three four.”
    “Two two three four. Got it. The file’s in your study, you said?”
    “Yeah. Should be right on my desk. Don’t forget to reset the alarm when you leave. Same code.”
    “Really sorry I bugged you. You and Anna have a good time.”
    The instant Martin snapped his phone shut, Anna grabbed it, shut it off, and jammed it into her handbag. “No more calls.”
    “Hold it. What if Glen has trouble getting into the house?”
    Anna rolled her eyes. “Please. How hard could it be to open a door?” Anna grabbed a bottle of Cristal and refilled Martin’s flute. Tiny bubbles swirled in the golden liquid. “Now quit worrying,” Anna said, sliding closer to Martin. “Your partner will be just fine.”

CHAPTER 19
    T he Handyman sat at Martin Grey’s desk waiting patiently as his Micron 1-terrabyte solid-state drive cloned the entire contents of a Dell XPS desktop at the amazing speed of one gigabyte per second. The SSD’s pulsating work light and the shimmer from the computer monitor painted the walls of the dark study with a ghostly glow. A progress bar on the monitor indicated that 64 percent of Martin’s computer had already been copied. In just ten more minutes, the Handyman estimated, his night’s work would be complete.
    Stealing the Greys’ information was turning out to be one of the easiest jobs that the Handyman had ever had. Their home security system was one of those popular brands that advertised on television incessantly. The consumer-grade alarm circuitry was so easy to disable that it was almost laughable. Defeating the front door locks was just as simple. All it took was the insertion of a specially cut bump key, a few taps with the handle of a screwdriver, and the tumblers clicked open with ease. While lock-picking tools left microscopic scratches on the keyhole, when executed correctly the use of a bump key was undetectable. The Handyman had used bump keys for years, but when the surprisingly simple technique popped up all over the Internet, he was certain that home owners everywhere would scramble to have their flawed locks replaced. But to the Handyman’s utter surprise, the scare never happened. Despite nightly news reports and magazine articles, the bump key secret had been widely ignored. It was rare when the Handyman encountered a door lock that he could not bump open in under ten seconds flat.
    Once he’d gained entrance, the search of the Grey residence also presented very little challenge for the Handyman. When it came to record keeping, the Handyman put his victims into three distinct categories: organized, disorganized, and paranoid. The disorganized victims, the biggest group by far, presented the most trouble for the Handyman because they tended to keep their records wherever they set them down last. Sometimes the Handyman would have to search a home for hours to find and duplicate all the documents he needed. The paranoids, because they squirreled their valuables in some secret location or secured them inside a home safe, always presented a significant challenge, but only at first. Once the Handyman found their loose floorboard or cracked their wall safe, all their documents were right there for the easy picking. The organized victims were the easiest by far. They kept their records in filing cabinets or in boxes, neatly labeled. Sometimes even in alphabetical order.
    Martin and his wife definitely fell into the organized category. It did not take the Handyman long to discover that a walk-in