Last Dance, Last Chance

disappears well before four in the Northwest.
    The Jacques’ house in Maple Valley, Washington, was set far back from Wax Road in a forest of tall fir trees. Usually Pat didn’t feel isolated; their property was ideal for raising children. Now her three—Steve, 7; David, 5; and Diane, 3—were wired with excitement over having a Christmas tree with packages underneath. Patricia had managed to corral them and sit them in front of the television to watch cartoons.
    Hoping she had a free fifteen minutes or so, she headed for the kitchen to fix supper. When she glanced out the window it was so dark that it might as well have been midnight. The rain lashing at the windows made it seem as if their house was in a black cocoon. In the daytime, it was easier to see neighbors’ homes, although they were a good distance down Wax Road. When it got dark, she sometimes felt as if they were all alone. Still, Pat was never afraid. The very fact that they were so far from heavily populated areas helped to keep street crimes and burglars away.
    Pat was reaching into the refrigerator when she was startled to hear a loud knock on the front door. Her first thought was that something had happened to her father-in-law. He lived several hundred yards down—and across—the road, and he had recently had a stroke. They all worried about him, and she hurried to answer the door, thinking maybe he was in trouble.
    “A man was standing there,” she said. “He said there had been an accident and he needed to use the phone. I didn’t open the door right away, but he just pushed his way inside. That was when I saw that he was carrying a rifle.”
    Pat Jacque screamed in alarm. The stranger wasn’t very big—but his gun was. She cut her scream short, aware of three little pairs of eyes looking at her from the living room. She didn’t want them to be frightened. The man with the gun seemed agitated, and she fought to stay calm so he wouldn’t lose control.
    The stranger asked where her husband was, and she lied, telling him that her husband was right next door at his father’s house—and that he was due home any minute.
    “You’d better leave before my husband gets home,” she warned, trying to frighten him into leaving.
    “I’ll wait,” the man said. “I need to be someplace, and he’s gonna drive me.”
    Pat’s children were afraid, and they began to sob. She asked if she could take them to their bedrooms, and the intruder agreed. But he insisted on following them down the narrow hall to be sure she wasn’t headed to a back door.
    She whispered to the children, telling them to be very quiet and not to open the bedroom door. “Everything will be all right,” she promised, although she had no way of knowing whether it would.
    Once her children were a wall away from the gun, Pat’s mind raced frantically to find a way for them all to survive. She would do whatever she had to do to keep them safe. At this point, she still hoped that she could persuade the man to leave. Maybe he would take money or whatever he wanted and just go away.
     
    She studied the man who held the rifle. He certainly didn’t look menacing. He looked a little like an Irish leprechaun, with fine features and big ears that stuck out. He had black hair, combed in careful waves, and he wore glasses. He was short and thin, and she wondered if she might be strong enough to actually overpower him. But she knew men were stronger than women, and she dismissed that idea quickly.
    He wore a plaid shirt and work pants, and he paced around her house, asking questions. Even though it was a cold night, he was perspiring heavily.
    The stranger asked Pat if she had a radio, and she took him to the kitchen and pointed to the small radio there. He carried it back to the living room and plugged it in next to the television set.
    He both watched and listened to the evening news broadcasts, but apparently there was nothing on that interested him. He kept turning the radio dial and switching television channels. “Something’s wrong,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “There should have been something by now.”
    Then he looked up at Pat Jacque and said, “You screamed when I came in. You know about me, don’t you? You’ve heard about me?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said firmly. “I have no idea who you are or what you’re doing here.”
    “You know, all right.”
    “No,” she said truthfully. “I don’t know. I’ve been