The next morning I woke up with Marty’s arm draped across me. For a few seconds I panicked, wondering if Allie and the bartender were still in the apartment. I had never experienced that kind of fear in the morning and vowed right then never to take another one of Marty’s crazy pills. I’m not saying I regretted it. Everyone needs to get wild once in a while, but things had gone a little too far last night. I wasn’t completely clear on what had happened after the cops left.
We knew to keep it quiet, but there was still more drinking, and the bartender had some really potent pot. The night got wilder, and now I vaguely recalled Allie and the bartender slipping out sometime in the early-morning hours.
Marty stirred and I turned in bed, giving him a kiss to wake him up. That put the smile that I wanted to see on his face.
Without prompting, he said, “Maybe we don’t need any pharmaceutical help to have fun anymore. I’m not sure I’ll ever say the sentence ‘It’s not really a party until the cops show up’ again.”
That made me laugh as I rolled onto my back and looked up at the ceiling. It wasn’t just the small square footage of the apartment that was such a change from my previous residence; it was the overall feel of everything, from the low ceilings to the tiny bathroom. It immediately got me thinking about my house on South Ocean and the jackass who’d thrown me out of it.
Marty said, “What would you like to do today?”
An idea popped into my head and I just said it out loud: “I have a key to my old house, and I’d like to pay a visit if Brennan isn’t there.”
“You want to burglarize your old house?”
“Technically, I think we would just be trespassing.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you’re talking felony.”
“Anyway…” I turned to look Marty in the eye and said, “Are you game?”
He shrugged his bare shoulders and said, “Why not? The Palm Beach cops already love me.”
That was all there was to it. After a little breakfast, our usual walk on the beach ended up at the beach bungalow across the street from the house. It didn’t take long for us, sitting on the beach together, to see Brennan pull out in the Jaguar. He headed south, which meant he was crossing the Southern Boulevard Bridge, and I knew he’d be gone for at least an hour. It isn’t worth leaving the island unless you’re going to be gone for more than an hour. That was plenty of time.
We had to jump the gate at the beach and cross the street quickly, but then we just walked up the driveway, and I led Marty past the front door and through an unlocked gate into the backyard. The key I had was to the pool house, and as we walked through it, I realized that it was almost twice the size of my current apartment.
We paused for a minute before we stepped through the door that led to one of the rear patio rooms. I listened and didn’t hear anyone. Generally, Brennan kept a very small staff, just a housekeeper and a guy who supervised the lawn and pool care. He wasn’t here every day.
I also knew that Brennan activated the alarm system only when the house was going to be empty for a few days or more, when he was traveling. It was his typical arrogant attitude that nothing could ever happen to him. That was the attitude I was counting on.