Chapter 3 - The Drilling of Elmwood Avenue
The side entrance of our house led directly into the mudroom, right off the kitchen where the horrifying scene had unfolded less than six hours earlier. The exterior door was secured by a standard handle lock and a simple deadbolt. Inside, the muffled sounds of my family laughing and clinking wine glasses could be heard over the hum of the refrigerator.
Dave crouched down by the doorknob with his flashlight clamped between his teeth, his calloused fingers unlatching a cordless Milwaukee drill. "Standard pin-tumbler lock," he muttered around the flashlight. "Old model. Easy to pick, but since they threw the interior latch, we’re going to have to drill out the cylinder. It’s going to make some noise."
"Make as much noise as you want, Dave," I said, pulling out my phone to record the entire process with the flash turned off, capturing the date, time, and audio of the break-in crew inside my home. "In fact, the louder, the better."
Dave grinned, a grim, humorless expression, and pressed the drill bit against the center of the keyhole.
BZZZZZZZZT!
The screech of metal shearing apart tore through the quiet night air like a buzzsaw in a cathedral. Inside the house, the laughter stopped instantly.
"What the hell was that?" Caleb’s voice boomed through the kitchen wall, muffled but distinct.
"Is someone at the front door?" Chloe asked nervously.
"Nobody should be here," my mother’s voice snapped, authoritative and sharp. "Check the perimeter cameras, Caleb. It’s probably just a stray dog or the wind."
BZZZZT! Dave drove the drill deeper, chewing through the brass pins with practiced efficiency until the lock mechanism gave way with a sharp clack. With a firm twist of his heavy pliers, the entire exterior cylinder popped out into his hand, leaving a gaping hole straight into the mudroom.
"First gate is down," Dave whispered, looking up at me with an eyebrow raised. "Want me to do the main deadbolt too?"
"Do all of them," I said. "Replace every exterior lock on this property with electronic smart cylinders that require a biometric master code only I possess. No physical keys. No emergency overrides for anyone except me."
"You got it, boss." Dave reached into his case for a second, heavier hammer-drill.
Before he could pull the trigger, the interior mudroom door swung open violently.
My brother Caleb stood in the doorway, a half-empty bottle of craft beer in one hand and his phone in the other, his face flushed with alcohol and righteous indignation. He stared down at me crouching in the snow, then looked at Dave in his work vest holding a smoking power tool.
"Lucas?" Caleb blinked, his drunken brain trying to process the visual data. "What the hell are you doing? Are you breaking into your own house?"
I stood up slowly from the snow, dusting off my jeans, towering over my younger brother by three inches and fifty pounds of cold, concentrated rage. I didn't say a word. I just stared at him with the same steel-gray eyes our father used to use before he cut someone out of a business deal.
Caleb flinched, taking an involuntary half-step backward into the warm, well-lit kitchen. "Uh... Mom! Mom, come here. Lucas is outside with a locksmith."
Helen Blackwell appeared behind Caleb a second later, her designer sweater immaculate, her silver hair styled into an unyielding helmet of hairspray. Her face twisted into an expression of profound disappointment—the universal look she used whenever one of her children failed to bow to her absolute authority.
"Lucas Blackwell, have you lost your absolute mind?" Helen shrieked, stepping over the threshold into the cold mudroom. "Dragging some working-class mechanic to our house in the middle of the night while your wife is supposedly recovering from some ridiculous fainting spell? Do you have any idea how late it is? What is wrong with you?"
"Our house, Mom?" I asked quietly, my voice barely audible over the wind, yet carrying a weight that made her pause. "Did you say our house?"
"Don't play word games with me, young man," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. "I raised you better than this. Dragging us out of our beds, forcing us to clean up the mess your unstable wife made in the nursery, and now you’re standing in the snow like a delinquent with a drill? Get inside this house right now and apologize to your brother and sister for scaring them."
I didn't move. I motioned to Dave, who calmly inserted the second drill bit into the main deadbolt above the handle.
BZZZZT!
"STOP THAT!" Helen shrieked, lunging forward toward the door, but Dave didn't even blink. He kept the drill steady until the second lock disintegrated.
"Dave," I said, stepping past my mother and brother into my own kitchen, the smell of stale wine and cheap perfume hitting my nostrils like sewage. "Change the back patio lock next. Then do the front door. And make sure you throw every old key into your toolbox."
"Right behind you, Mr. Blackwell," Dave said, walking right past Caleb as if my brother were a coat rack.
Helen turned around, her face mottled with purple rage. "Caleb! Call the police! Your brother has gone completely insane! He’s vandalizing his own property!"
"Go ahead, Caleb," I said, walking slowly toward the center of the kitchen island where six dinner plates were still piled in the sink—including the exact plate Emma had eaten from, the one with the discarded fish bones still smeared across the porcelain. "Call the police. Tell them you’re trespassing in a house whose owner has formally revoked your permission to enter. Tell them about what you did to Emma by the back door."
Caleb’s phone slipped an inch in his hand, his eyes darting toward the sink, then back to my face. The color drained from his skin. "I... I don't know what you’re talking about, Luke. Mom said Emma was choking because she eats too fast like an animal, and I just tried to keep her from running outside half-naked in front of the neighbors."
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"You put your boot on her wrist, Caleb," I said, my voice dropping into a register so cold it froze the air between us. "She was eight months pregnant, and you pinned her to the floor while our mother shoved fish bones down her throat. And you think I’m going to let you walk out of this front door tonight?"
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