Caller Forty-One

It was a slow Tuesday and call forty-one came in at 2:14 a.m. Renata had her headset on and her coffee gone cold and she said the words she had said ten thousand times. "Nine-one-one, what is your emergency." The man on the line was whispering. He said someone was in his house, downstairs, and he could hear them moving. Standard. She started the trace, started the script, started typing. And then he said her name. Not the operator script name. He said "Ren," the way only one person had ever said it, the way her brother Daniel had said it across a kitchen table her whole childhood. Her hands stopped on the keyboard. Daniel had been dead for two years. She had identified the body herself. She had picked the music for the service. "Ren," the voice said again, "please. They're coming up the stairs."