Full text below:

That had been hours ago. She hadn’t wanted to go back outside, and anyway the parade of people had slackened, leaving her without entertainment. She had begun to worry herself ragged over the thought of burglary, not believing that it hadn’t entered her mind earlier. At least her naiveté had let her sleep. Tonight, even with her blankets and sleeping bag set up in the doorway, and two kitchen knives under her pillow, she felt sure she would be finding it much harder to doze off. Money might not be usable right now, but that wasn’t going to stop people who knew the affluence of this area from trying to take it. Had she had any friends close enough to trust and near enough to visit, she would gladly have risked going out for the chance to form a team. For the first time in her life, she wished her parents had bought an apartment in a less upscale development.

Of course, there was the safe. Remember Aunt Jen’s birthday. It had seemed almost insulting at first, the thought that her parents didn’t trust her to remember the combination. The more she thought about it, though, the more possibilities came to mind. She didn’t really know what they kept in there; it could be something that could help her survive. A gun, maybe, or some other weapon better than a knife made to chop food—or, like the pocketknife she was also carrying now, to trim nails. Or a key, marked with the number of a bank lockbox in, say, Sannila; or one that would start a car at her father’s office. Not that she had the slightest idea how to drive it, if she could even get there, but the thought made her smile. Most likely, though, it would be small things, irreplaceable, like jewelry and antique thimbles and her great-grandparents’ pictures. And it was high time she got up the courage to find out.

Darica went to the kitchen, readied another knife in case a neighbor decided to be more than nosy, and counted floor tiles: five from the blank wall, two from the oven. She used a barbecue spatula to pry up the tile, revealing the safe door. It was recessed into its frame, so that there was a rim for the tile to rest on as well as some room for a stubby handle on the dial. She still found it awkward to turn, and only on the second try did she manage to spin out 10-9-30 and pop open the door.