“Come on in,” he said, then turned and walked farther into the house, his flip-flops slapping the marble floor.
You could have parked three pickup trucks in the foyer if it hadn’t been crammed with wall-to-wall boxes. There were hundreds of them: cardboard cartons, milk crates, and plastic bins haphazardly stacked and spilling over with random junk. I saw hole-punched decks of cards from the long-gone Stardust casino. A cups-and-balls set still in its clamshell packaging. An ancient VHS player. Higgins wasn’t just a collector; he was a hoarder. I glanced at Ripley, and the look on his face told me he felt as claustrophobic as I did.
Higgins led the three of us into a big, modern kitchen, where every square inch of countertop was covered with plastic grocery bags filled with chips, cereal, canned goods, and bottles of rubbing alcohol and bleach. He moved two of the bags aside, revealing a coffee maker.
“Caffeine, anyone?”
“No, thanks,” I said. My mind was already buzzing.
Dad and Ripley took him up on his offer, and he poured them each a cup.
Dad accepted his with a nod. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Higgins?”
Higgins took a long slurp from his ORIGINAL AF mug and seemed to size him up. “All right.”
“How did you get your hands on our gear?”
Higgins’s face broke into a grin. “At the bankruptcy auction,” he said. “I prefer buying direct, but . . .” He shrugged.
Dad gave him a tight, aggressive smile.
Higgins seemed to enjoy his reaction. “Now I’ll ask you one.”
“Fair’s fair.”
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Higgins leaned back against the counter. “According to the internet, the first time kind of wrecked you.”
Dad shot me a glance, and I saw some of the old fire in his eyes. Good.
But then he jabbed a thumb in my direction. “This was her idea. I’m not even sure I want to try.”
I wondered whether the second part was tactical or true.
Higgins cocked an eyebrow at me. Naturally, he’d assumed Dad was running the show. That I had called on his orders. Of course, that’s how it had been for a long time. But over the last year, things had shifted, and now I had taken the lead. I felt an unexpected rush of pride at the thought. I might have wrecked the RV—but I had also saved us.
Higgins shot each of us a searching look, then crossed his arms. “You want to see it?”
He led us out through a sliding glass door, around a huge swimming pool, and toward a building the size of a small airplane hangar. When we got close, he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. The door of the hangar rolled up.
In keeping with his pathologically cluttered house, the hangar was packed with piles of miscellaneous junk: old framed posters, dusty props, antique furniture. Spaced evenly among the piles and running all the way to the back wall were four steel warehouse racks, all crammed with cardboard boxes and plastic bins. Higgins moved down the center aisle, taking us deeper into the hangar. He stopped at a large black guillotine with an old rope handle—a stage prop that looked older than me. He smiled at us, stuck his leg through the hole, and yanked the rope. The blade dropped hard and fast.
Ripley gasped—but, of course, Higgins’s leg was fine.
He smirked at Ripley. “Consultant, my ass.”
Ripley went red.
I thought Higgins was going to interrogate us further about Ripley, but he only laughed, withdrew his foot, and hoisted the blade to eye level. “Got this when Eric Starr quit doing it,” he said, running his thumb along the edge. “Not even sharp.” He motioned for Ripley to try it himself—maybe in an attempt to make up for his snide remark? It was hard to tell. Ripley humored him, Higgins reset the blade, and we moved on.
“Oh, yeah,” Higgins said, stopping in front of a refrigerator-sized object hiding beneath a black Duvetyne cover. “This might interest you.” His tone was falsely casual, as if he expected a big reaction. He grabbed one corner of the black cloth and yanked.
Standing before us was a wood-framed tank with brass fittings and a thick pane of antique glass. Dad and I both gasped.
“Is that what I think it is?” Dad asked.
Higgins leaned against it like it was an old car. “Yup,” he said, patting the side. “Houdini’s Chinese Water Torture Cell. The genuine article.”
Dad approached, hands folded as if he were walking