But it was far from a good day.
The place was trashed.
Beyond trashed.
The landscaping was torn up in multiple spots, leaving clumps of dirt and grass everywhere. An SUV and a car—a sleek black sports car that was likely worth a hundred times what my already pricey Rover was—were parked haphazardly near the impressive garage. At least, I was pretty sure it was a garage. It might’ve been a guest house, considering it was bigger than my childhood home—and that hadn’t exactly been a shack.
I dragged my focus back to the main house to see that the furniture from the porch was knocked over, and if my quick tally was correct, there were two cushions missing from the seats. Trash was littered throughout the shrubs and yard, including broken bottles and wrappers to—hopefullynotbroken—condoms.
Even with all the destruction, there were no weapons. No blood. Nothing that set off violent alarm bells in my head.
And since calling the cops would also alert the paparazzi, I decided to investigate on my own.
Like a dummy in a horror movie.
With a pit of apprehension sinking in my belly, I climbed out of my car. I kept my phone unlocked and at the ready as I slowly went inside.
An inside I was easily able to access because the door was unlocked and the alarm system was unarmed.
And an inside that was in even worse shape than the outside.
Holy shit.
My steps echoed as I made my way through the first floor. There was very little filling each elegantly cavernous room. If Tripp had art or decor of any kind, it had definitely been stolen. By the time I reached the back of the house, I’d seen enough sporadically placed furniture to fill half of one room.
And a small room at that.
Did someone rent a moving truck to steal all his furniture?
Like the front of the house, the rear wall was made up of floor-to-ceiling windows. The part of my soul that came alive in nature perked up at all the natural light that filled the space, even as I recoiled at the barrenness of the wasted potential.
A quick scan of the outside wasn’t any better. A few pizza boxes littered the patio, and pizza itself was smashed into the brick to create a pest-attracting mess that would be a nightmare to clean. A couple of loungers and a disco ball floated in the pool, and I narrowed my eyes to make sure I was seeing correctly.
Yup, that’s a blowup doll.
With another look to confirm Tripp wasn’t face down in the pool with the plastic blonde, I continued my interior inspection.
A pool table and a foosball table occupied what was likely supposed to be a formal dining room if the low-hanging chandelier was any indication. Discarded clothes were pooled between the two, and the pit of apprehension grew into a chasm.
Maybe I would prefer to find him murdered…
I rounded through to a living room and finally saw some signs that the house was inhabited. A lush U-shaped couch dominated the space and a TV that looked like it belonged in a sports arena took up the entirety of the opposite wall.
I continued through more of the same scarcity before hesitating at the bottom of the curved stairs. Given the clothing I’d found, I wasn’t sure what—or who—I would see upstairs. I opted to call out instead. “Tripp!”
Nothing but my own voice echoed back.
“Tripp Carter!” I tried again, as if the use of his last name might somehow summon him.
Unsurprisingly, it did not.
With a resigned sigh, I climbed a few steps before spotting something red tucked between the railings. I used the toe of my sneaker to nudge it toward me.
And then made a mental note to burn said sneaker when I realized the scrap of fabric was a fire engine red thong.
One with a phone number scrawled onto the crotch in black marker.
I gotta give whoever wore these points for creativity.
