The Break-In Read Free Page A

beautiful.
    “Wow.” He tried not to grin. “This is a surprise.”
    “How’s it going?”
    “Good.” He pulled the towel tighter around his waist and waved her into the house. “Come, sit. I’ll just get dressed.”
    “Is your mother home?”
    “No, she’s at work. We’re all alone.”
    “Good.” Lisa walked into the living room as proudly as Queen Elizabeth herself. “I don’t have long.”
    Marcus excused himself and dug through his dresser for a T-shirt. When he’d moved home, he hadn’t taken much care with unpacking. He had wadded up most of his clothes and stuffed them into drawers made for children’s clothes. He pulled on the least wrinkled shirt he could find and a pair of jeans. Lisa loved him in jeans.
    Hair still dripping, he sank into the chair across from her. He smiled, frozen by the pressure of the moment. He needed to say something clever,something to impress her. Something to make her desperate to have him back in her life. But all he came up with was, “Wow. You look great.”
    “Thanks.”
    “How’ve you been?”
    She tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced around the room. “Did you see my good ring in your boxes after you moved out of the Poplar Avenue house? I can’t find it.”
    “Going Home is playing at the Empire Theatre. Have you heard of it? Getting great reviews.”
    “I really need the ring back, Marcus. Have you unpacked everything?”
    “What? Yes. Which ring—your grandma’s emerald?”
    “Yeah. I’m thinking it might be above the medicine cabinet in the bathroom,” Lisa said. “Remember? I hid it there so no robber could find it.”
    “Why don’t you knock on the door and ask the new people to look?”
    “I already went. This lady answered and she had all these rings—one on every finger. You know what that means.”
    “No,” Marcus admitted.
    Lisa sighed. “It means she’s a ring person. So I know exactly what would happen. She’d go look, find it, stick it in her pocket. She’d come back to the door all, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t find any ring.’”
    “I don’t know about that.”
    Lisa shifted forward on the sofa cushion and peered toward the kitchen. “You’re sure your mom is at work?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay. I have an idea. It involves you.”
    Here was Lisa, asking him for help. It was like a dream.
    “I still have my key,” she said. “I’ll give it to you. Then you drive back to the house and get the ring while they’re all at work.”
    He squinted at her. “Wait—you want me to break in?”
    “Not break in. Just go get my ring. There’s no law against going and getting something you forgot.”
    “There is when it’s inside a house you don’t live in anymore.”
    She tugged her hair out of her ponytail and messed up the front so it fell in front of her cheekbones. Then she looked up at him with those crazy greyish-purple eyes. “Please?”
    “Lisa. Let’s be real. We could speak to the landlord, and he’ll—”
    “If we do that, he’ll pocket the ring. Don’t you see how easy this will be? You open the door. You walk into the bathroom. You get me my ring, and then ...” Lisa paused to smile at him the way he adored, with her lower teeth showing. She shrugged with one shoulder. “And then, who knows?”
    He thought about this for a moment. What did she mean, “who knows”? That they’d get back together?
    “I’d really, really appreciate it.”
    “It’s just that it’s illegal. Break and enter.”
    She set the key on the table and pushed it toward him. “You’d be in and out in less than a minute.”
    “It takes me longer than that to untie my shoes.”
    “You’re not taking your shoes off, for god’s sakes!”
    “What if I get caught?” Marcus said. “I could go to jail.”
    “How are you going to get caught? You’re walking in with a key. And the neighbours are used to seeing you.”
    “Yeah, they’ll wonder why I’m walking into the new people’s place!”
    “No one notices their