I jumped out of the car and hustled up the short steps to the front porch. I rang the doorbell. No answer. I peeked inside the mailbox located next to the front door. No mail. That meant he’d been home recently. I knocked a couple times. Still no answer. I located the spare key on my key chain and inserted it into the front door lock. It wouldn’t budge. I tried shimmying it. Nothing. Had new owners already changed the locks? But that didn’t make sense because the For Sale sign was still up.
I pounded on the door. “Sam . . . it’s me, Ellie. Open the door. I need to talk to you.”
Still nothing.
I leaned in toward the door, straining to hear any sounds coming from inside. Nothing. I peered across the landscape. A gray cat slinked across the street and underneath the house next door. The entire street was empty except for a black Escalade and a red MINI Cooper parked nearby. A strong gust of wind blew, rustling the nearby trees and shrubbery. The streetlights blinked a couple times, signaling the approach of wintertime dusk. The lights finally glowed continuously, eerily illuminating the neighborhood.
Maybe he was off the grid again. Or maybe something is wrong.
I remembered whenever Sam stole Martha’s cigarettes to cop a smoke in the bathroom, he always opened the window to clear the smoke, forgetting to lock it back after he closed it. I gave a cautious glance at the nearby houses. Sam’s neighbors were either nonexistent or comfortably tucked inside their homes. I headed to the back of the house and trotted up the small wooden deck. The porch was empty except for an orange Home Depot paint bucket and two empty recycling bins.
Luckily, Sam’s house backed up to a mass of pine and dogwood trees, but I scanned the yard anyway to make sure I was alone. I grabbed the paint bucket, flipped it upside down, and placed it under the small frosted-glass window at the end of the deck. I gave the window a good swift tug.
BINGO!
I hiked up my coat and dress, hoisted myself up to the window jamb, and started the most unladylike climb through Sam’s bathroom window, silently cursing myself for not wearing pants more often. Heaven forbid that Sam’s neighbors were watching the crazy woman in a $3,500 Prada cashmere coat climbing into his bathroom. But the neighbors would be nothing if the police showed up and discovered the chief legal officer of Houghton Transportation breaking into a house.
I swung my long legs inside the window and planted my foot on the top of the toilet tank. The tank top shook under my body weight before it slid off the back of the toilet. I lost my footing and fumbled, holding on to the windowsill before the tank cover crashed to the floor. I quickly regained my balance, straddling my feet atop the narrow rim of the toilet bowl.
“Damn it, Sam, put the toilet seat down,” I whispered to myself. I closed the window, replaced the cover, and tried to smooth out my coat and dress.
The house was quiet. I peeked inside a nearby bedroom that housed a lonely but tightly made twin bed and oak dresser. The room looked like it hadn’t been touched in days. A light layer of dust covered the furniture. I wondered how long it’d been since he’d slept here. And where was he now?
Walking through his house made me realize how little I knew about my own brother now that he was an adult. Except for Juice, I didn’t know any of his friends. Did he entertain women here? Did he have a neighbor who dropped by to borrow a wrench or lend a hand with projects around the house? This house was a fixer-upper and Sam had always been handy around a toolbox, especially electrical things. He had just moved back to Atlanta after getting out of Dodge State Prison three years ago. Sam had fallen in with a burglary ring, using his particular talents to disable alarm systems. I felt so bad for him that I gave him $28,000 to buy this house. I figured the extra work needed to make it livable would be enough of a distraction that he might avoid a repeat stint in prison.
The hardwood floors creaked like wooden clarion calls as I crept up the hallway from the bedroom. The evening sunset cast a warm orange glow over the entire house, but I spotted a light coming from the kitchen. “Sam?”
In the living room, the decor was starker still. The only landmarks: a black faux leather sofa and matching chair and a small metal TV stand—no TV. Not a book, a picture, or a knickknack in any of the rooms. Like me, Sam didn’t keep a lot of personal keepsakes around. Another progeny of Martha Littlejohn. Nothing about this place gushed home. It whispered shelter.
I walked through the living room into the kitchen. No Sam. I peeped out the window over the sink, hoping not to see a nosy neighbor or worse, a police officer, peering back at me. I opened the refrigerator and leaned over to glance inside. A bottle of mustard, a half pack of Oscar Mayer hot dogs, and three Budweisers from a six-pack, plastic ring still intact on the remaining beers. What the hell? Doesn’t this man eat?!