This rectangular second floor held three good-sized rooms that might’ve been offices, empty except for one more table and a few dusty chairs. On the fourth door, I hit the jackpot. A bathroom, and, when I tried a tap, one with running water. “Holy shit, Mimsy. They forgot to cut the water. We’re rich.”
I’d lived in a lot of squats in the last nine years, and running water was a rare luxury. The water wouldn’t be hot without electricity, but this was California. Even now, in January, the nights mostly stayed above fifty, and I’d read that this area had never had a freeze. Ever. Who needed hot water?
“I can wash my goddamned socks.” And underwear. Staying clean on the road was a challenge.
I peed like a racehorse, since my last piss was— okay, I’ll admit it— in a hidden corner of that junkyard ten hours back. There’d been some raccoon shit five feet away, so I hadn’t felt too bad about it. I moved to the sink and cupped water in my hands, splashing my face over and over.
The lights were off, but a frosted window lit the space well. In the mirror, I saw my even-dirtier-than-usual dark blond hair hanging messy and soaked on the ends. Water droplets caught in the thick stubble over my angular cheeks. When I left home at seventeen, I’d barely been shaving, but now at twenty-six, I grew a patchy beard way too fast. I rubbed my chin and brushed my hair back. “I can wash my damned hair and shave, or at least, tidy up the edges. Once I have my pack.”
That reminder pushed me to leave the bathroom and find the stairs down. Everything I owned was sitting out there under a bush. The odds of someone happening along and stealing my meager belongings were next to none, but I took the stairs three at a time and hurried to the side door.
A deadbolt secured the metal door, and an alarm keypad hung on the wall at eye level. The alarm’s LED display stood dark and inactive. Still, I braced myself as I flipped the bolt and eased the door open.
No alarm sounded. No flashing lights. Zip. Nada. “We’re in luck,” I whispered to Mimsy. “Stay here.”
She obeyed about as well as a cat usually does, following at my heels as I snuck around the side of the building, hauled my pack out from its hiding spot, and sprinted back inside. When she’d slipped in after me, I shut the door tightly. For a second, I debated locking up, but I hated locked doors. I bent and rubbed Mimsy’s cheek. “Home, sweet home. Time to explore.”
I’d never been to a wine tasting. Hell, I’d hardly ever had wine, since most of the guys I hung out with were beer and booze types. I had no idea what to expect. This side door opened into a hallway with the stairs I’d come down on the left. I went straight.
To my right, a doorway led into a big kitchen area. Shiny outsized appliances still stood in place, but the refrigerator was propped open and no pots or pans were visible. I began opening cupboards and drawers, but they were disappointingly free of food or useful goods. “Oh, well,” I told Mimsy. “Can’t expect too many miracles in one day. And we have some money, thanks to my clever girl.”
Farther down, a wide hall angled to the right through an archway into a big, dark front room, lit only by a small, high glass-block window on each end and tiny gaps around the plywood over the plate glass. The floor was either real marble or a good fake. I wouldn’t know the difference. Fixtures hanging from the eight-foot ceiling had fancy cut-glass covers that glittered in the faint light. Presumably there’d been furniture once, but nothing remained in the huge empty space except an empty dinner-plate-sized three-foot-tall wooden stand in each front corner. For wine bottles? Flower arrangements? Cat thrones? Who knew? When the big windows were uncovered, the room had probably been bright and airy, but now shadows seemed to move in the dim corners.
As I turned, I saw someone off to my left. Swallowing a yelp, I ducked back toward the hallway and the other man did the same—Oh.Cautiously, I waved a hand and the other man did too.A fucking mirror.Glancing back and forth, I realized both ends of the long front room were mirrored floor to ceiling. Probably made the space look huge when there was more light.Right now, they’re just freaking me out.
Mimsy paced over to one mirror and sat looking at her shadowy reflection. Raising a paw, she slapped at herself a few times, then huffed and backed away.
“Not half as pretty as the real thing,” I told her. She walked to one of the stands, jumped up and sat on the round top, peering around the room, her tail tucked neatly over her toes.
Cat thrones now, definitely.She liked being up on high places. But when I moved off into the hallway, she jumped down and followed me.
I completed my tour of the downstairs space by finding two spiffy commercial bathrooms and what had probably been the staff john with a safety shower in one corner, plus a utility room, a laundry with silent machines and a deep sink, and a big empty room in the back with a scuffed-up cement floor and a loading-bay door. Might be where they brought in the wine barrels. Would a tasting place have barrels or just bottles? What I knew about wine could be written on a postage stamp with room left for the glue.
“Looking good.” I’d found a heap of stained, discarded towels in the laundry and happily snagged a bunch. Pinning the stack in my arms with my chin and balancing my pack on my shoulders, I climbed the stairs again. Upstairs, with the natural light, was more appealing than down. As long as I left the window unlocked, I had an escape route— a long drop, dangling from the roof to the ground, but I knew how to take a fall. I picked the largest corner room with the table as my space and laid the towels out flat on the floor in a corner.
Mimsy immediately went over and stretched out on them, making biscuits with her little paws.
“You think that’s your bed?”
Sheprrrped at me.
“I guess we can share.” I pulled a chair up to the table and dug in my pocket for the morning’s takings. Fifty-three dollars and change. Not a bad haul. “Right, baby. We’ll take it easy, have some lunch. Then I’ll find a cheap store and restock.”
I distributed the money around my pockets, tucked a ten into my shoe, then opened the inner pocket of my pack where I kept peanuts and raisins and cat kibble. Mimsy jumped off the bed and trotted over, patting my shin with her paw.
“Yes, greedy guts, you can have some too.”
A snack for her, a snack for me, a chance to really wash up and get clean, and over fifty bucks to spend on food. Then a safe, dry, private space to come home to.
“Things are looking up, baby girl. Maybe we’ll hang out in Gay Beach for a while. Take in the sights. Rest our tired feet.”
Mimsy rubbed her cheek on my leg and agreed.
CHAPTER2
THEO
I stoodin the parking lot outside my grandparents’ old wine tasting venue and sucked in long, calming breaths. I hadn’t expected the sight of the place to bother me this way. It should’ve looked defanged, suppressed, with those plate-glass front windows covered by thick boards. Instead, the building loomed over me like a criminal in a mask?—