Caitlin saw the so-called bathroom, the padded toilet seat up, a smear of poorly aimed bodily fluids visible from feet away. She went in, shut the door, ran the water, and thanked God she didn’t really have to pee.

“Gooch,” Mary said in the kitchen, honey in her voice. “Caitie takes forever. There’s got to be another bathroom in this giant house.”

He gave in. “Oh, yeah, follow me.”

Caitlin waited until their footsteps faded, then opened the door.

No better place for a growhouse than a basement. No windows and only one door, usually through a kitchen. She tried a knob and found a dark wooden-slat stairway. She pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and went down.

The unfinished root cellar had a cracked concrete floor, a giant old boiler, a washer and dryer, and a shop sink. Nothing special.

The floor above came to life. She took two steps up at a time, shoved her phone in her pocket, and shut the door behind her, seconds before the return of Mary and Gooch.

“All better,” Mary said. “You?”

Caitlin tsked. “You boys wash your hands before you touch the vegetables, right Gooch?”

He laughed. “I don’t know about the other guys, but I do.”

He showed them out, then watched from the driveway until they pulled back onto the road.

“Shit,” Caitlin said. “I thought it’d be in the basement.”

Mary bit into a cucumber. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. The second bathroom was right next to a stairway. Gooch stood in front of the stairs the whole time I was in there.”

“You think it’s upstairs?”

She smiled through her crunching. “Yeah, cause he made a big deal about me not being seen on the security camera, said he’d get in trouble if they found out he gave us a tour.”

“Mary, you’re the best.”

“That’s nothing, Caitie. Wait until you eat the dinner I’m gonna make with these vegetables. One thing, though—”

“What?”

“We gotta stop somewhere. No way I was gonna pee in that house.”

Chapter 28

CHAPTER

28

MARY HAD MEETINGS, so Caitlin dropped her off on campus and met Lakshmi in Dunn Meadow for a debriefing. The exposed roots of a tree created natural seats overlooking a creek.

Lakshmi looked up from her tablet. “Wait, what do the windmills do again?”

“Shield power consumption,” Caitlin said. “Utility companies monitor for unusual usage, which is why the typical growhouse steals power. Since the greenhouses get their juice from the sun, the rest is getting used by the house. What about you? Find anything else online, or were you bored all morning?”

Lakshmi rolled her eyes. “Oh, I was bored, but you were right. I got pretty into it.”

“Was it better than sex?”