And while their official residence is Salt Lake City, home of the Stallions, the Lions’ Triple-A affiliate, the Arizona house is their favorite stop on the yearlong, countrywide circuit. These days, now that all the kids are out and mostly on their own, Michael and Audrey spend eight weeks in Scottsdale every spring and fall. It is well lived in, and well loved, but not any sort of run-down—Michael makes sure of that, always sprucing up the yard and keeping the paint fresh. There is something very cathartic about everything being in its right place, especially after so many months on the road.

The first thing to hit him is the stench of decay, a garbage smell, but he also detects the acrid aroma of something not meant to burn having been burned. It is cool—downright cold—the thermostat doing its best to keep the house at sixty against an eighty-five-degree sun. Michael shivers.

“Anybody home?” he calls. It sounds ridiculous, he thinks, yelling out as if he were some overcurious neighbor. Like this isn’t his own home. But Michael can’t think what else to say, what else to do. So he calls out again, and then he listens.

No answer.

He surveys the kitchen. Wadded-up Pop-Tart wrappers spill across the counter, dishes jam the sink, and then his eyes go to a dark, sticky-looking stain on the floor. Blood, Michael thinks, and his breath pulls up short. Only when he kneels down and sees the overturned bottle of Hershey’s syrup wedged underneath the fridge is he able to exhale. A trail of tiny ants march from the spill to some unknown world behind the cabinets.

The security system, once mounted next to the thermostat, is now smashed plastic and a knot of clipped wires. The dead bolts in the front and back have been replaced with some cheapo set, the locks sitting loose in their casings. One mystery solved.

Michael pops out the back door. Audrey is gingerly gathering takeout containers and depositing them into the trash. “Leave it be, Audrey. Those are filthy.”

She looks up. “How is it in there?”

“Not good,” he says with a grimace.

He does a quick survey of the dining room. At some point, a meal had been set for four, premade lasagna by the looks of the caked tinfoil casserole. The Taylors’ nice china, stained orange with grease, is spread across the table, crusted and crumbed. He inspects the sideboard, the small liquor cabinet and wine rack atop it. Their visitors drank every ounce in the cabinet and every bottle in the rack, including a 1999 Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux Michael was saving for their fiftieth. “Those shits,” he mutters.