On her way from the kitchen, she checked the main-floor bathroom. No one was there. Walking along the hall, she heard a sound again. It was coming from the air duct.

That’s it. The air-conditioning system likely needs a tune-up.

She sighed with relief.

Before returning to bed, she took in the great room, her favorite. She loved how it offered indoor–outdoor living space divided by a sliding glass, floor-to-ceiling door. It opened to their covered porch and in-ground pool in the backyard. The pool’s underwater night-lights made it look so serene, tranquil, inviting. On a whim, she wanted to dip her hand in the water. Maybe to confirm the pool was really theirs. She reached for the sliding door’s handle and caught her breath.

A tiny seam separated the door from the frame.

The door was unlocked.

I know I checked this door before I went to bed, and it was locked.

When she tried to lock it, it wouldn’t click shut, and something rattled. She pushed it open, stepped outside. The locking mechanism had been eviscerated. Nothing remained but torn and twisted metal.

Someone’s broken into our house!

Heart pounding, Lisa rushed back inside, heading for the stairs.

“Jeff!”

Hands shaking, she raised her phone, her fingers trembling as she trotted, pressing nine, then one, before a shadow swept over her.

Jeff Taylor’s mind swam in a semidream state, taking him back through time to one of his first days in a new grade school. He wore donated clothes: pants that were too big, a shirt still bearing a faded mustard stain. He’d come so far since those days. He’d battled shame, then pulled himself up, working nonstop and getting loans to put himself through college, vowing to do whatever it took so he would never, ever go back to having nothing again.

Never.

That’s how he’d earned his way in the world, how he got his job, won the promotion and the move to Miami. Tomorrow morning he would lead the presentation to the South American group. So much was riding on it, the pressure so intense—

Jeff stirred awake.

Wait, was that Lisa?

He opened his eyes, sitting up. She wasn’t in bed. The bathroom lights were off, the bedroom door was open, the hall light—

Lisa called for him.

He shot from bed, flew down the stairs to the main floor and stopped dead in his tracks.

Lisa’s phone, its screen fractured, lay on the floor.

Jeff moved into the next room, not believing his eyes.

A man held Lisa, her back locked to his chest, his gloved hand grappling her mouth. Jeff charged at them before a glint of steel flashed—a knife pressed against Lisa’s throat.

“Don’t move! I will cut her!”

Dressed in black, his face covered with a balaclava, the man’s eyes burned through him. Jeff stopped, held up his palms.