HE CEILING FAN STOPPED.

Sarah Stevens was so accustomed to the slight whirring noise of the fan that the lack of it immediately awakened her. She cracked open one eye and peered at her digital clock, but there weren’t any bright red numerals shining back at her. She blinked in sleepy confusion, then realized what was wrong.

The electricity had gone off. Oh, great.

She rolled over onto her back, listening. The night was quiet; there was no rumble of thunder to signal a violent spring storm in the vicinity, which would have explained the loss of power. She didn’t close the curtains at night, since her rooms faced the back where the grounds had privacy fencing, and through her bedroom windows she could see the faint gleam of starlight. Not only was it not raining, the sky wasn’t even cloudy.

Maybe a transformer had blown. Or an auto accident might have taken down a utility pole. Any number of things could have caused the power outage.

Sighing, she sat up and reached for the flashlight she kept on the bedside table. Regardless of why the electricity was off, her job was to minimize the effect it would have on Judge Roberts, make certain he wouldn’t be inconvenienced more than necessary. He didn’t have any appointments in the morning, but the old dear was fussy about what time he had breakfast. Not that he’d be cranky about it, but any change in his routine upset him more now than it had even a year before. He was eighty-five; he deserved to have breakfast when he wanted it.

She picked up the receiver of the telephone; it was a land line, so the loss of power wouldn’t affect it. Cordless phones were great, until the electricity went off. In addition to this one, Sarah had made certain a few strategically placed phones in the main house were land lines.

No dial tone buzzed in her ear.

Puzzled, and growing slightly worried, she got out of bed. Her two rooms were over the garage, with her combined living room and kitchen area facing the front, while her bedroom and bath faced the back. She didn’t switch on the flashlight; this was her home, and she didn’t need guidance to make her way to the other room. She parted the curtains covering the front windows and looked out.

None of the strategically placed lights on the Judge’s manicured lawn were lit, but to the right, the soft glow of the neighbor’s security lights threw long, dense shadows across the lawn.

The electricity wasn’t off, then. A breaker could have kicked, but that would have affected only part of the house, or the grounds, but not both. She stood very still, logic and intuition combining: (A) The electricity was off. (B) The phone lines were out. (C) The next-door neighbor had electricity. The conclusion she reached didn’t require much of a leap: someone had cut the lines, and the only reason for doing so would be to break into the house.

Cat-silent in her bare feet, she ran back to the bedroom and got her nine-millimeter automatic from the bedside table. Her cell phone, damn it, was in her SUV, which was parked under the portico in back. She raced for the door, only briefly considering detouring to get the phone from her vehicle; her first priority was to protect the Judge. She had to get to him, make certain he was safe. He’d had a couple of credible death threats made against him during his last year on the bench, and though he had always passed them off as nothing, Sarah couldn’t afford to be so cavalier.

Her quarters connected to the house via a staircase, with doors at both top and bottom; she had to switch on the flashlight as she went down the stairs so she wouldn’t miss a step and fall, but as soon as she reached the bottom, she turned off the light. She paused for a moment to let her eyes readjust to the darkness, and as she did she listened, straining her ears for any sound that didn’t belong. Nothing. Silently she turned the knob and opened the door in increments, an inch at the time, every nerve in her body alert. No strange sounds greeted her, so she stepped forward.

She was standing in a short hall; to her left was the door to the garage. Silently she tried the knob, and found it still locked. One door down was the laundry room; then directly across the hall was the kitchen. The battery-operated wall clock in the kitchen ticked monotonously, very loud now without the hum of the refrigerator to mask the sound. She eased into the kitchen, the glazed ceramic tile cold beneath her feet. Skirting the huge cooking island, she paused again before entering the breakfast room. There was more light here, because of the big bay window that looked out into the rose garden, but that meant she was more likely to be seen if any intruder was watching. Her pajamas were a pale blue cotton, as visible as white. She would be an easy target.

That was a chance she’d have to take.

Her heart slammed against her rib cage, and she took a slow, deep breath to calm herself, trying to control the adrenaline rushing through her system. She couldn’t let herself get sucked under by the whirlpool of excitement; she had to ride it, keep her mind cool and disengaged, remember her training. She took another deep breath and eased forward, minimizing her exposure by hugging the wall as closely as she could get without actually brushing against it. Slow and easy, she thought. One step at a time, placing her bare feet carefully so she was always balanced, she worked her way around the room and to the door that opened into the back hall. She paused again, listening.

Silence.

No. A muffled sound, so slight she wasn’t sure she’d heard anything at all. She waited, breathing halted, eyes deliberately unfocused so her peripheral vision could detect any movement. The hall was empty, but after a moment the sound came again, slightly louder, from... the sunroom?

Two formal parlors, and the dining room, were on the front side of the house; the kitchen, breakfast room, library, and sunroom were all on the back. The sunroom was a corner room, with two walls composed mostly of windows, and two pairs of sliding French doors opened onto the patio. If she had been planning to break into the house, Sarah thought, she would have picked the sunroom as the best entry point. Evidently some else had, too.

She sidled into the hall, paused half a heartbeat, then took two swift steps that carried her to the side of the huge, hundred-year-old buffet that was now used to store table linens. She went to one knee on the thick carpet, concealed by the bulk of the buffet, just as someone came out of the library.

He was dressed in dark clothes and carrying something big and bulky. The computer terminal, she thought, but the hall was too dark to be certain. He carried his burden into the sunroom, and she heard more of those muffled sounds, rather like the scuff of shoes on carpet.

Her heart was thudding, but all the same she felt a little relieved. The intruder was obviously a thief, rather than a criminal bent on revenge against the Judge. That wasn’t to say they weren’t in danger; the thief might be violent, but his movements so far were those of someone bent on stealing what he could and sneaking away. He was organized and methodical, witness the disabled electrical and phone lines. He had probably cut the power in order to disarm the alarm system, then cut the phone lines as an added precaution.

The question was, what should she do?

She was very aware of the weapon in her hand, but the situation didn’t call for lethal force. She would shoot if necessary to save the Judge’s life, or her own, but she wasn’t about to shoot someone over some electronic equipment. That did not, however, mean she was inclined to let him get away.

It was also possible he was armed. Burglars as a rule didn’t carry weapons, because if luck wasn’t with them, the jail sentence for armed robbery was so much stiffer than for a simple robbery. Just because most burglars weren’t armed, though, didn’t mean she could afford to assume this one wasn’t.

He was big; from what she’d been able to tell in the dark hall, he was around six feet tall, and burly. She could probably handle him in a face-to-face situation—unless he was armed, and then all the training in the world wouldn’t stop a bullet. There was a big difference, her father had told her, between being confident and being cocky; cocky would get you killed. The best thing to do would be take him by surprise, from behind, rather than risk getting shot.

A whisper of sound warned her, and she held still as he moved into the hallway, reversing his path from the sunroom to the library. Now would be a good time to make her move, catch him when he came back out with his arms full of stolen goods. She placed her flashlight on the floor, then transferred the pistol to her left hand and silently began rising from her crouch.

Another man came out of the sunroom.

Sarah froze, her head exposed above the edge of the buffet. Her heart kicked sickeningly hard, almost taking her breath. All the guy had to do was look in her direction; her face, pale and distinct in the darkness, would be clearly visible.

He didn’t pause as he stealthily followed the first man into the library.

She sank back against the wall, shaking with relief. She took several deep, quiet breaths, holding each a few seconds to calm her racing heart. That had been entirely too close; another second and she would have been standing, fully revealed.

There being two men instead of just one definitely put a different spin on things. Her risk was now doubled, and her chance of success halved. Slipping outside to her SUV and calling 911 on the cell phone was beginning to look like the best option, assuming she could get there undetected. The biggest problem for her was leaving the Judge unprotected. He didn’t hear well; they could be in his room before he knew it; he wouldn’t have a chance to hide. The old dear was valiant enough to fight any intruder, which would at the least get him hurt, and at the worst, killed.

Her job was to prevent that from happening. She couldn’t if she was outside talking on the phone.

Her nerves gave one quiver, then settled down. She’d made her decision; now she had to forget everything else but her training.

There were scuffing sounds from the library and a faint grunt. Despite her tension, she began smiling. If they were trying to hoist the fifty-five-inch television, both of them would have more than they could handle and their hands would be occupied. Maybe there wouldn’t be a better time to take them than right now.

She stood and stepped silently to the library, putting her back against the wall beside the door and daring a lightning-fast peek inside. One of the thieves had a penlight clamped in his teeth, allowing her to see that they were indeed wrestling with the behemoth television. Bless their hearts, they had also ruined their own night vision, making it difficult for them to see her.

She waited, and after a few more grunts and a whispered curse, one of the thieves began backing out of the library, using both hands to grip one side of the television while the other man held the opposite side. She could almost hear their bones creaking under the weight, and thanks to the thin beam of the penlight as it shone straight into the first man’s sweaty face, she could see the strain in his expression.

Piece of cake.

Sarah smiled. As soon as the first thief was clear of the doorway, she stuck out her bare foot and caught his left ankle, flipping it upward. He gave a startled yelp and crashed to his back in the hallway. The huge television slammed sideways against the doorframe, then toppled forward. The man on the floor yelled in alarm, the sound changing abruptly to a high-pitched scream as the television crashed down on his pelvis and legs.

His partner tried to catch his balance, his arms flailing. The penlight dropped out of his mouth, and in the abrupt darkness he said, “Fuck!” as he pitched forward. Sarah helped him along, pivoting and landing a punch to his temple. The punch lacked her full force, as he was already going down, but it was enough to sting her knuckles and send him sprawling bonelessly across the bulk of the television, which elicited even more screams from underneath. The unconscious man slowly slid to one side, crumpled and limp; a blow to the temple usually had that effect.

“Sarah? What’s going on? Why is the power off?” The Judge’s voice came from the top of the back stairs, rising over the yells of the man pinned under the television.

Accurately judging that neither man was going anywhere in the next few minutes, Sarah went to the bottom of the steps. “Two men broke into the house,” she said; between the Judge’s partial deafness and the yowls of pain, she had to yell to make certain he heard her. “I have it handled. Stay there until I get the flashlight.” The last thing she needed was to have him tumble down the stairs in the darkness, trying to come to her aid.

She retrieved the flashlight from the floor beside the buffet, then returned to the stairs to light the Judge’s journey down, which he made with a speed that belied his eighty-five years. “Burglars? Have you called the police?”

“Not yet. They cut the phone lines, and I haven’t had a chance to get my cell phone from my truck.”

He reached the bottom of the steps and peered to the right, in the direction of all the racket. Obligingly, Sarah turned her flashlight on the scene, and after a second he chuckled. “If you’ll give me that pistol, I believe I can keep these two under control while you make that call.”

She handed him the pistol, butt first, then stripped the phone cord from the hall phone and bent over the unconscious thief. He was the big one, and she grunted with the effort it took to roll him over. Quickly she pulled his arms behind him, wrapped the phone cord around his wrists, then bent one leg backward and secured his wrists to his ankle. Unless he was extremely agile hopping on one foot—and with a concussion, no less—he wasn’t going anywhere, regardless of whether or not there was a pistol trained on him; neither was the guy pinned under the television.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to the Judge, and handed him the flashlight.

Gentleman to the core, he tried to return it to her. “No, you’ll need the light.”

“The truck lights will come on when I hit the remote to unlock it; that’s all the light I’ll need.” She looked around. “One of them had a penlight, but he dropped it and I don’t know where it went.” She paused. “I don’t think I’d want to touch it, anyway; he was holding it in his mouth.”

He chuckled again. “I wouldn’t, either.” In the reflected glow of the flashlight, she could see the sparkle of his eyes, even through his eyeglasses. Why, he was enjoying this! Come to think of it, retirement couldn’t be nearly as interesting as sitting on a federal bench. He must have been thirsting for adventure, or at least a little drama, and here it had landed neatly in his lap. He’d be relating the details of this to his cronies for the next month.

She left him to the job of guarding the two thieves and retraced her steps through the breakfast room and kitchen. Her keys were in her bag, so she held carefully to the stair rail as she made her way upstairs in almost total darkness. Thank goodness she had left the door at the top open; the pale rectangle gave her a sense of orientation. Once in her quarters, she detoured to the tiny kitchen area and retrieved another flashlight from a cabinet drawer, then hurried to her bedroom and got the keys.

Thanks to the flashlight, her trip down the stairs was much faster than going up. She unlocked the back door and hit the “unlock” button on her remote even as she stepped outside. The front and rear lights on her four-wheel-drive TrailBlazer came on, as did the interior lights. She crossed swiftly to it, the flagstones cold and rough on her bare feet; darn it, she hadn’t thought to put on a pair of shoes while she was upstairs.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, she grabbed the tiny cell phone from the cup holder where she kept it and pressed the “on” button, waiting impatiently as it cycled through its program, then pressing the numbers with her thumb as she gingerly retraced her steps over the flagstones and went back into the house.

“Nine-one-one.” The answering voice was female, calm, and almost bored.

“There’s a robbery at Twenty-seven-thirteen Briarwood Road,” she said, and started to explain the situation, but the 911 operator interrupted.

“Where are you calling from?”

“At the same address. I’m on the cell phone because they cut the phone lines.” She skirted the kitchen island and entered the breakfast room.

“You’re in the house?”

“Yes. There are two men—”

“Are they still in the house?”

“Yes.”

“Are they armed?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see any weapons, but they cut the power line to the house, too, so I couldn’t really tell in the dark if they were armed or not.”

“Ma’am, if you can, get out of the house. I have patrol units en route to the location and they should arrive in a few minutes, but you should get out of the house now.”

“Send an ambulance, too,” Sarah said, ignoring the operator’s advice as she entered the hall and added the beam of her flashlight to that of the Judge’s, playing it over the two men on the floor. She doubted either of them was capable of leaving under his own steam. The cries of the one under the television had subsided into mingled moans and curses. The one she’d punched in the temple hadn’t moved at all.

“An ambulance?”

“A big television fell on one of the men, and may have broken his legs. The other man is unconscious.”

“A television fell on them?”

“Just one of them,” Sarah said, strictly honest. She was beginning to enjoy the phone call. “It’s a fifty-five-incher, so it’s really heavy. Both of them were trying to carry it out when one guy tripped and the television fell on him. The other guy landed on top.”

“And the man the television fell on is unconscious?”

“No, he’s conscious. The other one is the one who’s out of it.”

“Why is he unconscious?”

“I hit him on the head.”

Judge Roberts glanced around and grinned at her, and managed to give her a thumbs-up with the hand holding the flashlight.

“So both men are incapacitated?”

“Yes.” As she spoke, the unconscious one moved his head a little and groaned. “I think he’s coming around. He just moved.”

“Ma’am—”

“I have him tied up with phone cord,” she said.

There was a tiny pause. “I’m going to repeat what you said to make sure I have it straight. One man was unconscious, but now he’s coming around, and you have him tied up with phone cord.”

“That’s correct.”

“The other man is pinned by a fifty-five-inch television, and may have broken legs.”

“Correct.”

“Cool,” Sarah heard someone in the background say.

The 911 operator remained professional. “I have medics and two ambulances en route. Is anyone else injured?”

“No.”

“Do you have any weapons?”

“One, a pistol.”

“You have a pistol?”

“Judge Roberts has the pistol.”

“Please tell him to put the pistol away, ma’am.”

“Yes, of course.” No sane police officer wanted to walk into a dark house when someone inside was holding a pistol. She relayed the message to Judge Roberts, who briefly looked mutinous, then sighed and put the pistol in a drawer of the buffet. Considering the condition of the two thieves, holding a gun on them wasn’t necessary, even if it did appeal to his macho instinct.

“The pistol has been put away in a drawer,” Sarah reported.

“Thank you, ma’am. The patrol units will be there momentarily. They will want to secure the weapon, so please cooperate.”

“No problem. I’m going to the door now to wait for them.” Leaving Judge Roberts to watch their captives, she went into the front hallway and opened one of the nine-foot-tall double doors as two Mountain Brook black-and-whites with flashing roof lights pulled into the curving drive and stopped in front of the wide steps. “They’re here,” she reported to the emergency operator, stepping out so the officers could see her. Powerful flashlight beams played over her, and she held up one hand to shield her eyes from the glare. “Thank you.”

“Glad to be of service, ma’am.”

Sarah terminated the call as two uniformed officers approached her, hands on their weapons. From their car radios came a stream of static and staccato messages that she couldn’t understand, and the rotating car lights made the manicured lawn look like a weird, deserted disco. To the right, the Cheatwoods’ outside floodlights came on as the neighbors checked out the action. Before long, she figured, the entire neighborhood would be awake, though only a few would be crass enough to personally investigate. The rest would use the telephone to garner information.

“There’s a pistol in the buffet in the hall,” she said, giving the two officers that information up front. They were edgy enough as it was; their weapons weren’t out, but each of them had his hand on his gun just in case. “It belongs to me. I don’t know whether or not the thieves are armed, but they’re both incapacitated. Judge Roberts is watching them.”

“What’s your name, ma’am?” the stockier of the two asked as he edged inside the open front door, flashlight sweeping from side to side.

“Sarah Stevens. I’m Judge Roberts’s butler.”

She saw the glance they exchanged—a woman butler? She was used to that reaction, but all the stocky officer asked was, “Judge?”

“Lowell Roberts, retired federal judge.”

He muttered something into the radio on his shoulder as Sarah led them through the dark entry, past the sweeping front staircase, and into the back hallway. Their flashlight beams played over the two men on the floor and the tall, thin, white-haired man standing watch at a safe distance.

The thief she had punched was conscious now, but definitely not with the program. He blinked several times and managed to mumble, “Wha’ happened?” but no one bothered to answer. The one under the television was alternately sobbing and cursing, pushing at the weight on his legs, but he didn’t have any leverage and he’d have been better off wiping his streaming nose; at least that would have accomplished something.

“What happened to that one?” the taller officer asked, shining his flashlight on the face of the one tied up.

“I hit him in the head.”

“What with?” he asked, squatting beside the man and conducting a swift but thorough search.

“My fist.”

He looked up in surprise, and she shrugged. “Caught him in the temple,” she explained, and he nodded. A blow to the temple would addle King Kong. She didn’t add that she had trained countless hours to be able to make that blow. If necessary she would elaborate, but until and unless a law enforcement officer asked her specifically about her skills, both she and her employer preferred to keep the bodyguard portion of her duties private.

The search produced a knife with a six-inch blade, secured in a sheath strapped to the man’s ankle.

“They were carrying things out through there,” she said, pointing to the sunroom door. “There are sliding glass doors and a patio outside.”

In the distance came the shriek of sirens—many sirens—signaling the arrival of an entire fleet of policemen and medical personnel. Very shortly the house was going to be swarming with people, and she still had work to do.

“I’m going to sit over there out of the way,” she said, pointing to the stairs.

The cop nodded, and Sarah took a seat on the fourth step, her bare feet tucked safely under her. First and foremost she needed to get power restored to the house, then phone service, though they could make do with cellular service. The burglar alarm had a battery reserve, so she had to assume the thieves had also done some damage there, or at least been smart enough to bypass it. Either way, the security people needed to check out everything. Probably the sliding glass doors would need to be replaced, too, but that could wait until morning.

With her list prioritized and firmly in mind and cell phone in hand, Sarah dialed Alabama Power to report a disruption in service. A good butler memorized all such pertinent numbers, and Sarah was a very good butler.