The Night Shift Listing

The listing on Craigslist said: Night Shift Caretaker needed. No experience required. $600/week. Flexible hours.

I was fifty-three years old, two months out of a marriage, and living in a motel that charged by the week. I wasn’t in a position to be picky.

His name was Daniel. He called instead of emailing, which I thought was either old-fashioned or a red flag. His voice was calm and even, the kind of voice that read you the weather.

“The property just needs someone present overnight,” he said. “I travel for work. I don’t like the house sitting empty.”

“What kind of property?” I asked.

“A large one,” he said, as if that answered anything.

He sent the first payment before I’d even seen the place. Four hundred dollars in my account with a note that just said: For your trouble so far. I called him back immediately.

“What trouble?” I said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You answered,” he said. “That counts.”

The first favor was simple enough. He texted me an address a storage facility on the edge of town and asked me to pick up a unit key from the front desk, retrieve a green duffel bag from unit 14, and drive it to his house. He’d leave the garage code in a follow-up text.

The woman at the front desk handed me the key without asking my name. The bag was lighter than I expected and smelled faintly of something chemical not drugs, more like the inside of a hardware store. I put it in my backseat and drove.

His house was large, the way he’d said. Set back from the road with a long gravel driveway and motion lights that clicked on before I’d even turned in. I punched in the code and set the bag inside the garage on the work bench, exactly where he’d told me to.

His follow-up text came as I was backing out:

Thank you, Ray. One thing if you ever see a white sedan parked across from the house when you arrive, drive past. Don’t stop. Text me and wait for my reply.

I sat in the driveway for a moment, reading that twice.

Then I texted back: Noted.

Over the next two months I ran maybe a dozen errands. I drove documents to a law office and was told not to speak to anyone inside, just leave the envelope at the front desk. I picked up a spare car a nondescript gray Honda from a parking garage downtown and drove it to his garage, where it sat next to his other cars like it belonged there. Once, he asked me to meet a man named Terrence at a diner, sit with him for exactly forty-five minutes, then leave without the envelope he’d brought to the table.

“Don’t look in it,” Daniel said when I asked what the envelope was.

“I wasn’t going to,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I’m telling you anyway.”

In total, by the time the overnight request came, I’d made close to four thousand dollars. I hadn’t asked where the money came from. I’m not sure I wanted to know.

He texted me on a Thursday.

I need you to spend Friday night at the house. I’ll pay $900. There are instructions on the kitchen counter.

I drove over that evening. The house was dark except for a lamp in the front room. I punched in the door code, stepped inside, and found the instructions exactly where he said, held flat by a ceramic coffee mug.

Welcome, Ray. Thank you for doing this.

Rules for the night:

1. Lock the deadbolt when you come in. Lock it again when you go to sleep.

2. The phone in the study rings sometimes. Don’t answer it. It will stop.

3. Don’t open the blinds in the back bedroom. That room stays dark.

4. If someone knocks after 11 PM, do not respond. Do not turn on any lights. Wait fifteen minutes after the knocking stops before you move.

5. The man who does the exterior lights checks the property around 2 AM. He will shine a light through the front windows. This is normal. Do not be alarmed.

6. There is a radio in the hallway closet. Turn it on before you sleep. Leave it on AM static all night. Volume at 4. Do not turn it off.

7. If the motion light above the garage comes on between midnight and 3 AM, go to the study, close the door, and stay there until it goes off.

8. Under no circumstances open the door at the end of the basement stairs. You don’t need to go down there.

Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. There’s a good blanket on the armchair. Goodnight.

I read the list twice. Then I poured myself a glass of water and read it again.

I thought about the water. The radio static. The knocking rule. It felt like a logic puzzle where I didn’t have all the variables. But I thought about the gray Honda, and the diner, and Terrence’s envelope, and I understood by now that Daniel operated in margins I didn’t fully see.

I followed every rule.

The phone in the study rang at 9:47 PM. Twice. Then stopped.

At 11:30, someone knocked at the front door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

A pause.

Knock. Knock.

“Daniel? It’s Phil. Open up, man.”

I didn’t move. I was sitting in the armchair in the dark, and I stayed sitting in the armchair in the dark, and I counted my own breaths until there was silence, and then I counted fifteen more minutes on my watch before I allowed myself to get a glass of water.

The motion light above the garage came on at 1:17 AM. I went to the study and closed the door and sat on the floor with my back against the desk. The light stayed on for eleven minutes. I know because I watched the clock on my phone.

I never went near the basement door.

In the morning, I found a coffee maker already set and a note beside it that said: Press brew. Thank you, Ray. The $900 hit my account before the coffee finished.

Daniel wasn’t there. He texted me around 10 AM.

All good? Heading back tomorrow. Taking a week off from favors enjoy the break. You’ve been reliable and I mean that.

I was sitting in my car in the driveway when I read that. I’d gone back to double-check I’d locked up properly. Old habit from the divorce I kept double-checking things I’d already done, as if being careful twice could fix what being careful once hadn’t.

I texted back: All good.

Then I looked back at the house.

I thought about the list.

I thought about rule six: Turn the radio on. AM static. Volume at 4. Do not turn it off.

I thought about how I’d turned it on before I fell asleep.

I thought about how, at some point during the night I couldn’t say when I’d woken up and the house was completely silent.

I’d assumed it had turned off on its own. Old radio. I’d made a mental note and fallen back asleep.

I sat with that for a moment.

Then my phone buzzed. Unknown number.

Did you sleep okay?

I stared at it.

Another text from the same number followed.

Static’s important, Ray. It covers sound. When it’s off, you can hear things you’re not supposed to hear.

I didn’t answer.

The third text was an image. It was dark, grainy, clearly taken in low light.

It was the study.

The door was closed.

There was a shadow in the gap at the bottom.

It was not my shadow. I had been on the floor with my back against the desk, on the other side of the room.

The final text read:

Good thing you stayed put.