Mark was leaving for the airport before sunrise, which was the only reason Eli came over the night before. It was easier, Mark said, if he showed him the house in person instead of trying to explain everything in a text message from the back of a rideshare at four in the morning. Eli had agreed because Mark had once helped him move apartments in the rain and had never brought up the fact that Eli dropped a bookshelf down a flight of stairs.

The house was smaller than Eli expected, tucked at the end of a quiet street with an old maple tree leaning over the driveway. It had the kind of porch light that hummed faintly and a front door that looked like it had been painted too many times. Inside, everything was clean, practical, and slightly too still, like a house that had been prepared for a photograph but not for company.

Mark met him at the door with a mug of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. He looked tired, but not nervous, which helped. “Thanks again,” he said. “It’s three days. Dog, mail, plants, trash on Thursday. Nothing complicated.”

Eli followed him through the kitchen while Mark pointed things out with the mug. The dog food was in the pantry, the leash was on the hook by the garage, and the little white pills on the counter were for the dog’s hip, not for Mark, which Mark said as if Eli had already been accused of stealing medication in the past. The fridge was fair game, except for the container of eggs on the top shelf.

“The router is in the office,” Mark said, leading him down the hall. “If the internet goes out, unplug it, count to ten, and plug it back in.” He opened a narrow closet and handed Eli a folded towel and a spare key on a blue ring. “Guest room is upstairs. Bathroom’s across from it. The downstairs bathroom works, but the handle sticks, so don’t force it."

Most of the instructions were normal enough. The dog, a graying mutt named Harold, would lie about being fed. The neighbor on the left had a habit of borrowing tools and returning different, worse tools. The neighbor on the right thought Mark was hiding something because he received too many packages, which Mark insisted was called having hobbies and not being suspicious.

They ended back in the kitchen, where a narrow wooden door sat beside the refrigerator. It was painted the same color as the wall, but Eli had noticed it as soon as he walked in. The deadbolt was new, the knob was old, and the frame had been reinforced with a strip of metal that did not match anything else in the house.

Mark saw him looking and paused for the first time all evening.

“Basement?” Eli asked.

“Yeah,” Mark said, setting the mug in the sink. “That should be everything. Mail goes on the table, plants get watered once, Harold gets fed at seven and five, and don’t answer the door after nine unless you’re expecting food.”

“I’m not expecting food.”

“Then don’t answer it.”

Eli nodded slowly, because nodding felt safer than asking the obvious question. Mark checked his phone, muttered something about boarding passes, and picked up the keys he would actually be taking with him. At the front door, he turned back with the casual urgency of a man who had nearly forgotten to mention the garage code.

“Oh,” Mark said. “And stay out of the murder basement.”

Eli stared at him.

“The what basement?”