Go get the scrapbook

“I’ll grab it,” you say.

“OK. I’ll be upstairs.”

This is fun. Playing detective. A little sexy roleplay. Maybe she’ll want to make out in the attic. It’s certainly private up there. In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever even heard of anyone going up there.

You leave the room. Lopez heads for the big hallway, and you take the back stairs down to the kitchen, where Dorothy is at the stove, frying what looks like chicken tenders in a cast-iron skillet. She glances at you in your blue jammies.

“Hey, Delilah. How are you?”

“I got initiated in,” you reply cheerfully. “Then I had sex with that detective.”

“Oh.” Dorothy looks startled. “So, you’re doing well?”

You nod, grabbing a pizza roll from the tray cooling on the table and popping it into your mouth. Initiations and threesomes give you an appetite. You should see if Lopez wants anything, but you didn’t bring your phone, and you didn’t get her number. You need to get her number. Does she have a girlfriend? Is she married? You didn’t check her hand for a ring.

Thinking about this imaginary scenario where a married woman with kids sneaks away every night to be with a wild sorority girl, you open the basement door and skip down, humming.

The lights are all off. You find a pull string and tug on it, lighting a single bulb. That’s enough for you to walk into an aisle of wine bottles and down a bit to the next light. That dark alcove where you found Shelby is around here somewhere. You feel your way through the dim space until you find it. The crate is there, and you get the lid off.

Weird. The vibe is still here, wrapped neatly in its cord… did Shelby do that?

And the scrapbook is gone. You stand up and look around, wondering where it went. Did Rey take it somewhere? Maybe she took it to show it to Amy. You should check with them and see. You leave the alcove, but feel something wet and cold under your bare foot.

You look down to see water on the floor. That’s weird. Was this here a second ago?

You crouch to look closer. It’s wet footprints.

You can hear the storm outside, but it’s been going on long enough that you kind of stopped noticing it. Is someone down here? Weird.

Follow the footprints?

Or leave the basement?