Chapter 18 #2
“I don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to,” Javi said. “Let’s find what we need and get out of here.” He began searching through piles of clutter on the living room table.
“I’ll check the bedroom,” Ramón said.
“I’ll look for an office.” I followed his light down a short hallway.
The sooner we found evidence of the money, the sooner we could get Vero back to her house.
Ramón shined his light inside an open door.
The drapes over the only window were thick, so he flipped on the wall switch.
A small lamp on a nightstand illuminated an unmade bed on a metal frame and a cheap dresser that looked like it had been salvaged from a yard sale.
Ramón passed me his flashlight and began searching Theo’s bedroom while I moved on to the room across the hall.
I aimed the beam inside, jumping at my own reflection in a toothpaste-spotted mirror.
A toothbrush, toothpaste, and a razor had been left on the edge of a small pedestal sink.
A washcloth had been draped over the shower rod to dry.
I closed the door and took a moment to relieve my bladder, grateful to find that the toilet and sink at least were clean.
There wasn’t much else to search in the compact bathroom.
There certainly wasn’t anywhere to hide anything.
No cabinets. No bath mat to lift. No shower curtain to peek behind.
A set of plastic rings hung loose on the crooked curtain rod, framing mildew-stained tiles and mold-colored grout.
“There’s nothing here,” Javi called from the living room.
“Here either,” Vero said, slamming a kitchen drawer.
Ramón called out from across the hall, “I haven’t had any luck in the bedroom.”
“That’s nothing new,” Vero shot back.
“Hardy-har,” Ramón said as Javi chortled. “I saw some sheds in the yard out back. Javi and I will go check them out while you two finish up in here.” The kitchen door clicked shut as they let themselves out.
Vero met me in the hall. “Find anything?”
“Nothing unusual.” I walked to the last door and turned the knob.
I was greeted by the cold, musty smell of a damp basement.
I tugged the pull chain above my head. The single light bulb in the stairway flickered on, casting our shadows over the creaking wooden steps as we descended to the bottom.
The concrete floors and walls were darkened with water stains.
The wooden joists over our heads had begun to mold.
The eye-watering smell of bleach pinched the back of my throat, as if someone had been trying to mitigate the problem on their own.
I grabbed another pull chain. A second light bulb came on, illuminating a washer and dryer and a plastic utility sink.
An iron had been left out on an ironing board, its cord plugged into a naked outlet attached to the wall.
The set of metal shelves beside it contained a bottle of laundry detergent, some fabric softener, and several empty bleach jugs.
A nylon cord stretched from the top shelf to the far end of the room.
It was dotted with clothespins. Some shirts had been left hanging, still damp to the touch.
A few wrinkled dollar bills that must have found their way into the washing machine had been left on top of it to dry.
A stack of cardboard boxes sat empty on the floor beside it.
They bore the same black-and-white logo I’d seen on the box of happy-hour flyers behind Theo’s bar.
“Find anything over there?” I called out to Vero.
“Maybe,” she called back to me. “Looks like some kind of makeshift office.”
I ducked under the hanging shirts and found Vero searching an old workbench.
A wooden stool had been tucked under it, and loose cords dangled from the keyboard and monitor sitting on top.
She slid open a tool drawer. A few loose pens, some paper clips, and a pair of scissors rattled toward the front of it.
I ran a finger over the work surface. It came away clean.
“You think Theo took his laptop with him?” I asked.
Vero inspected the cables dangling over the desk. “These aren’t laptop connectors. They’re for a PC.”
“Then where is it?”
“Beats me,” Vero said, hands on her hips as she paced the room.
“Theo probably hid it. I’m sure his friends all told him I was looking for him.
I bet there’s information about the money on that hard drive he didn’t want anyone to see.
” She kicked the stool, sending it clattering into a stack of empty five-gallon buckets.
“Careful! If you break something, he’ll know someone was here.”
She knelt to pick them up. “Theo probably took his damn computer and skipped town.”
“I don’t think so. His toothbrush and razor are still in the bathroom.”
Vero grabbed the small bills off the washing machine and stuffed them into her pocket. “At least the night wasn’t a total loss. I’d bet anything the money was here.”
“Unless there are a few thousand of those hiding in the dryer, it’s not helping.
Wait a minute,” I said, stepping back to get a look at the entire room.
“What if we weren’t the only ones who came here looking for the money?
” I thought about the dust-free surface of Theo’s desk.
His spotless kitchen counters and his sparkling sink and toilet.
It had all suggested Theo was neat for a twenty-two-year-old bachelor.
But something about his house didn’t add up.
The kitchen floor was sticky, the bathroom mirror was covered in spots, the shower was full of mildew, and the coffee table was piled high with clutter, like it hadn’t been wiped down in weeks. Why?
Why had only some of the surfaces been meticulously cleaned?
Vero followed me up the stairs as I hurried back to the bathroom and turned on the light. My mouth went dry. “There’s no shower curtain.”
“So?”
I watched her bemusement turn to horror as she finally caught on.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no, no, no, no. You can’t possibly think…”
“What else am I supposed to think?” I whispered. “Theo didn’t show up for work tonight, his computer is gone, there’s a missing shower curtain in his bathroom, and there are four empty bottles of bleach in his basement!”
“Theo can’t be dead! He’s driving his car!”
“Or whoever took the shower curtain stole his BMW!” There had to be a logical explanation for all this. “Where is the AirTag now? We’ll drive to campus, find his car, and settle this once and for all.” I gave Vero my phone.
She thumbed through my apps and opened the map.
“His car’s not on campus. It looks like it’s parked in some kind of industrial complex a few miles away.
I’m seeing an auto repair shop, glass replacement, a commercial printer, some kind of trucking supply warehouse …
Wait,” she said, touching the screen to follow the dot. “The car’s moving again.”
I leaned over her shoulder to look. “Where’s it going?”
“It’s getting back on the road. Looks like it’s heading south on Forty-Sixth Avenue … Now it’s making a right onto Decatur … turning south onto Baltimore Avenue … Wait, it’s slowing down. It’s turning onto some kind of access road by the Anacostia River … Finn, are you seeing this?”
“They’re off the road.” My heart climbed into my throat as I watched the blue dot veer off the faint brown line it had been following. The car continued through the grass, toward the snaking blue line demarking the river’s edge. The AirTag crossed the line. Then the dot disappeared.
We blinked at the screen.
Vero swallowed hard. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“I think someone just got rid of Theo’s car,” I croaked. “And Theo was probably in it.”