“We had the same tenant for the last seven years. I hired some guys to haul out the crap he left behind, but I just haven’t had time to really take a look at what needs to be done.”

Of course, Wendy had to put her oar in the water. “I walked through it. It’ll need a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of work to make it livable. Frankly, if I were you, I’d sell the house to one of these rich gay couples and walk away.” Drue had stared Wendy down with what Joan had termed her “dead-eye.” “I am not selling Papi’s house.”

The front door had been painted red for as long as Drue could remember. Somebody, the hoarder, maybe, had slapped a coat of school-bus-yellow paint on it. She easily flecked a chip of the paint with a fingernail, revealing the red beneath. “Repaint front door” would be among the first items on her to-do list for the cottage.

The door hardware was shiny brass, obviously new and cheap-looking. She fit the key into it, turned the handle and pushed. The door was stuck, the old wood swollen and warped. She pushed harder, leaning into it with her shoulder. The rusted hinges squealed and the door gave way.

It wasn’t until she’d stepped over the threshold that she realized she’d been holding her breath.

Once she’d exhaled, and inhaled, she wished she hadn’t. The air inside was hot and fetid, ripe with the dank smell of mildew and the lingering stench of cigarette smoke.

She was standing in the living room. The wooden floors, which Nonni had mopped and polished weekly with her homemade lemon-wax mix, were now covered with garish green wall-to-wall shag carpet coated with a fine dust of plaster from the peeling walls. She walked slowly through the wide arched opening into the dining room. Like the rest of the house the room was bare of furniture. The doors of the corner cabinets Papi had built to house Nonni’s wedding china gaped open, their glass panes coated with a thick yellow sludge of nicotine.

Clamping one hand over her nose, she rushed to a front window, pushing and tugging at the swollen wooden window sash until she’d managed to shove it upward a scant six inches. There were no screens, of course, but those would have to come later. She worked her way around the living and dining rooms, desperate for fresh air. Some of the windows had been painted shut, but she managed to open two of the four picture windows in the front room, and one in the dining room.

Drue followed the abbreviated hallway toward the two bedrooms, which were separated by the cottage’s only bathroom. She poked her head into the bath, breathing through her mouth in anticipation of whatever horrors she would find there.