Page 76 of Your Every Wish
When I finally reach the French doors, I breathe a sigh of relief. But it’s short lived when I jiggle the doorknob and it doesn’t give. Goddamn you, Kennedy.
Try again, Emma.
With a shaking hand I try the other knob and voilà, the door squeaks open. I push it the rest of the way and step inside. Again, I wait, pulse pumping, for an alarm to go off. Instead, I’m greeted with silence. Odd. Who in this day and age doesn’t have a security system?
I start to flick on a light and think better of it. No need to alert the neighbors that someone is here. Illegally. The house seems bigger than it did before, and it takes me an eternity to get to the front door. Of course, it doesn’t help that I have to feel my way using the walls and Kennedy’s lame-ass light to find it.
I’m about to crack it open when the crook in me (I am my father’s daughter) says to look for one of those alarm doohickeys on the door. Unless it’s microscopic, I don’t see one. Yet, I suck in my breath as I inch it open.
“What took you so long?” Kennedy comes in and Liam trails in behind her.
“I was worried about alarms . . . and cameras.”
“Liam disarmed them all.”
“What? Where? Are you two nuts? How do you even know how to do that?” Whatever he did will probably trip something and alert the police that we’re here. I expect that within minutes we’ll be handcuffed and taken away in patrol cars.
“Easy peasy,” Liam says.
Who is this man and how is it that he knows how to disable alarm systems?
“Should we split up? Each take a section of the house?” Kennedy suggests.
“Sounds good. But let’s hurry.”
“What exactly are we looking for?” Liam wants to know.
Kennedy looks at me warily. Even in the short time we’ve been acquainted, I know exactly what she’s thinking:Can we trust him?I give her an imperceptible nod. What is he going to do, grab the money, run to his van, and head for the border? If there is any money, which I highly doubt. This is mainly an exercise in humoring Kennedy. But my gut tells me Liam is honorable. Trustworthy.
“A golf bag,” she says, and I know her gut is telling her the same thing. “I can tell you right now it’s not in any of the closets. We searched those high and low. Why don’t I take the garage, laundry room, and kitchen; Emma, you take the office and primary bedroom; and Liam the two guest bedrooms.”
I lead Liam down the hallway and point out his rooms, while I go in the direction of the office. It doesn’t appear that anything has been touched since the last time we were here. And frankly, unless there’s a trapdoor or a secret room somewhere, this seems futile. We’ve already picked this place clean as a chicken bone.
I start with the wet-bar cabinets, which seem too small for a golf bag but maybe they’re making them smaller these days. Other than Dex’s, I’m not all that familiar with golf bags, golf, or any of its other accoutrements. I check the bookcases on the chance that there’s one of those Murphy doors, like the ones in the movies that lead to a back room where they used to hide the booze during Prohibition or a trendy cigar lounge. No such luck. I search the floors for a loose board or a hidden cellar door, though I think this house is built on a slab.
Most of the desk drawers have already been pulled apart and the small closet is empty except for a few boxes of printer paper and other assorted office supplies, most of them tossed to the floor. I scan the ceiling for a hatch or access panel to an attic. I have no idea whether this house has one but given the vaulted ceilings in the common space, it seems unlikely.
Nothing here, so I move on to the primary and search for any hidden spaces I can find. There aren’t any, as I suspected all along. Five hundred and fifty miles for nothing.
At least the drive was nice and the company good. Liam regaled us with stories of the residents at Cedar Pines. It turns out Trapper Bing is a retired ornithologist who used to work at the Honolulu Zoo. It explains his obsession with birds. And Rondi is a linguist who speaks seventeen languages. Liam says there’s a guy on the other side of the park who speaks twenty-two.
Everyone thinks Azriel Sabag, a quiet man who lives in trailer 47 with his dog, Benji, is former Mossad. No one, however, has been able to substantiate it. Zola Abdi, one of the canasta ladies, has her own African-print clothing line. And the guy who lives in the trailer next to Liam’s (for the life of me I can’t remember his name) is Guy Fieri’s first cousin once removed.
Liam finds me crawling through the back of Willy’s closet. “You find anything?”
I bolt upright and hit my head on one of the clothing rods. “Shit.”
“Did I scare you? Sorry.”
“It’s just so dark in here. I haven’t found a thing. You?”
“Nothing. Just a mess left by the federal agents who searched the place. Any chance they seized the bag when they searched?”
“It’s not on the inventory list they provided to our lawyer. Believe you me, Kennedy and I combed through every inch of that list. Computers, files, phones, and bank records were the bulk of it.”
“Hey!” Kennedy rushes in. Her face is flushed with excitement. “I may have found something. Come quick.”
We follow her down the hallway, through the laundry room into the garage, where she goes straight to the west-facing wall.
