Page 55 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

“It’s not that simple, Ben. He’s dangerous. He’s taken everything from me. And running is useless. He found my dad who was trying to remain hidden. And I don’t know the first thing about disappearing.”

Ben's expression turned serious. "You're right then. We have to kill him."

"Okay, where do we start?" I asked.

"We'll need the perfect plan. Does he usually come in the front door or the back door?"

"Front door."

"Okay," said Ben. "Do you have any paper? No, scratch that. We need poster board."

"I think so..." I got up and rummaged through the closet. For some reason, we actually had some. I grabbed it and brought it back to Ben.

He smoothed it out on the table and popped the cap off a sharpie with his teeth. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen anything sexier.

He started drawing the floor plan to my house.

"How do you know my house so well?" I asked. "You really have been snooping around a lot, huh?"

"What? Oh.” He laughed. “My house has the same design. Anyway, what do you like better for the front door? A toolbox booby-trap above the door, or an electrocuted doorknob?"

"Hmm...I think the electrocution would be better. But only dialed up to like, half power. Not enough to incapacitate him. The gawkers might see it if he collapses on the front porch."

"Oh, absolutely. Good call. Electrocuted door knob it is." He drew a lightning bolt on the front door of the floor plan. "What does he usually do next?"

Hurts me. "Walks upstairs."

"Does he take his shoes off?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Why don't we smash some Christmas ornaments right in front of the stairs then."

"Oh, I like that."

Ben drew it on the plan. "For the stairs, there's really only one choice."

"Loaded shotgun with a trip wire?" I asked.

Ben shook his head. "Na, too loud. I say we put a paint can on a rope. If we make the rope just the right length, he'll take it right in the kisser."

"And it'll knock him back onto the broken ornaments."

"Boom. Double whammy. I love it when a plan comes together. What's next?"

The conversation went on like that for at least half an hour. By the time we were done, the poster was covered in all sorts of booby-traps. Light fixtures replaced by blowtorches, kerosene in the toilets, staple guns hidden in door knobs. We had it all. We even had a zip-line from the bedroom window to a tree out back to use as our escape.

"This plan is great," I said. "But I'm worried about all the evidence it will leave. What are we going to tell the police when they come looking for him?"

"We'll just tell them that we caught the sticky bandits. They'll understand."

"Huh?" I asked.

"You know...in Home Alone?"

"Wait, you're going to make me be home alone when I do this? We're going to have to rethink everything then. How am I supposed to lure him into phase 2 if you're not there to release the paint can?"

"What? No. The movie, Home Alone. You do realize that we basically just combined all the traps from Home Alone 1 and 2 into this plan, right?"

---