At the end of the hall, where a master bedroom might be, she saw a bedroom with the door closed. She stopped, went low, turned the knob, and then pushed the door inward. The room was what she had expected. There was a four-poster queen bed with a thin white fabric canopy, a duvet with lace around the edges, and a few big decorative pillows. Nobody was sleeping there, and she could not imagine anyone had in some time. There was a distinct old-lady smell that was a combination of stale perfume, cold cream, and maybe a hint of Vicks VapoRub, but the accumulated scents seemed to be mixed with dust.

Now that she was up on the second floor, Leah was more aware than before that the house was hot. The lower floor had been a bit warm, but up here the sensation was much stronger. The warm air had collected on the upper level, and all day the intense, unmediated sunshine had burned onto the roof, and the heat hadn’t had time to disperse. She didn’t feel or hear air-conditioning, and there were no fans running to at least move the air around.

Leah had already formed a theory about the house. She moved from room to room verifying it. Three of the four bedrooms had beds in them. One held another queen bed that was made up and looked as though it had been slept in recently and remade. She bent and sniffed the sheets and pillow without touching them. It was a male smell. Someone might have been here a week or two ago, since she had come.

Leah went directly down the stairs and looked in the kitchen. It was marginally clean, but nobody seemed to have used it today. She felt the sink and drains, and they were dry.

As soon as she opened the refrigerator, she knew. There was beer—eight bottles—but little actual food. There was cheddar cheese and some olives. In the freezer were ice trays and a bottle of vodka. She unlocked the door and went outside. She used her folding knife to jimmy the small side door of the garage.

It was a two-car garage with a car parked on one side, but it wasn’t the blue Chrysler 300. It was a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla. On the far side of it was a row of stacked and tied newspapers, and on the top of them was a long bundle made of something wrapped in a tarp, with a couple of other tarps folded on top of it.