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empty house. If he hadn’t seen Gabe go inside he’d never even known a single living thing outside of rats or spiders might be inside. No lights came on, no flickering flashlight beam spilled out through an open window.
    Ten long minutes passed as Max listened to the sound of crickets and his own breathing, with only the occasional tick of the cooling engine breaking the rhythm. Then the door opened and Gabe walked out. In his hand, he carried something that appeared to be either a briefcase or satchel, maybe even a small suitcase. It was impossible to tell with the dim light and the distance between them working against him.
    Gabe got into his Audi and fired up the engine. The headlights ignited, carving a wide swath of the darkness away as he pulled out quickly, brake lights flaring as he rounded a curve and headed out of sight. Max watched Gabe drive off, but didn’t follow. He thought maybe he should, but the darkened house beckoned to him. It reeked of suspicion.
    An idea flashed through his mind and he threw it out immediately. Or so he thought until that nagging little voice in his head spoke up again.
    You’re not really thinking of going in there, are you?
    Max paused, considering.
    “Maybe,” he whispered in the car.
    Now he was talking to himself. No matter, the idea had already cemented itself in his mind.
    It’s breaking and entering if you get caught , the voice in his mind said. That is if you don’t get shot by somebody as you’re going in.
    But the glue dried fast on this particular notion and Max knew that no amount of convincing, either by himself or some odd third person his mind concocted, would be successful in talking him out of it.

Chapter Thirteen

    Getting into the house proved easy; almost too easy. The back door had been fitted with a flimsy lock on the knob and no deadbolt, requiring no more than a hard shove on the door to pop it free from the slot in the jamb. In this sort of neighborhood, Max would have thought that a good lock would have been a no-brainer, but his assumptions could no longer be trusted.
    As he closed the door softly behind him, Max found himself standing in the kitchen. Thick blankets covered the windows of the room, explaining why he hadn’t seen any light escape while he’d watched Gabe enter the house with a flashlight earlier. Max removed his cell phone and turned on the built-in flashlight, bathing the room in white light as he scanned the surroundings.
    The place was a dump. It was at least ten degrees warmer inside, suggesting that the air conditioning had either been turned off or didn’t exist. He glanced at the light switch by the door; it sat in the on position. No electricity , he thought. A layer of filth covered the linoleum flooring; it looked as if it had been years since it’d seen a good cleaning. Ashtrays lined the countertops which seemed of little use considering the quantity of cigarette ashes that had piled up around them. Burnt matches peppered the counter, spilling onto the dirty linoleum below. Three filthy glasses sat amongst the trash, standing watch like small sentinels. A scan of the gas stove revealed the worst of the ash mess. Crumpled rolling papers also littered the area, failed attempts at joint-rolling, Max assumed.
    He’d let himself into some sort of flophouse, it appeared. Normal people didn’t live in a place like this; only the animated husks of barely living drug addicts would dare to spend time in such squalor.
    He killed the light and considered what to do next. He listened hard for the sound of anyone home, but he heard nothing. His heart had begun to thump loudly in his chest as the reality of his decision to break and enter into what was almost certainly a drug den began to sink in. He should leave, he knew, but the sight of Josh’s mangled body stuck in Max’s mind, reminding him of his duty to his son.
    Wishing he’d at least brought the tire iron with him, Max flipped on the cell phone’s light and entered