Sydney was hopeful of growing a humongous pumpkin—as big as Cinderella’s coach, she said—and was no less pleased when the garden yielded nine gorgeous, plump pumpkins. The kids picked their two favorite specimens and, with Oliver’s help, carved a pair of jack-o’-lanterns—Syd’s with traditional triangular features, Eliot’s a rather grotesque attempt at the orange-skinned Thing from the Fantastic Four. The kids’ pumpkins, along with several more that hadn’t been massacred, graced the front porch. The rest had been left to rot in the patch, becoming midnight snacks for the abundant foxes, opossums, and raccoons. That pumpkin patch had done wonders for lifting everyone’s spirits, if only for a while.

While some trees surrounding our yard clung to their fiery oranges and buttery yellows and bloody burgundy, others had already dropped their leaves. Oliver swore he was going to get around to raking them up; our on-call gardener could take care of it, but Oliver claimed it was good therapy. Our property was an island among the suburbs, our house shrouded by six acres of forest, no other dwelling in sight. There was something both eerily serene and terrifying about it. The isolation. The mysteries. The secrets we could bury with no one watching.

We had privacy to spare, but every now and then a curiosity-seeker would defy the wry “Trespassers Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again” sign Cody had erected on our property line at the end of the road, hell-bent on seeing the Execution Estate up close.

Today happened to be one of those days.

A beam of headlights swung across the driveway, and a minute later a rattletrap Corolla with two suicide tires and no hubcaps pulled in front of the porch. Two unkempt slackers in their early twenties got out and stood brazenly gawking at the house in all its grandiose glory.

“Oh no, not again,” Oliver grumbled. He stood and walked to the edge of the porch. “Can I help you…gentlemen?”

“Is this the Execution Estate?” said one of the boys.

“What if it is?” said Oliver with more restraint than I gave him credit for.

“Dude, we just drove up from Perryopolis—”

“And saw Buffalo Bill’s house from Silence of the Lambs,” the other finished. “It was frickin’ awesome. But not half as awesome as this joint.”

“Yeah, we’re on a tour of cool murder manses, and the Execution Estate was next on our list. This place is the shit!”

Oliver took a sip of his drink. “Gee, thanks.”

“Some couple’s gonna turn Buffalo Bill’s house into a hotel,” the first boy said. “You guys gonna turn this place into a hotel? That would be—”

“Frickin’ awesome?” Oliver supplied. “No, no plans like that. Guess you boys didn’t see the sign about trespassing.”

“Yeah, we saw it. Figured it was a joke.”