We split up then. I did as I suggested and kept my smartphone’s flashlight beam pointed at the floor. I could make out what looked like a table in the center of the room. I moved toward it. I risked lifting the beam a little higher to see what was on the table.

It looked like chemistry class.

Test tubes, beakers, flasks, and the like littered the table. I started to wonder if there was a Bunsen burner here too. I turned off the flashlight and tried to think for a moment.

A lab.

Why?

I thought about what Troy had told me—about Randy dealing drugs. Could this be, I don’t know, a drug lab of some kind? How do you make steroids? I had no idea. Could that be what this was?

Again: no idea.

The room was sparkling clean. I saw a metal cylinder on the right. Stainless steel cabinets lined the wall. I put my hand on one. It felt cold to the touch. I took hold of the handle and pulled the cabinet open. It opened like a refrigerator. I felt cold air. I lifted the flashlight so that I could see inside.

There might as well have been a sign saying CLUE.

“Ew, gross,” I whispered to myself.

Troy stuck his head around the wall. He shined the flashlight up in my face before aiming it toward the open cabinet. “Wait, is that . . . ?”

“I think so, yeah,” I said.

The cabinet was loaded up with small plastic containers that I recognized from our drug testing. There was a yellow liquid inside. In short, the cabinet was loaded up with . . .

“Urine samples,” I said.

“Nasty.”

I made a face and gently lifted one of the specimen cups.

Suddenly I heard Troy’s panicked voice. “What was that?”

I turned toward him. “What?”

He leapt toward the window, nearly knocking the urine specimen from my hand. I followed him. We ducked down low and peeked outside. At first, I didn’t see anything, just the streetlights in the distance.

“What?” I asked.

“Might have been my imagination, but I-I thought I saw . . .”

And then they became clearer. Flashlights. Flashlights that were heading toward us. Not small flashlights like on our smartphones, but big, thick ones, the kind used by . . .

“It’s my dad!” Troy yell-whispered. “We gotta get out of here!”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. We ran for the door, bumping into the table. Beakers crashed to the floor. I heard a voice yell out. An adult voice.

Like the voice of a cop.

Troy got to the door first, but I was right behind him. We ran straight back, trying to keep the building between those flashlights and our bodies. Troy jumped behind a big boulder. I joined him. Up the hill on Kasselton Avenue, I could now see the whirling light atop a parked police car.

“Oh man,” I said.