by Steve Richer
Alice rounded the island and opened the door. “Hi, Rusty.”
“Hey, Mrs. Granger!” He craned his neck further into the house. “Hi, Mr. Granger.”
“What’s up, big man!”
Alice invited him inside and he didn’t have to be told twice. Rusty lived a few houses down the street. He was eighteen, a high school senior. He’d been mowing the lawn ever since they had moved into the neighborhood. He was tall and lanky, his face still peppered by acne.
“Smells good. I’m not disturbing your dinner, am I? I can come back later.”
“It’s okay,” Alice answered. “Is something on your mind?”
“Well, I’m doubling down on my efforts to get college money.”
Tom snorted. “Given any thoughts to robbing a bank? That can get you halfway there.”
Alice held back laughter, but Rusty didn’t quite get the joke.
“I’ve been cutting your grass, working on your flowers and things. I was wondering if you guys need help preparing your yard for winter. I could trim the bushes, wrap the flowers, all that stuff. I’ve been reading up on it. It’s October and the weather is still kind of nice, but I wanted to ask you before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
The teenager fidgeted. “Before you hire someone else.”
“Now now, you know you’re our number one guy, don’t you?”
“So are you hiring me? Same rate as last summer.”
He looked between Tom and Alice. Tom shrugged and deferred to his wife.
“Sweetie?”
“Sure thing, Rusty. Nice presentation. You got the contract.”
He beamed. “Awesome! Thanks!”
Alice extended her hand and they shook on it. The young man blushed.
“Welcome aboard. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
He nodded, thanked them both once more, and left. Tom rolled his eyes and laughed to himself.
“Poor kid,” he sighed.
“What?”
“Oh, come on. You know the only reason he ever comes here is because he has a crush on you.”
Alice was stunned. “He does not! That’s ridiculous. I’m nearly twice his age.”
“So? You’re a hot MILF. You could be his first cougar.”
Alice grabbed the dishtowel and threw it at her husband who dodged it while breaking down in laughter.
“You’re just jealous.”
“You bet your ass, I’m jealous. Who wouldn’t want to be eighteen again with a face like a four-day-old pizza?”
Once they were done goofing around, Tom returned to cooking dinner, this time checking on the chicken in the oven. Alice crossed her arms, settling next to him.
“This brings up another problem,” she began.
“You mean besides the possibility of a teenager stealing my wife?”
She ignored the joke. “He’s nice, but he’s not doing that work for free. The budget is getting tight, Tom.”
It was his turn to become serious. “I thought we were fine.”
“Borderline fine. Between this mortgage, the new house’s mortgage, and the renovations, we’re running out of wiggle room. If a pipe breaks on Whitetail Lane, we could go under.”
“But with your new job…”
“A job I don’t have yet. It’s in the cards, but it could be in a year. Or more.”
“Then I guess maybe I should start looking for a sugar mommy, uh? I mean, if I want to keep to the lifestyle I’m accustomed to.”
“I’m serious, Tom.”
“So am I. There has to be some old widow looking to get freaky with a vigorous young stud.”
Alice groaned. “Vigorous young stud, right. Three words that so don’t go together as far as you’re concerned.”
“Ouch, my feelings!” He tossed the dishtowel back to her.
“Honestly though, money is becoming an issue. We might have to do that thing we talked about.”
“I know. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to.”
“We don’t have a choice, Tom. Not anymore. We’re going to have to rent the basement apartment.”
It had been the feature that had convinced them to buy this house two years ago. It was a large one-bedroom apartment and they had furnished it with extra items they had. Until now, money had never been a problem so they had put it off. Things being as they were, though, they didn’t have the luxury of waiting for their income property to become profitable.
Tom nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, you’re right. We have to pull the trigger.”
Alice put her arm around his waist and snuggled against him. “I’m sure it’ll be great.”
It would, in fact, be the opposite of great.
It was the beginning of their nightmare.
Chapter 3
It was with a happy smile that Libbie walked into her expansive Manhattan apartment.
It was a loft in the heart of SoHo. She loved the Lower Manhattan location and the decor suited her. The walls were made of decrepit brickwork painted stark white, exposed pipes ran along the ceiling, and the floor was highly polished granite. The furniture was colorful to contrast the surroundings. She was comfortable here and she had missed it for the last three months.
She set down her Louis Vuitton bag and walked further into the apartment. She would’ve expected the smell to remind her of how things used to be. It didn’t. She couldn’t smell the woodsy aroma of the candles she used in the living room. There was no trace of the cinnamon she usually smelled in the kitchen.
She rationalized that as she had been away for three months, it was natural that these fragrances weren’t present. In fact, it would have been suspect if they were because it would have meant someone had used her favorite candles during her absence. What she would’ve been expected to detect, though, was a wide array of housecleaning products.
She didn’t smell that either.
Libbie felt her blood pressure rising. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She approached a console table and ran a finger on the glass top. There was quantifiable dust.
Maybe this was an oversight. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. She hadn’t belonged in that wretched mental institution, but if there’s one thing she’d learned it was that she should think before acting. She should go through a list of grievances before anything else.
She kept her cool and went to the kitchen. She touched the red marble counter. Her fingers came away filthy. She opened the refrigerator and found the usual condiments and nothing perishable. The door handle was dusty again.
“No…”
The reading room faced west and had floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a sunny day, perfect for what she wanted to test. She hurried to the area. Sunshine beams were visible, fighting their way through downtown skyscrapers before landing on the eighteenth-century Persian rug.
She saw these light beams because there was dust in the air.
Her hands clenched into fists and she practically ran to the master bedroom. At first glance, nothing was out of the ordinary, but there was one test she could perform to make sure.
She firmly grabbed the bedspread and shook it fast. A layer of dust rose above the bed, like morning mist in the Adirondacks.
This was absolutely unacceptable.
She stormed out of the room and went to her home office. She resisted the urge to run a finger against the desk because by now she knew what the result would be. Instead, she found her charger and plugged in her phone. It had been locked away in storage at the hospital for three months.
It came on at once and Libbie scrolled through her contacts. She found the one she needed and called.
“Rosie Manhattan Cleaning Service, how can I help you?”
“My account is twenty-one fifty-five seventy-six. I need to talk to a manager right away.”
“Please hold.”
The line clicked, the operator’s voice replaced by the instrumental version of an Adele song. It was the equivalent of institutional music and did nothing to ca
lm Libbie down. The song played in its entirety before someone picked up.
“Hello, Ms. Burchett. My name is Maria. How can I help you today?”
“You can help me by giving me an answer.”
“Certainly,” the woman with the slight Puerto Rican accent replied cheerfully. “What kind of answer are you looking for?”
“I want to know what you did with my money.”
“Excuse me? I’m not sure I understand.”
“You operate a cleaning service. Your employees go to people’s homes and they clean. We pay you for that. I sure know that I pay a thousand a month. I have the receipts and everything. So I can prove that I paid you and now I want to know what you did with that money, because you certainly didn’t send anyone to clean my place.”
“Uh, I…”
“I’m sure you’re aware that I was out of town for the past three months, but my payments still came in, didn’t they? I never specified to stop coming, did I? Check your records to be sure.”
“Ms. Burchett…”
“Go on, check your computer,” Libbie said.
The keyboard clicked. “No, ma’am. There’s no instruction to suspend your service in our system.”
“Then can you explain to me why my apartment looks like a newly discovered Egyptian tomb? There’s dust everywhere. Clearly, no one from your company has been here in weeks.”
“I’m terribly sorry—”
“You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say for yourself? You’re just sorry? I pay for a service and I don’t receive said service. This is a breach of contract. This is a breach of goddamn trust!”
“Ma’am…”
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of dust around me at the moment. It’s dangerous. It’s a health hazard. What if I had asthma? What if I had a child? What if my child had cystic fibrosis? Uh, can you answer me that, Maria? How would you live with yourself knowing that you put my child in danger? We’re not talking bad Yelp reviews here. We’re talking lawsuits. We’re talking life-and-death situation.”
“Ms. Burchett, I apologize. Something must have gone wrong in our scheduling.”
Libbie’s face was strawberry red and she realized that she had paced so much around the office as she talked that her charger had gone unplugged.
“It goes beyond scheduling, Maria. If management can’t properly supervise, then we have a serious problem. So here’s what you’re going to do for me. First, I want a refund for the last three months. We can do this now or you can get your boss on the line. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll have my attorney get in touch.”
“There’s no need to get lawyers involved, Ms. Burchett. I can certainly issue you a refund.”
“Good. Good, Maria. Now we’re getting somewhere. The second thing I want is to have someone here today. I can’t stand being around all this dust and grime.”
“Absolutely,” Maria replied, typing once more on her computer. “I’m dispatching a team as we speak.”
“And finally we come to the important part. My last regular girl was Trinh. So I suppose she was the one scheduled to clean my place these last three months.”
“Yes, but…”
“I want her fired, Maria. I want her out on the street. And don’t think you can just tell me that she’s been let go when you’re in fact sending her to other clients, because tomorrow I’ll be sending someone to check. Do you hear me? You’ll have lawyers and private investigators checking up on you. I want Trinh to know what it feels like to be betrayed.”
“I… I understand.”
“Good. Have a nice day.”
Libbie hung up and at long last her vision cleared up. During the call, she hadn’t seen anything. Her mind had been occupied by the fury she harbored against the cleaning service. Now she returned to reality. She glimpsed her laptop on the desk and grinned.
It was thankfully already plugged in so she didn’t waste time turning it on and sitting behind her desk. That’s what she had missed the most about being in state custody. She hadn’t been online in ninety days. Talk about curtailing my freedom, she thought.
She opened her browser and only glanced at her email inbox. There were hundreds of messages and she knew instantly most of them were scams or spam. Her social life wasn’t active enough to receive personalized emails. There would be a few, sure, but they didn’t matter.
What interested her most was her OneNote document. In it was a collection of pictures, drawings, addresses, biographical data, and web links, all related to two people.
Tom and Alice Granger.
She knew this entire document by heart. It soothed her to peruse it again. She’d gathered this information over a number of years. It was part of her now. It was like getting into a warm bath. It was borderline erotic, that’s how much she had missed this.
She went to Tom’s Facebook page. She had friended him a long time ago under a fake identity, just to be able to see his friends and pictures. It was astonishing how unsuspicious people were of friend requests.
She scrolled down slowly, wanting to take everything in, to savor it, even though there wasn’t much personal stuff. It was mostly memes and dull news articles. But one thing made Libbie stop scrolling. It was a shared listing from Zillow, the real estate database.
She hurriedly followed the link and discovered something magical. Tom and Alice Granger had put their basement apartment up for rent.
Being away for three months had been worth the wait. There would never be another opportunity like this.
Chapter 4
Leasing an apartment wasn’t as easy as Alice expected. It was almost enough to make her want to give up on the whole thing.
After the listing went live, inquiries cascaded in. It was a good thing Tom worked from home because he was able to handle the majority while Alice was at the office. More importantly, nobody could hear him cuss with frustration every time he hung up the phone.
Most of the calls—as well as texts and emails—were a waste of time. People asked questions they wouldn’t need to bother with if they had simply read the listing from beginning to end.
Yes, it’s a basement apartment. No, there’s only one bedroom. What neighborhood? There’s a freaking map on the website, buddy!
After weeding out the truly clueless, some applicants showed up in person. One man had said that the price was fine, but when he showed up he tried to negotiate it down fifty percent. When that didn’t work, he offered to barter for the difference, claiming he handcrafted delicious organic pickles.
That same day, another applicant arrived on a motorcycle. It was so loud—clearly modified to be so—that neighbors actually walked out to see what was happening. No sooner was the man off his Harley that he tossed his half-smoked cigarette into the backyard. Alice was of the firm opinion that first impressions mattered, and it didn’t bode well for this guy.
The week was filled with one bad choice after another. One woman shamelessly said she intended to sublet the place right after signing the lease, maybe even posting it on Airbnb. The next man who visited reeked of marijuana even before he got out of his car.
Tom closed the door and joined Alice in the living room after they had dealt with an old woman who promised that owning seventeen ferrets shouldn’t disqualify her. She swore the ferrets were housetrained. She swore the ferrets were a gift from British royalty.
“Do you think we’re in over our heads?” Alice asked, leaning back into the couch and wanting nothing more than for it to swallow her whole.
“Of course we are.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
Tom crashed next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“In hindsight, maybe the pyromaniac biker wasn’t such a terrible candidate?”
“We could always call back the pickle guy. Seems less dangerous.”
They laughed without much amusement. Alice snuggled against her husband, the one stable thing in her life.
“Are we really doing this, Tom?”
“You want to call the whole thing off?”
“Yes. No. We can’t. We still have that whole needing-money-to-live thing going on.”
Tom nodded gravely. “Oh yeah, that pesky little problem. I suppose we just need to keep doing what we’re doing. If we’re diligent, if we act like good landlords, things should work out.”
“Promise?”
“Another solution would be to torch the place. Collect the insurance money.”
“Where are the matches?” Alice asked.
This time they laughed for real. Tom kissed her and she felt happy for the first time in ages.
“We have one more applicant scheduled.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s supposed to be here in an hour.”
Alice exhaled loudly. “Great. With our luck, she’ll turn out to be an ax murderer.”
“Still better than Pickle Man.”
~ ~ ~ ~
At six o’clock on the dot, the doorbell rang. Tom answered and found a beautiful woman on the porch. She had chestnut hair that fell in waves on her shoulders. The hair color matched her eyes. She wore a touch of makeup which accentuated her features. Her clothes were on the conservative side, but casual.
“Hi, I’m Libbie Burchett.”
Tom was taken aback after the horde of weirdos that had come over during the last few days.
Alice appeared next to him and said, “Please come in, Ms. Burchett.”
“Thank you. And it’s Libbie. I never got used to being called miz or, God forbid, ma’am.”
Alice smiled warmly, moving aside to let the guest in.
“I’m Tom Granger and this is my wife Alice.”
They shook hands and relaxed. She was the first applicant who appeared normal and it was jarring.
“I hope I’m not disturbing your dinner,” Libbie said. “I didn’t think twice of it when we made the appointment.”
“It’s fine, really. It’s still in the oven.”
“It smells good anyway. Is that rosemary?”
Tom was impressed and grinned. “Good nose! I’m roasting a chicken. This lady over here wouldn’t know rosemary from thyme if her life depended on it.”