My Killer Vacation(2)

With a hopeful exhale and squaring of my shoulders, I stow the handle of my roller luggage and pick it up against my chest, my utilitarian teaching flats carrying me up the stairs. That clawfoot bathtub has been calling my name since I saw it online, buried in the background of one of the pictures. Not featured, as it should have been. There is only a shower stall in my apartment back in Hartford, Connecticut and I dream of baths. Several of the accounts I follow on Instagram are dedicated to luxurious bath time rituals, including people who eat full meals while submerged in hot water and bubbles. Spaghetti and meatballs, right there among the suds. I’m not sure I’ll ever take bath time quite so far, but I respect their enthusiasm.

The master suite is big and inviting, decorated once again in a nautical theme, the palette consisting of creams and whites and light blues. Though it was sunny when we arrived, clouds are currently passing over the sun, darkening the walls. Quiet. It’s so quiet. The bed invites me to come take a nap, but nothing short of a hurricane warning is going to keep me from taking the bath I’ve been envisioning for weeks.

When I walk into the bathroom, I don’t even bother trying to hold in my squeal when I spot the tub at the far end, silhouetted by a floor-to-ceiling picture window. Leaving my suitcase just outside the door, I kick off my shoes, my spine tingling with excitement…although, that pungent smell is upstairs, too? Isn’t that odd? Maybe the previous renter was the type to eat their meals in the bathtub and they accidentally let it rot?

Hmm. The rest of the house is immaculate. That doesn’t really track.

There must be a dead mouse or rat in the wall somewhere, but I am not going to let that stymie our good time. I’ll simply call the owner and ask him to send over pest control. A minor blip on the overall radar of the vacation that will be taken care of in no time. Jude won’t even have to wake up from his nap.

The clawfoot tub beckons me from the far side of the bathroom and I can already hear the white noise of the water running. Can already see the steam curling and fogging up the windowpane. Maybe I can get one tiny little bath in before I call the owner about the smell?

Experimentally, I close the bathroom door and the stink is significantly dulled.

Bath time it is.

I do a little shimmy on my way to the tub, flipping on the hot water faucet with a flourish and sighing, looking out over the sparsely populated beach. Most likely, everyone is home recovering from the fourth of July, which was only yesterday. The rental fees were significantly cheaper this side of the fourth, and my wildly popular brother had several barbeques to attend over the long weekend, anyway, so arriving on the fifth—a Tuesday—worked out for both of us.

With the tub halfway to full, I return to the bedroom briefly to take off my clothes and fold them neatly on the bed, to be placed in the travel hamper as soon as I officially unpack. Holding my breath against the smell, I start to return to the bathroom when something important occurs to me. I found this rental on StayInn.com and at the very top of their renter checklist was this: always make sure the fire and CO2 alarms are working upon arrival.

“Better do it before I forget…” I murmur, glancing up at the ceiling, though the detectors are probably out in the hallway—

Two little holes.

There are two little holes drilled into the crown molding.

No. No, no way. I have to be imagining that.

Goosebumps prickle down my naked limbs and I fold my arms across my breasts. The pulse in my temples start to pound and I shiver. A conditioned response to being surprised, that’s all. I’m sure it’s just where the nails were hammered into the molding. Surely those aren’t peepholes. Dammit, I knew I was getting in too deep with my true crime podcasts. Now everything is a life or death situation. The beginning of a grisly hack job that law enforcement will inevitably claim is the worst they’ve seen in their twenty-year career.

That’s not what is happening here. This is not a new episode of Etched in Bone.

Dateline’s Keith Morrison is not narrating this little panic attack.

This is just my simple, boring life. I’m just a girl on a quest for a bath.

Turning in a circle, I search the perimeter of the ceiling for any other holes of that size and come up empty. Dammit. Of course those two holes are on the side of the room that faces the center of the house. There could be an attic or a closet on the other side. Gross. Please let your imagination be working overtime.

Still, I’ll never be able to relax now, so I quickly shut off the bath with no small sense of regret and wrap a towel around my naked body, returning to the space beneath the holes, regarding them warily, as if they‘re going to jump down and bite me. I’ve heard of this kind of thing, obviously. Voyeurism. Everyone has. But it’s not the kind of problem one would expect to have at a beachfront property that cost a month’s worth of paychecks. Those cannot be peepholes. No way. Just a defect in the wood. As soon as I confirm that, I’m neck deep in hot water and this perfect vacation is off to a flawless start.

Before I can allow myself to get scared, I venture into the hallway outside the bedroom and open the adjacent closet, releasing a pent-up breath when there is no peeper inside. Although…there are no holes either. Not in the immediate closet. But there is a removeable panel on the shared wall. A crawl space?

Speaking of crawling, that is what my skin is doing.

Was the house so quiet and dark when we arrived? I can’t even hear Jude snoring anymore. Just the distant drip of the bathtub faucet. Drip. Drip. And the sound of my breathing now as it accelerates. “Jude?” I call, my voice sounding like a curtain ripping in the total silence. “Jude?” I call louder.