“The storage door?”
“Yes. Beneath the house, near the outdoor shower.”
“Hm. It should be latched. The cleaning crew uses it for beach equipment, but they were there yesterday morning before you arrived.”
My stomach sinks.
“It could be nothing,” I blurt.
“It may have just not caught properly. The wind can do strange things with those lower doors if they aren’t fully closed.”
Wind … that’s it. A perfectly reasonable answer.
“Of course,” I say, forcing a small laugh that sounds terrible even to me. “That makes sense.”
“Would you like me to send someone over?”
The thought of a stranger coming to the cottage makes my skin prickle, which is absurd considering I’m the one who called.
“No, I’ll check it.”
“Kara, are you sure?”
I look at the narrow gap, the dark vertical line between the door and frame. No.
“I’m sure.”
We hang up, and I stand there for several seconds with my phone clutched in my hand. The storage room remains open. The cottage remains quiet. Somewhere above me, a curtain taps gently against a window. I take one step forward. Then another. My body hates every inch.
When I reach the door, I push it open with the toe of my sandal and immediately step back as if something might lunge out at me. Nothing does. The storage space smells like damp wood, sunscreen, and rubber. Beach chairs lean against one wall. A kayak paddle hangs from hooks. There are buckets, pool noodles, a folded umbrella, and two life jackets tossed into a plastic bin.
No person or threat. No knife-wielding stranger crouched in the shadows, waiting for a celebrity chef to make the dumbest decision of her life.
A laugh breaks out of me, shaky and humorless.
“Fantastic,” I whisper. “Completely normal now.”
I pull the door shut firmly until the latch clicks, then tug on it once to make sure it catches. It does. Everything is fine. Except when I turn back toward the stairs, I see something in the sand near one of the pilings. It's a footprint. Just one clear impression where the crushed shells give way to softer sand. It’s larger than mine. Much larger. I go still.
There are a dozen explanations for a footprint under a rental house. Cleaning crew. Maintenance. Owner. Previous guest. Delivery person. Yard worker. Someone walking too close by accident.
I take a photo anyway. Then I take another one, closer, before the wind can soften the edges.
My hands are shaking by the time I carry the groceries upstairs. Inside, the cottage is exactly as I left it. Bright kitchen. Lemon-cleaner scent. Nothing disturbed or out of place.
I put the groceries away with too much focus, lining up tomatoes, yogurt and sparkling water like organization can save me from myself. Then I stand in the middle of the kitchen and stare at the phone in my hand.
Calling the police over a storage door and a footprint feels ridiculous. Not calling feels worse.
The local sheriff’s office number is printed in the guest binder on the counter beneath a laminated list of emergency contacts, beach rules, and trash pickup days. I dial before I can talk myself out of it.
“Sunbreak Harbor Sheriff’s Office,” a woman answers.
I explain badly at first, then start over and explain better. Recent break-in at my home in Orlando. Staying here temporarily. Storage door open. Footprint beneath the house. Maybe nothing, but I wanted it documented.
The dispatcher doesn’t laugh and that helps.
“We’ll send someone by,” she says. “Stay inside until a deputy arrives, please.”
