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As they pulled into the garage just before 9 pm, Sarah Whitaker had to concede that the dinner was just okay.

She’d read all the reviews ahead of time and got excited—perhaps more excited than she should have. After all, she’d been through this sort of thing before.

Hot new chef opens a high-end restaurant. She and her husband, James, make reservations for the first week, only to be a little disappointed. Maybe they should learn from that. It was fun to be able to get reservations to all the trendy places before most everyone else. But there was a downside. Sometimes these restaurants needed a few weeks to settle into their groove.

Then again, maybe she was being too harsh. As Sarah got out of the passenger seat, she tried to have a little perspective. It wasn’t like the meal was actively bad . It just wasn’t amazing. And they’d still had a good time.

James was being his typical, hilarious, smart-aleck self, cracking jokes that made her snort her wine through her nose. And he’d made a truly heartwarming toast too. Even now, after twenty-seven years together, he still had that magical, sweet-but-sassy charm that she loved.

She walked around the back of the car and was surprised to find that, while the driver’s side door was open, James hadn’t gotten out of the seat yet.

“What’s taking so long, slowpoke?” she asked. “You’re not that old.”

She peeked inside and was startled by what she found. James’s face was chalky white, and he had beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He was grimacing.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.

“I’m not feeling so great,” he grunted. “I started feeling bad on the way home, but it suddenly got a lot worse in the last couple of minutes.”

“Do you think it was something you ate?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I’m really struggling here.”

“Well, let’s get you inside so you can lie down,” she said, helping him out of his seat. “Once you’re settled, I’ll see what we have in the medicine cabinet.”

She guided him in through the garage’s side door but found it difficult to support his weight. He could barely stand up on his own. There was no way she could get him to the living room couch in his condition, so she guided him to one of the breakfast room chairs and eased him down.

“Just stay here,” she said, as she moved into the kitchen. “I’ll look for something to help with the discomfort. Tell me exactly what hurts.”

“It’s everything,” he moaned. “I don’t think it’s food poisoning. My whole insides are on fire. I feel like I’m going to explode or—.”

He stopped talking abruptly, and Sarah looked up to see why. James was staring back in the direction they'd come from the hall that led to the garage. The kitchen wall was blocking her view, so she moved over to see what had caught his attention.

Standing in the doorway was a large person wearing all black, with a ski mask covering their face. Sarah screamed. The masked person took a step toward her, and she screamed again. But the second time, the sound of her own voice snapped her brain and body into action.

She darted over to the cordless phone on the counter and grabbed it, trying to focus on the buttons rather than the person moving her way. But she couldn’t stop herself from looking up.

As the intruder approached her, James tried to push himself out of his chair and launch himself in that direction. But his legs immediately gave out, and he crumbled to the floor.

Sarah pressed “9-1...” but before she could hit the final digit, the intruder reached her, ripped the phone from her hand, and threw it against the wall, shattering it into plastic bits. Then they grabbed her by the back of her top, dragged her into the breakfast room, and forced her down onto a chair near where James lay helplessly. She started to go to him, but the intruder put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

“Stop fighting it,” the intruder’s distinctly male voice growled. “You need to see the show.”