Then, without thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it. It gave. It wasn’t locked? How could that be? The mechanic had said no one was house-sitting for them. Something was wrong. My palms started to sweat. I didn’t want to call out to Alex and Michelle. It didn’t look like anyone was home, but it’d be bad to get busted for breaking and entering. I looked around. I didn’t see anyone nearby.
I put my head to the door and listened for signs of life, but I didn’t hear anything. I pushed the door open as slowly and quietly as I could and peered inside. The house was dark. All the drapes were closed. I made out a large sunken living room on my right. Straight ahead was a dining area, with a small kitchen to the right. There was a gap in the drapes on the wall of the dining area that let in a sliver of light, and I could see that they covered sliding glass doors that opened onto the private beach.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The place had been trashed. Table lamps lay broken on the floor, couch cushions were thrown around, and the drawers in the coffee table had been pulled out. I stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me. As I walked into the foyer, I stepped on something that crunched under my shoe. It sounded like glass. I noticed a broken vase lying on the floor a few feet away.
Someone had busted in, that was for sure. But I had no way of knowing if anything had been stolen. I moved through the living room and headed for the hallway that led to the rest of the house. My heart thudded in my chest as I made my way through the gloom, my ears straining for any sounds of movement-maybe by the person who’d busted in here. I came to a bedroom on my right. It was a mess, but it wasn’t thrashed like the living room. Clothes were strewn around, the carpet was coated in sand and dirt, the bed was unmade, and there was a sleeping bag on the floor. That, and the empty fast-food wrappers and bottles, showed someone had been staying here, but I couldn’t tell how recently.
I paused again to listen for movement. Nothing. I headed farther down the hall. When I got to the end, I saw what looked like the master bedroom on my left. It was big, and it, too, was a mess. There was another sliding glass door at the far end of the room. Drapes covered the view, but from the sand caked into the carpet, I surmised it also opened onto the beach. The duvet on the king-size bed was pushed to the side, the sheets looked rumpled and dirty, and the pillows were squashed. Someone was sleeping here, too. But nothing was thrown around or broken. I stepped inside and opened my phone to give myself more light. To the right of the bedroom door was a walk-in closet. Ahead, just past the bed, was a half wall that separated the bedroom from a large marble-floored bathroom. I was about to go and have a look at the bathroom when I heard a scrabbling sound coming from the sliding glass door. My throat tightened. Then a latch clicked open. Whoever was camping here had come back.
I ran to the closet. I couldn’t risk them seeing me close the closet door, so I had to leave it open. I hunkered down against the wall and tried not to breathe.
FIFTY-EIGHT
I heard the sliding glass door open. The sound and smell of the ocean poured into the room. My lungs ached for air. If they decided to hang out in the bedroom, they’d catch me for sure. My only hope was that they’d head into the kitchen.
I heard footsteps on the carpet. Then a voice. “Why would they leave it open?”
It was Michelle. Light-headed, I leaned back against the wall of the closet and let in a long, deep breath. It took a few seconds before my rubbery legs would let me straighten up out of my crouch. I took another deep breath before I walked out into the bedroom. “Hey, guys. Nice place, huh?”
Alex and Michelle jumped, then stared at me. Michelle pointed to the closet. “What were you doing in there?”
“Hiding. It looks like someone-maybe a few someones-are hanging out here. And it doesn’t look like they’re invited guests. I thought you were them.”
It was really dark now. I moved to the doorway, found the light switch, and flipped it. The lights came on. I was surprised. “Kind of weird that they left the electricity on if they’re gone for a year. Seems like a waste.”
“Maybe it’s on a timer,” Michelle said.
“I guess. Did you guys see the rest of the place?”
Alex shook his head. “We didn’t think it’d be open. I just tried that sliding glass door for the heck of it. The hasp on the latch is broken.”
Michelle moved through the bedroom toward the hallway. “What does the rest of the place look like?”
“Like Whitesnake and Ratt partied hard. Come on.” I turned off the bedroom light. I didn’t want to attract any attention-from the squatters or any security patrol. I held up my phone and led the way out to the living room. Now that I could see better, I noticed this was more than just a really bad mess. I moved around the room, looking at everything closely. The broken vase in the foyer had sent glass flying into the living room. And the table lamp seemed to have fallen off a side table that was knocked over.
Michelle took in the scene. “Kinda looks like the squatters had a disagreement.”
“Does.” I moved around the room and took some pictures, but I was getting nervous about hanging around this place. “We should get going. I have a feeling we don’t want to meet whoever camps out here.”
Michelle followed me down the hall. “Assuming they still are. Don’t you think it’s weird they haven’t been caught? A ’hood like this must have some kind of security.”
“Some kind, sure. But we didn’t notice anything wrong from the outside, so unless security patrol actually checked doors and windows-which obviously they didn’t-they wouldn’t know. And the nearest neighbors aren’t that close.” The more I thought about what we’d seen in that house, the more sure I was that the squatters still called this place home. Which meant they could come back any minute. I wanted to get out of there. I motioned for Michelle to follow me and headed back to the master bedroom.
Alex had turned the light back on. He was standing on the bed and staring at the ceiling.
“You okay?”
He glanced down at us. “See this smoke alarm?” I looked up at the round plastic fixture Alex was studying. I nodded. “It looks just like the one my uncle uses at his workplace.”
“So? Look, Alex, we need to get out of here. This is someone’s crash pad, and they might be back any second.” And with the lights on in this bedroom, the squatters would know they’d been invaded even from a distance.
Alex reached up and pulled on the plastic casing. “Just give me a sec.”
I took a closer look around the bedroom. The flat-screen television on the wall facing the bed looked fairly new. The furniture was average, nondescript-somewhere between high-end and yard-sale quality. I wondered if this was a summer home. It had the look of a place that got secondary attention. When I got to the nightstand on the left of the bed, I saw a notepad. There was a phone number written on it. I snapped a photo.
I noticed a couple of framed photographs on the dresser. One showed a slim, not necessarily pretty, woman, with long hair parted on the side that dipped over one eye. She was wearing a short sarong skirt with a bikini top, and she was sitting on a man’s lap with her legs crossed. He had a hand wedged between her thighs. It was just a few inches shy of a crotch grab. They looked like they were in their twenties. The photo next to it showed the same couple, but older-by about twenty years. The man was standing behind the woman. An arm wrapped around her waist held her against his body, and she was bent slightly forward, half sitting on his leg. They both wore broad smiles. The poses in both photos were obviously intended to be sexy, but something about them felt kind of… creepy. I took pictures of them, then looked through the drawers. When I got to the bottom right drawer, I found a stack of what looked like color printouts. I pulled them out. One showed a picture of a woman on her hands and knees with a dog mounted on her back. Jeez. I looked through a few more and saw that they were of the same ilk-some with horses. After the first few, I didn’t need to see anymore. I held one of them up. “Whoever these owners are, they’re real sickos. Check it out.”