Property of the State

by Bill Cameron

  This is my chance to see where things stand, and work out an escape plan, should the need arise.

  In Kristina’s room, I inspect the broad window frame. There’s no evidence of security sensors. Not necessary on the second floor, I guess. Once I’m sure an open window won’t bring the alarm company van shrieking up the driveway, I lift the sash. The window has no screens, which helps. Kristina’s room looks out over one end of the upper veranda. The outside wall is brick, with stone lintels above each window. Some of the bricks that stick out in a decorative pattern will double as handholds in case of emergency. My first choice isn’t to climb out the window—nor my second, third, or tenth—but as the prophet said, you never know when you’re gonna need to jam.

  Satisfied I can climb down if I have to, I close the window and stash a length of clothesline I’d lifted from the garage into the bottom dresser drawer along with my clothes. The rope isn’t for me. If I have to pull a Spider-Man, it’s to lower my gear first. I stow the suitcase in the closet. Not much of a hiding place, but one thing at a time.

  My next stop is the vault. I can’t shake the sensation I’m being watched as I open the hidey-hole. I ignore the loose bills and focus on the bundles. Forty-seven stacks of hundreds, eight of twenties. I keep losing count, but looks like each stack is a hundred bills. Not quite five hundred thousand dollars.

  I’m not sure what knowing the amount tells me, besides the fact someone in this house has hidden half a million dollars behind a loose board in an unsecured vault. I can think of more than a few reasons why it isn’t in a bank. Money this filthy didn’t come from volunteering at Katz or a legit business. I pack up the cash and hide it again, with no temptation to hold back even a single twenty. Back upstairs in Kristina’s bathroom, I have to wash my hands twice to kill the stench.

  I leave the sink running, turn on the shower. Out in the hall, with the door closed, I can hear the water, but faintly. Same for the library. From the living room, I detect a burble overhead, but I’m not sure I’d notice it if I wasn’t listening for it. Trisha says my super hearing would be cute if it wasn’t so damn annoying.

  I’m not worried about the library and living room. I’m not worried about Philip, either. His thoughts drown out all else when his head is buried in his Book or he’s staring at a chessboard. Which is most of the time. The question is what can the Huntzels hear? I don’t plan on kicking up a ruckus, but I gotta know if I can take a piss or brush my teeth without having SWAT bust in on me.

  I hesitate outside the door to the master suite, as if a bubble of warm air is pressing against me. But then I turn the knob and cross the threshold.

  Adult bedrooms aren’t something I have a lot of experience with. During the Mad Maddie era, my chores included running the vacuum cleaner throughout the house, but all I remember of her bedroom is the smell of skin cream. At some placements, the parents locked the doors, and not just bedroom doors. The Tinkels padlocked the fridge. Wayne and Anita never went that far, but their bedroom was verboten. No problem, freaks.

  Now, as I stare across what feels like a vast expanse, Mr. and Mrs. Huntzel’s room is both strange and anticlimactic.

  Two wide windows on the far wall let in lots of light, but the air is as heavy as a held breath. I close the door behind me and listen to the silence.

  It’s perfect.

  Twin beds anchor the corners, but there isn’t much else in the way of furniture. A couple of wing chairs. A flat-screen TV on a media stand at the foot of the nearer bed. There is a scattering of DVDs and Blu-rays on the floor, commercial releases and home-burned DVDs with handwritten labels. Bianca on E, Bianca Red Carpet, PM on SdT. I think about the folder full of pictures in Philip’s dresser. Mrs. Huntzel too? I know Philip sometimes watches videos with his mom, but I always figured it was Haven or Star Wars Rebels marathons.

  The layers in the Huntzel weirdness have layers.

  A pair of doors lead to the bathroom and a big walk-in closet. The silence holds in both. My professional eye notes the bathroom could use a freshening, but I’m glad I don’t have to deal with all the shampoos, conditioners, and beauty implements of strange and vaguely sinister configuration. There’s no evidence of Mr. Huntzel, which seems a little strange. Dude has to shave, right? In the closet most of the clothing belongs to Mrs. Huntzel. A wrinkled suit and two grayish dress shirts hang at one end of the rack, along with a lone tie.

  I head back out to the main room. One bed is neatly made. Its nightstand is bare, drawer empty. No books, no slippers on the floor. Could be a bed in a hotel room.

  Suddenly I understand why I see so little of Mr. Huntzel. He doesn’t actually live here.

  Huh.

  The other bed is a tangle of sheets and blankets. The brush on the nightstand has reddish-gray hairs twisted among the bristles. There’s a nail file, and an empty water glass with a smudge of lipstick on the rim, the television remote. Mrs. Huntzel never struck me as a messy person, but the bathroom and the heap of clothes on the floor kick that idea in the ass.

  I pull open the drawer on her nightstand.

  Among the kind of clutter I suppose you find in any bedside table—tissue box, pens and pencils, scraps of paper—there’s a pistol.

  The air drains out of me. As guns go, it isn’t much. Wouldn’t even make the cut in your average first-person-shooter video game. A small revolver with a stubby barrel and a black plastic grip. I absorb the details in an instant, then rock back on my heels. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff.

  Who does she expect to shoot?

  People like me.

  I close the drawer and return to Kristina’s room, turn off the water. Sit on the bed. Stand. Run my thumb over my phone. I almost text Trisha, but what would I say? If my bullet-riddled corpse turns up on Mount Tabor, tell the cops to take a hard look at Mrs. Huntzel.

  Instead, I try to distract myself with pine cleaner and a mop. For all the good it does me.

  Fuck.

  With Mr. Huntzel gone so much, maybe the gun helps her feel safe. It’s not like she waves it around. How long have I worked here? Six months? Never seen it.

  Still.

  If the money was unsettling, the gun makes me want to swallow my tongue. But at least I know where things stand, right?

  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

  I finish Friday in an hour. Record time, not the best I’ve ever done. Restless and edgy, I retreat to Kristina’s room, close the door. Find myself thinking about food. My thoughts are clinical. Practical. I gotta eat, even though I’m not hungry. Back in the kitchen, I build a sandwich—with mustard—and grab a bottle of water. I eat standing…pacing…standing in Kristina’s room. For a while, I listen at the door but the house is silent. Sometimes, Philip has told me, his mom takes him out for dinner after Chess Collective. I try to remember the last time I saw Mr. Huntzel. Can’t.

  Finally, as sunlight fades outside, I get undressed and slip under the covers. It’s still early but I don’t know what else to do.

  Leave?

  And go where?

  Exactly.

  This is what you get for snooping, asshole.

  1.15: Victoria’s Orphan

  By the time I fall asleep, I’ve worked through at least half a dozen ideas.

  She’s a private detective…

  An elite international assassin…

  The money’s her fee…

  It’s fake…

  Or, the gun’s a fake…

  A toy…

  A cigarette lighter

  I picture her in black-and-white on the lower veranda, firing up a cancer stick from the barrel of her snub-nose. At some point I either talked myself into believing she’d never shoot me—I’m Philip’s guardian angel, after all—or exhausted myself.

  No clue how long I’ve been asleep when my eyes pop open. There’s a presence in the room
with me. Not Caliban, unless he’s figured out how to turn doorknobs. A person. All I can think of is the pistol and the scent trail of all that cash. Then the light clicks on and confusion roils my fear. It’s not Mrs. Huntzel. The girl in the black quilted vest and camouflage pants tucked into shin-high Chucks is holding a leather messenger bag, not a gun.

  Which is a good thing. She looks pissed.

  “Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my bed?”

  Even if she hadn’t mentioned her bed, I’d know it was Kristina—I recognize Philip’s sour glare. Her hair is dark like his, but with jewel green flashes that match her eyes. Philip’s elf features are more effective on her too.

  I push myself up, remember I’m only wearing my underwear, and scooch back under the covers again.

  “You—”

  “Me. Yes.” She tosses her vest toward the dresser, doesn’t seem to care when it hits the floor. “What happened to your face?”

  I thought it was looking better. “It’s…I—” The bridge troll crack I’d prepped for just such a moment dies on my lips.

  “Wait. You’re the stray, aren’t you?”

  “The what?”

  “You’re Victoria’s stray. The orphan.”

  “You call your mother Victoria?”

  “It’s her name. What do you call her?”

  “Mrs. Huntzel.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  She drops her bag and looks around the room as if checking for damage. I know I’m busted, but the fact she hasn’t started screaming for blood or dialing 9-1-1 leaves me with this weird, floating anxiety.

  “What do you—?” A wad of goo collects at the back of my throat, but somehow I force my voice past it. “It’s just, well…Philip said you don’t come around anymore.”

  She studies me for a long moment, and her eyes soften. I wonder if she’s thinking I’m not so different from her, another castoff. But then she shakes her head and her gaze darkens again.

  “And that’s why he’s letting you sleep in my bed?”

  I don’t say anything. Maybe my face gives something away.

  Her lips pull back from her teeth into a sneer, another patented Huntzel expression. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

  “Listen—”

  “No one does.” Now her sneer turns into an evil grin. “You picked the one room in the house no one will ever enter. The black sheep’s bedroom, the prodigal sister. The evil bitch no one talks about.”

  “I’ll leave. Okay? Just don’t tell them.”

  She laughs, too loud. “Why the fuck would I tell them anything?”

  I’m confused, but she only laughs again.

  “Didn’t Philip tell you? We don’t speak.”

  “Why not?”

  “None of your fucking business, Oliver.”

  “Oliver?”

  “You never read a book?”

  “Oh. Dickens. Sure.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Joey.”

  “You’d be more interesting as Oliver.” She considers me for a minute. “Are you naked?”

  Here’s the thing. You imagine this moment, good-looking girl appears in your room in the middle of the night. A blood rush is what you hope for. Just not to the face.

  “Not completely, no.”

  “Good.”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen. I know what you did for my brother, and no matter what they say, I appreciate it. But that doesn’t give you carte blanche.”

  “Carte blanche?”

  “You don’t get to do whatever you want. Get me? This is my room. Keep your shorts on. Beat off in the shower. Don’t be getting your spunk on my sheets.”

  “Jesus.”

  She laughs, but I don’t see what’s funny. “I just want to be clear about whose bed you’re sleeping in. Now move over.”

  “What?”

  “Move over. I’m tired.”

  “I’ll go somewhere else.”

  “Where? None of the guest rooms have blankets or sheets. Shut up and move over. But keep your hands to yourself. I’m not looking for any action.”

  She grabs the quilt from the closet and turns off the light. In the moonlight filtering in around the curtains, I can just make out her silhouette wrapping up in the quilt. The bed shifts as she lies down beside me. There’s three layers of fabric between us. Not nearly enough. She rolls onto her side, back to me. I hear her shoes hit the floor. It’s like an elephant clumping around the room, but I suppose she knows how solid the house is.

  No way can I sleep. I wish I was wearing a T-shirt and some sweatpants. My boxers feel like a shadow.

  “You have a boner, don’t you?”

  “Who are you?”

  She chuckles without turning toward me. “Remember what I said. Shower only.”

  I don’t know which is worse, the gun down the hall or the girl in my bed. My hands twist the covers up to my chin. After a while, my pulse slows in my ears and I realize I can hear her breathing. Slow and regular. Asleep. I have no clue how she can sleep. I can hardly breathe with my heart pressed against the back of my tongue. Moonlight moves across the window, slow as melting glass—

  When I awake the next morning, she’s gone. Caliban has taken her place, with her permission, I assume. His tail thumps when I stir. On the dresser there’s a note and an old, tarnished key.

  Oliver—

  The key is for the door next to the fireplace in the rec room. Not wired.

  You’re welcome.

  —K

  1.16: Tighty-Whities

  It’s barely eight when I sneak down to the basement, Caliban at my heels. The rec room is quiet and empty, dust-free after my efforts on Thursday. The door next to the fireplace looks like an afterthought, plain and dark, a wooden airlock with an ancient deadbolt and no knob. I’m half-surprised when Kristina’s key slides into the keyhole. The door opens with the barest squeak. As promised, there’s no bleat from the security system.

  Caliban darts out ahead of me into a space shaded by the looming chimney and the laurel hedge. I’ve worked for the Huntzels for months, but this is the first time I’ve seen this end of the house from the outside. The slope of Mount Tabor drops sharply here, too steep for landscaping. Last year’s leaves crackle under my feet. After throwing me a look, Caliban disappears into the brush. A weedy path spills down to the street, hidden from the house by a wall of arborvitae.

  With Kristina’s key, I can come and go as I please. I can only guess why she gave it to me—maybe more weird Huntzel gratitude for what I did to Duncan. But who the hell knows? I head to Uncommon Cup for breakfast.

  Two hours later, I’m sweeping the upper veranda when Philip appears at the foyer door. He stops to watch for a moment, expression unreadable behind his plastic mask. I don’t think he needs it now. Probably thinks it makes him look like some kind of super villain. The Chessinator. He’s got his Book in one hand. I assume Mrs. Huntzel chased him outside to “get a little sun.” The bruising around his eyes has cycled from wannabe Goth to comical raccoon.

  I lean on the broom. “Hey, Philip. What’s the deal with Kristina, anyway?”

  He jumps when I speak, startled. Stares at me for a long, blank moment.

  Why do I even bother? He never answers my questions—a position I approve of most of the time. But Kristina…I don’t know where she came from, don’t know where she went. Or why she showed up at all. Sleep with a girl within two minutes of meeting her and it makes an impression, even if you never touch each other.

  “Why do you care about Kristina? She’s an ogress.”

  Not the word I’d choose. “Just wondering.”

  He’s quiet for a long time. Usually that means he’s trying to figure out how to be clever or evasive. Since he su
cks at both I’d rather he just told me to fuck off.

  “I refuse to discuss Kristina.”

  Fuck off it is.

  He goes looking for somewhere else to obsess, leaving me to my menial labor. Usually I don’t mind pushing a broom or scrubbing floors, but this morning the mindless task leaves my brain free to ponder the women in my life.

  Kristina. Mrs. Huntzel and her gun. Anita’s fearful kindness—Did your laundry, sorry about the face.

  Mrs. Petty has been dark since Tuesday in the corral. Usually I wouldn’t care, but I’m not thrilled she left me to twist with the cops.

  When you don’t need them, you can’t get rid of them. When you do, they’re nowhere to be found. Get used to it.

  As I work, my mind keeps looping back to Trisha. I wonder how things are going at the beach. Her silence is like a pressure in the center of my chest. While I was at Uncommon Cup, I went so far as to initiate contact. A miracle text.

  Hey. Bring me a shell?

  Half an hour and one pulverized donut later, I sent another.

  That was a joke.

  No response. Might be time to rethink my fierce opposition to emojis.

  ***

  At noon, Mrs. Huntzel reviews the clipboard, then takes seven twenties from her purse. None smell like ass. “Thank you, Joey. Good work.”

  I’m dismissed. One-forty is my best week ever.

  As weekends go, this one is meh. I spend Saturday afternoon at Uncommon Cup working on Math and doing my American History reading. The only moment of interest is when I hear two girls rattling off a list of celebs who are “sooo grotesquely overexposed.” Bianca Santavenere makes the cut. Apparently she’s been shopping a “leaked” sex tape. By the time the café closes, I’m a week ahead on History and Trig, and working on my counteroffensive for when Moylan sticks me with an M. I steal into the house through Kristina’s secret door without incident, lie awake for hours wondering if she’s going to make another appearance.

  Sunday is dull as dry beans. Me mostly holed up in Kristina’s room, Caliban farting at my side. I’m grateful for the company, but, sheesh, dog. I probably shouldn’t get used to it; last thing I need is him scratching on her door to visit when I’m not around. Still, it’s nice to think I’m not the only uninvited guest in the house. When the cops finally bust us, maybe we can share a cell.