The thorns from the bushes in the front of the huge brick house dug through my flannel and into the skin on my arms. She was in her bedroom wearing nothing but a towel. She had just gotten out of the bath, a room that was not visually accessible from my vantage point on the side of the two story home, and was now walking into her bedroom wearing nothing but a loose bath towel around her tan body, and another tightly wrapped on top her head. It was dark and the air was getting foggy. Thankfully, the family lived at the end of a cul de sac in one of the nicest neighborhoods in town, so no cars were driving by. I should have worn a thicker jacket, as a chill was settling into the air and making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Frankie was now taking her wet hair out of the towel it was wrapped in and running a hairbrush through it. She didn’t know I was here watching her, and she hopefully never would. Now, I know what you may be thinking, “what is this creeper doing watching a naked woman through her bedroom window?” Well the answer to that is actually not as simple as what you’re probably imagining. The real answer is that my best friend, Eddie, and I were riding our bikes in the woods behind Frankie’s house, when we noticed a suspicious looking man sneaking into Frankie’s house through this very window that I’m now staring through. We would have called the cops, of course, but there was a very good reason why we couldn’t do that. That man that we saw sneaking into Frankie’s house, was my dad. I couldn’t just call the cops on my own dad, could I? There had to be a perfectly good explanation as to why he was sneaking into the hottest girl in school’s house. Was he seeing her? No, he couldn’t be. Her mom? Doubtful, but I guess not impossible. Was he trying to sabotage her dad, one of the top performing analysts at his company and his secret nemesis? Who knows. But hiding in these bushes will hopefully help me to figure that out. Eddie had rode his bike home already, afraid that his mom would come looking for him and find out that we had been smoking weed in the woods. Just then, as I remembered the sweet, calming sensation brought on by some of the best weed I had smoked all school year, I heard a scream. Only it wasn’t Frankie’s. She was still brushing her long blonde hair when she heard the scream too. But she had dropped the brush and was now running toward the sound of the screaming, which must have been coming from the direction of the kitchen. Losing all sense of control and common sense, I ran from my spot in the bushes, around to the front of the house, and straight in through the front door. As soon as I entered the house, it was obvious where the screaming was coming from. Entering the dining room, the family’s maid lay on the floor in a puddle of her own blood, with a knife next to her lifeless body and Frankie standing over her with the bath towel thrown quickly and carelessly around her body. The maid was dead. I immediately began looking around for anyone else who may have been in the home, specifically my dad, to no avail. Frankie and I were the only two in the room; the only two living, anyway. She looked up at me with intense fear in her eyes, unsure of how or when I arrived, but obviously thankful that she wasn’t alone with the dead maid or the murderer. Right, the murderer. I instructed Frankie to stay put as I began walking into the living room to scope out the scene. Clear. I made my way up the stairs as a million thoughts began rushing through my head. Was my dad still in the house? Was he responsible for the dead body in the dining room? What do I do if I find him in here? What do I do if I don’t? Nothing made sense in that moment. All I knew was that there was a dead maid and a naked hot girl waiting on me downstairs, and a potential murderer waiting for me upstairs. I had to figure something out, and fast.