Page 51 of One Love

“May the Fourth be with you, too, Mom. Have fun at the LARP convention!” With a sigh, I end the conversation with my parents only to look up and see Glitch’s gaze fixed on me like I’ve grown two more limbs and a second head. “What?”

We’re back at Harvey Cook’s place, packing up my camera and audio equipment all nice and neat in the original boxes. I’m a little anal like that.

“Are your parents at the San Francisco LARP Anonymous Convention?” Of course he’d know. For people like us who grew up gaming, this gathering is epic.

“Yeah, they’ve been attending since year one. I was like, I don’t know, two years old?” I shrug, pointing to the different cameras J and I set up at Cook’s house. “That one is brand fucking new, man.” I’d wanted to test the limits of that equipment and decided doing recon on this house was a good start.

“You’re an asshole! I’ve been calling in favors right and left trying to get that set-up before it goes retail.” I laugh, knowingexactly how he feels. The XD two-fifty is the latest Japanese technology and it blows everything else out of the fucking water.

“A friend of a friend is, uh, one of the concept technicians.” I feel more than see Glitch freeze and I’m pretty sure if I turn around his mouth will be hanging open like a damn fish out of water.

Definitely testing that theory, placing a bet against myself.

When I turn to face him, he’s doing exactly that and I mentally high-five myself.

“How am I just learning about this now? You’ve been on surveillance for the last week, man. That’s fucked up.” Shaking his head, he tests the sturdiness of the lone table in the middle of the kitchen. Once satisfied that it won’t break under his weight, he jumps on like a frog and stands facing the tiny camera encrusted in the wiring of the seventies-galore lamp shade hanging from the ceiling.

“Not my fault your attention to detail is shit.” Placing the original box for the camera on the table beside him, I give in to my curiosity.

That fucking pantry.

Cook never came here at regular intervals. It wasn’t a specific day of the week nor a special date in the month. It was random, or at least that’s how it seemed on the tapes.

The only rituals he had were the cereal he ate and that fucking pantry he kept his eyes on, barely ever blinking.

“There’s gotta be something in there, Glitch. Why would he come to this fucking dump just to eat cereal?” My question is aimed at Glitch but, really, I’m just talking to myself as I walk over to the small, damp room and open the door.

When J and I came here the first time, we’d checked it all out. All three bedrooms, every bathroom—there are two and half—living room, basement, and yes, this empty pantry. There wasn’t a damn thing that seemed out of the ordinary. An abandonedhouse with dust everywhere except for the kitchen table and the one chair. The refrigerator isn’t even turned on, which made me want to gag every time I saw him eating Wheaties without a single drop of milk.

“Sounds like a sociopath to me.” By the soft tone of his voice, I can tell he’s just saying whatever he thinks I want to hear because his entire attention is solely on the tiny camera that’s probably giving him a boner right now. “Fuck, look at this baby.” Called it.

“If you jack off to images of it later tonight, I may have to disown you as a friend.” Beyond his chuckle, I don’t hear anything he says because my only focus is the empty shelves, save for the row of cereal boxes, and wood paneling that decorate the walls. A thick layer of dust coats everything except the shelves in front of the boxes, which makes sense. Every time he came here, he pulled one out then slid it back in.

Putting myself in Cook’s shoes, I reach for the white box, ignoring whatever joke Glitch is throwing my way, and pull it away from the wall behind it. I don’t know what I was expecting, a magic lever that opened up to a magical world of wizards and creatures, maybe?

Nothing happened.

I try the next box, then the next. Pulling out, pushing back in. No magic, not even a sound that would tell me I’m on to something.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Cook was a complete psycho and had a thing for Wheaties and empty pantries. I mean, I saw some weird shit in prison that makes this look like picture-perfect sanity.

I remember this tall, bald guy in the cell across the hall from me had befriended a cockroach. Named him Cap, like Captain, and cut out a tiny cape for him to wear with the letterAdrawn with his blood. He wasn’t allowed to have a pen so he improvised. His words.

So, maybe Cook wasn’t out of his mind, maybe it was just a quirk.

I’m about to turn around and walk out when something catches my eye. I stop, ignoring the sounds of Glitch behind me as he jumps off the table then pushes it to a different corner of the kitchen before he’s back up and working on another hidden camera.

Just behind the first box is an oval…what is that? With my phone in hand, I tap the flashlight icon and point it at the wall. It’s a half-eaten piece of Wheaties, reminding me that a mouse has been squatting in this place for at least as long as we’ve been watching it.

Shaking my head, I decide to take all the boxes out and throw them out. With no living next of kin, Cook’s house had been placed up for auction, and by the power vested in my hacking skills, it is now part of Zavier’s holdings, along with the land he’d been trying to buy for months.

Leaving these boxes here would only encourage the entire population of mice to take up residence.

Grabbing all four, I press them together and back away. This time when I glance at the wood paneling, I realize something’s not right. The line isn’t straight, the cut isn’t sealed. There’s a big gap between the wood and the shelf and I don’t have to be an expert in DIY to know that’s not normal.

“Glitch,” I call out as I put the boxes back on the shelf and forget their existence all together. My gut is screaming at me that I’m onto something here.

With the flashlight pointed at the open space, I get closer, seeing mouse pellets all around and half of one between the slats of the wood on the back wall.

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