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As the stranger pushed him toward the door, Aubrey looked over his shoulder to catch Emily's eyes one last time. There, she managed to find a familiar reassurance, a promise, as though he were saying: It will be okay, Emily. Of course, we will be okay. We always are, in the end. Then, he turned away.

She listened as they walked through the den to the front door, the stranger's steps heavy, Aubrey's padded, still barefoot. There was a creak, and then a slam as the screen door shut. The rumble of a vehicle starting up, then fading away.

The house was, so suddenly, silent. The brightening sky had begun to seep through the windows. At the bedpost, Emily took a deep shuddering breath.

Quickly and quietly, afraid he'd come back, she worked the rope, rubbing her wrists back and forth against it, loosening the knot. She managed to catch a corner with her thumbnail and pulled, breaking loose.

Free, she lurched to the phone on the bedside table, dialing 911. "Hello? Hello. Please help me. I'm in great trouble. I've been robbed, and... I think he took my husband with him."

"Ma'am—"

"No, I've—" Her voice cracked and then shattered as she started to hyperventilate: "I've been... I've been robbed. They took... my husband. I need, I need you to help me, I need you to call the sheriff."

"Ma'am, can you tell me where you live?"

"Everyone in the parish knows where Aubrey LaHaye lives!" she screeched. "Please, please just call the sheriff."

She called her eldest son next. Within minutes, Glenn and Janie were racing across the pasture—leaving their twelve-year-old daughter alone at home, assigned the task of rallying the rest of the family.

The deputy sheriff Thomas Lupkey met Uncle Glenn at the side door around 6 a.m., about thirty minutes after the stranger had first knocked.

Emily hadn't yet left the bedroom. She sat, perched on the edge of the bed. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Lupkey sat beside her, pulled out his notepad, and asked her to recount—for the first time of what would be dozens—what had happened. She told him of the knock on the door, how the stranger called himself "Vidrine," and that the knife was a folding blade. He jotted down:

He gathered Aubrey's description, too:

w/m, five feet eight inches tall, 230 pounds, blue eyes, gray hair(receding hairline), glasses, potbelly, last seen wearing blue pajamas, no shoes.

He turned to Glenn, "Have you called Rudy yet?"

"Oh yeah," he said with a nod. "He's on his way."

As if on cue, two vehicles pulled into the driveway. The first belonged to my grandparents—Aubrey and Emily's second son, Wayne, and his wife, Susan. While Glenn looked the most like their father—with his round apple cheeks, heavy brow, and broad shoulders accented handsomely by Emily's dark features and curly hair—Wayne's composure, every move so very thought out, so quietly orchestrated, so gentlemanly, was all Aubrey. His thin frame was tense, jerky even, as he rushed inside to his mother. Susan followed shortly behind, nervous hands pulling at her blond bob, repeating over and over again, "I can't believe this, oh Lord, oh Lord." Janie, all seriousness and strained temples, her dark lips a thin line, caught her sister in the kitchen. "Let the men speak to her first," she said.

The other car belonged to Detective Rudy Guillory. Guillory was a Korean War vet who'd gotten his start in law enforcement at the FBI Fingerprint Identification Section in DC and at Quantico. He spent twenty years working with the Louisiana State Police before coming on, in 1974, as the official investigator for the Evangeline Parish District Attorney's Office in his hometown of Ville Platte. Besides his extensive training, he excelled at the job in part because he was so damn likable. He was only fifty, but already balding with a soft, grandfatherly belly that contributed a certain jolliness to his demeanor. He was easy to trust—well known by most everyone in town. He was also one of Glenn's best friends.

The deputy filled Detective Guillory in on Emily's account, then asked him if he thought this had anything to do with Guaranty Bank in Mamou. Aubrey had retired only weeks before, after serving over thirty years as the bank president.

Detective Guillory shook his head, "I don't know what this is. But yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. Would you secure the scene here? Have Wayne and Glenn take Mrs. Emily to the outdoor kitchen and ask them to stay there for the time being. I'm gonna run down to the station and make some calls."

"Yes, sir."