Джеффри Дивер - Nothing Good Happens After Midnight - A Suspense Magazine Anthology

Chris was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. The September night was warm. He hadn’t figured out exactly what he was going to do or how he was going to do it, but the general idea was that he was going to even out the playing field of their lives, at least a little. The way it was now, Jason had everything and Chris had nothing. That just wasn’t right.

Several times over the summer, Chris and Jason had taken the shortcut through the parent’s bedroom on their way out to the pool, which was just a few steps outside the floor-to ceiling glass French doors. The room was about half the size of Chris’s whole house, with a king-sized bed and a dresser on the top of which Cheryl Trent kept an enormous array of her jewelry, taking up almost the whole top of the dresser, neatly laid out or hanging on display — bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings. Everything appeared to be made out of gold, diamonds, and other gemstones in every color and shape.

Chris didn’t know the actual price of any of that stuff, but he couldn’t imagine it would be less than fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. Maybe way more. As if that kind of money had any real meaning for him.

The plan to even things up was coming together.

How about if all that jewelry went missing when the Trents were on vacation down in Baja? First off, the parents were going to have to consider the possibility that their own dear son Jason was the thief. And even if they didn’t go far down that road, their trust in him would have to be shaken, and they’d still be out all of that jewelry, stolen while Jason was supposed to be watching the house.

Nice job, kid. We thought you were responsible and could take care of things while we went away for a few days, but we guess not now. It’s sad but there it is: we just can’t trust you completely anymore.

But even without that, even if they bought Jason’s story about his complete innocence, the house wouldn’t feel safe and impregnable any longer. And that alone would be a huge payback.

Okay, Jason, Chris thought, welcome to my world. This is what it feels like when you get cut and your parents don’t have money to bail you out and you’re not important to anybody anymore. Get used to it. The rest of your life starts tonight.

Thunk.

Jason Trent woke with a start and sat up, fully awake.

What the hell was that?

His heart pounding, he swung his feet over and down and crossed his room in the dark to his closet where his jeans hung off the peg on the back of the door. Pulling them down and putting them on, stepping into his topsiders, he crossed back to the bed, moving as quietly as he could, the lights still off.

Feeling around, he opened the door to the bedside table where he’d stashed the gun he’d taken from his father’s office after his parents had driven off to the airport.

He probably should have told them, or asked them about wanting to have the gun in his own room next to his bed, just in case something weird happened — which it never did, not in this Neighborhood Watch community — but he didn’t want them to know that he was even a little tiny bit uncomfortable about staying alone in the house for the weekend.

Not terrified, really, just nervous.

But if he told them that he felt he needed the gun, they might — no, they would — start to curtail their traveling. And the two of them getting away alone, like with this trip to Baja, had only recently become something his parents were doing with regularity, leaving him alone at the house, often having Dawn over (and Shelley before her), or his teammates, or even just hanging out in his house alone, when he could sneak some alcohol — not so much that they would notice when they got back, but enough to get a little buzz.

So, bottom line, he’d waited until they’d driven away before he got the gun out and stored it next to his bed.

And now he had it in his hand, loaded, with the safety off, a round racked in the chamber. Ready for action.

Something had made that noise. He told himself that it was probably just an animal — raccoon, opossum, skunk — messing with the garbage cans, but he wanted to be sure.

His bedroom was on the second floor and he walked out into the hallway to the top of the stairs. Next, as quietly as possible, he started descending, slowly, a step at a time, listening.

And there it was, the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming out in the street. And then voices. Could it be laughter?

On the ground floor now, crossing the foyer in only a couple of steps, he got his hand on the knob and flung open the door. At least two figures were moving out on his front lawn, shadows in the dark. “Hey!” Turning on the light over the front door, he yelled, “Who’s there? What’s happening out here?”

But at the exact same moment, before there could be any response from the people on the lawn, came the unmistakable sound of glass breaking somewhere in the house, back toward his parents’ bedroom.

Whatever was going on, they had him all but surrounded.

Chris realized, maybe a little too late, that he hadn’t thought it through enough.

Of course the doors were going to be locked. Did he think he was just going to be able to stroll in and clear the jewelry off the dresser and then leave the way he’d come?

But he was already here at the goddamn back door to the bedroom. He’d crossed the whole backyard and come up around the pool, and when he realized that the door was locked, he slammed at the mullioned windows as hard as he could with his whole body. They were just windows. He couldn’t believe they could be that tough to break.

But they didn’t. And also the good deadbolt lock didn’t give. Not an inch.

Still standing just outside the door, he considered that he should just give up and come back another night with a better plan, maybe bring some tools to help him break in. But abandoning the idea when he was this close just didn’t sing for him. He could still get it done. He was right here, right now. He had to make it happen.

The house was dark and empty and silent. Slamming against the door didn’t appear to have woken up Jason. Peering through the glass, he saw that there were no lights on inside.

He’d just have to blast his way in, then be fast and efficient. He knew exactly where the jewelry was. Just get in, he thought, and get out.

The Trents had large and decorative river stones that Chris remembered up by their house and now he grabbed one and slammed it against the window; it broke with a deafening crash next to the doorknob. Reaching through the opening, he found the deadbolt and gave it a turn, and when he pushed it, the door opened.

As he stepped in over the broken glass, a light in the hallway came on under the bedroom door. Jason was definitely up now. Chris heard him calling out to someone way down the hallway by the front door.

And then, clearly not out by the front door any longer, now coming Chris’s way, Jason yelled again. “Hey! Whoever you are, get the hell out of here! I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot your fucking ass!”

There wasn’t time for any reaction except for Chris to lunge at the hallway door to the bedroom, which had its own deadbolt. That door was already closed, but he had to make sure it was locked, so he flicked on the lights. He then tried the lock, and a good thing he did, because it turned and the bolt shot home.

It was just in time, as Jason threw himself up against the door. “God damn it. God damn it. Open up!”

Jason slammed his gun hand against the wood of the door, but it didn’t budge. Not learning much from the experience, he tried doing the same thing again.

But this time, the damn gun went off with a resounding boom.

When Jason had first opened the front door and called out, turning on the light over the front door, Dawn went into ballistic mode and kept ordering her two companions to keep on with the job, to get as much TP as they could draped over the shrubs and hedges that bordered the yard and walkway.