to one that appeared to branch off and split into a high and low road. The driveway leading up disappeared behind its crest.
“Could be up there,” I guessed.
Liz said, “It doesn’t look like the upper road is used at all.” Then she turned to me and grinned. “Maybe it’s tucked back in there and no one knows about it.” She was excited. I liked her that way. Her energy was infectious.
I turned in and drove up the gravel driveway. It looked like the lower portion was occasionally used for parking by the neighbors. But as we went up, the weeds began to grow high in the center of the wheel ruts and the ruts themselves faded to grass covered parallel indentations until, perhaps a half mile onward, we came to a low slung post and beam house protruding out over a small terrace. I shut the car off and we got out, looking around at the trees and grass and listening to the overwhelming silence. There were numbers beside the door and they matched the address on the deed.
“Looks like this is it,” Liz said. The sound of her voice was utterly foreign in the stillness.
The house was a single story and looked like a log cabin Frank Lloyd Wright might have built. It was small and blended into the hillside, the wide decks surrounding it mixing indoor and outdoor space perfectly. I could see east out across the Santa Monica Mountains, with their jagged peaks and soft, mossy green hue, off toward the city and then south down the canyon. The smog hovered at the base of the canyon, blotting out the furthest edge of the view, but I imagined that on a clear day the nebulous gray air would dissipate and the blue of the Pacific would twinkle like a gemstone in the distance.
I stepped up onto the porch and found the front door locked. Liz came up beside me and peered through the window. I did the same. We could see the dusty wood floors of a long empty living room disappear around a wall. The house was empty.
We walked down the side of the house and onto the wide deck that sat out over the hillside, supported by stilts. The view was panoramic, unobstructed, and endless. I imagined Sharon Steele standing in the same spot more than a decade before feeling the warm Santa Ana breeze blowing eucalyptus and jasmine on her face and contemplating the same view and the serene contrast it would offer to her then current life.
I turned to face the wide bay windows, shielded my eyes, and stuck my nose to the glass. I could see a front room with a pile of boxes and other things in the center. There were a few loose articles scattered about the room, but it was otherwise empty.
“There’s her stuff,” I mumbled. Seeing the pile through the window gave me shivers.
“It’s kind of eerie,” Liz said, reading my mind.
We went around to the rear of the house, trying all the doors and windows along the way. Everything was locked. We stood by the back door, staring at each other.
“We’ll have to break in,” Liz suggested.
I knew she was right. I picked up a rock and held it, assessing its weight. Despite the situation, I hesitated, briefly debating the moral consequences of burglary.
Liz rolled her eyes and let out a huff. “You sell yourself to corporate America and now you’ve got a conscience. Gimme that.” Liz snatched the rock from my hand and tossed it through the glass in the back door. She’d thrown it harder than necessary. We could hear the rock rolling across the floor inside.
“Way to finesse it.”
“Fuck you.” She grinned as she reached in through the broken window and tried to turn the knob. I watched her struggle a few times.
“Here, shorty. Let me do it.” She stepped aside and I reached in and unlocked the door.
Once inside, we came into a kitchen that opened into the living room we’d seen from the deck. I tried the faucets. No water. I flipped the light switches. Dead. The air was suffocating, dank, and smelled of mice. I could see their telltale turds, scattered along the counters and floors like handfuls of black rice tossed and left to land like confetti. Liz didn’t know what they were and she grimaced when I told her.
We went into the living room. Several of the cardboard boxes had split at their sides, eaten away by rodents, their