Ada's Enthrallment

Ada Briggs knelt in the weeds and gravel around the side of a renovated Victorian mansion, hiding behind and overgrown hedge and wondering for perhaps the dozenth time that evening if she really planned to go through with this.

Thing was, she needed money. Needed it bad. Despite all her scrimping and saving and practically living on Top Ramen, the inevitable had finally happened as she’d failed to make the rent on her rathole apartment this month, and she couldn’t get kicked out on the streets. Now knowing what she knew about the nightlife in this town. And the jewelry was rightfully hers anyway.

She shifted uncomfortably, feeling a little chilled from the autumn air and trying to avoid a pebble that was digging into her leg through a hole in her jeans. Brushing her tawny hair out of her face, she stole a glance at her watch in the fading light. The dials pointed to a little after six.

“Not long now...” she muttered.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the colors faded from the sky as the sun descended into the western horizon. In the tangle of trees behind her, sloping down a quarter of a mile to the sluggish river that separated the mansion from the town, the frogs took up their cacophony, so loud that she didn’t even hear the house’s front door open.

WHAM!

Ada nearly jumped out of her skin, barely stifling a shriek as the door banged shut and wriggling further back into the weeds as the apparently automatic porch light illuminated the yard. Ducking her head, she peered through a gap in the hedge and watched as the two men who had stepped outside descended the steps and headed for the red sports car parked in the drive. One she recognized at a glance; her uncle Rodney, with his shaggy brown hair and faded shirt displaying the name of his favorite rock band, looking exactly the same as when she’s last seen him almost a decade ago.

The other man she’d never seen before, but the contrast to her uncle was striking. He was dressed in brown slacks and an expensive-looking sports jacket over a white shirt, and his dark hair was short and neat. Where Rodney slouched casually along, this man moved with the lithe, predatory grace of a cat. As she watched, he paused a moment to inhale the crisp evening air, surveying his surroundings with an alert eagerness that sent a shiver down her spine for reasons she didn’t fully understand.

Despite the bright light from the porch behind them, neither man cast a shadow as they walked past her hiding place. Thankfully they gave no sign of knowing they were watched, but even so it only after they climbed into the car and roared off toward the town that Ada allow herself to breath again. She waited for several moments after the car disappeared around the bend, and when she could no longer hear the motor she picked up her flashlight and slowly stood, taking a careful look at the house.

By now the porch light had blinked off, but despite knowing the house was empty she was a bit wary about strolling right up to the front door and triggering it again. There had to be another door around the back though, and there were plenty of windows to try. With all of the planning and worrying and research she’d done over the last couple of months, she reflected now that it was funny she hadn’t given much thought to the actual breaking and entering part...or at least it might have been if her heart wasn’t pounding so.

“Come on, girl,” she murmured to herself. “You can’t back out now...what’s it going to be?”