Like a Thief in The Night

Today's post is a response to this week's Red Writing Hood prompt from The Red Dress Club: Someone has stolen something from you (or your character). Something of tremendous value. What will you do to get it back? Or will you give up? (sidenote: this is fictional!) Also? Sorry, I went over the 600 word count a bit!

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Something just wasn't right.

She scanned over the contents scattered over the  top of her dresser one more time. An assortment of perfume bottles, fruit-scented lotions, nail polishes, vintage Holly Hobbie trinket boxes, the granite rabbit fetish her in laws sent her from Mexico...it all seemed to be there.

She tapped her temple with her index finger, then smoothed her hair. Her mother always did that when she was a child, smoothed her hair, calmed her down.

Something was definitely missing.

There was a light layer of dust covering the dresser - except for a very small, almost unnoticeable rectangle between the Opi Brown Sugar polish and the Bath and Body Works Pearberry lotion. Bingo.

The harmonica. Her grandmother's harmonica. The one she played the most often, the scalloped engraving worn down from decades of use. Where would the harmonica have gone? Who would take such a thing, an almost entirely worthless metal instrument? Who would have wanted it? The original box was long thrown away and the mouthpiece was speckled with tiny bits of rust. Technically, it was worthless.

She closed her eyes, imagining someone coming into her home, into her room, taking the only thing she had received at her grandmother's funeral.

Her aunts and uncles, siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins, they had all received their fair share of her grandmother's estate. The family home. The mint condition '88 Cadillac. The new Mercedes Benz. Her grandfather's prized vintage Harley Davidson. The jewels. The Fabergé Eggs. The Easter bonnets. The Chippendale furniture. The heirloom China, the Bavarian Crystal and Depression Glass, kept pristine behind those china cabinet doors for generations.

She had been given the old harmonica, and she was grateful. She wasn't expecting to receive anything at the reading of the will, and didn't plan to make a scene. Even if she hadn't received the harmonica, she would have stood there, quietly glaring at her grandfather. That much was expected.

A thought crept in slowly, an idea began to take hold in some quiet part of her mind. Someone had broken in solely for the purpose of stealing the harmonica. Her right hand diamond ring, her sapphire earrings, they were still sparking in the jewelry box. Her eyes instinctively darted to the closet. The door was slightly ajar.

Damn it!

She was at the closet in a second flat. Her hand trembled as she reached for the door. Carefully, quietly, she slid the door to the left and let her eyes focus on the back corner.

In the dim light, she could see the shiny corner of the metal box, nestled beneath the designer shoe boxes. She sighed. Safe.

She glanced over shoulder, certain that she heard footsteps leading up to her bedroom. She instinctively touched her hair, began twirling a curl around her index finger.  She chuckled to herself, why was she so paranoid? She was alone in the house!

Nevertheless, she quietly pulled out the travel safe and clutched it to her bosom. She walked to the bed and set it down carefully, eagerly. She pulled the minuscule key from inside the locket around her neck and opened the box.

Staring up at her were her grandmother's bonds. They sat, neatly stacked, all accounted for. All three million dollars, HERS.

A grin slowly crept across her face. She laughed under her breath. No one knew she had stolen them.

"They can keep that fucking harmonica." She said to herself.