The granite countertop covering the island in the kitchen had been cracked down the middle, but the most interesting “adjustment” made to the house on the first floor was that the kitchen sink faucet had been turned on and pointed away from the sink. A small river of water ran along the countertop, down the wall, along the tile floor, and down into the sunken living room, which now floated in eighteen inches of water—aided by water from a garden hose, which had been rolled in through the back door. The water had risen to the level of the top step, crested, and spilled over, cascading out a side door and onto the pool deck, where it emptied into the pool. The pool—aided by water from a second garden hose—had now filled and spilled over the zero-view waterfall that led into a smaller pool eight feet below on the second pool deck, which had also filled and was now spilling over the edge, creating a miniature waterfall down the craggy rocks leading to the beach some sixty feet below. I turned off the faucet and both hoses and then made my way upstairs. Someone had tied a curtain to the chandelier and had evidently been swinging on it from the stairwell, dislodging it from the ceiling. It now dangled by three electrical wires, threatening a dive into the recently added indoor pool below.

The seven bedrooms upstairs were no better. Each of the beds had been slept in or used by what appeared to be multiple people. One of the beds had been covered in plastic sheeting and soaked in something with the same viscosity as baby oil. Clothes and underwear lay scattered. The bathrooms were soaking wet, and the Jacuzzi in the master bath had been filled with what was now stale and sour beer, as evidenced by the three empty kegs stacked next to it.

The master bedroom must have seen the brunt of the upstairs party because the mattress had been taken out on the balcony and someone had lit a fire in the middle of it with what looked like the remains of the master bed frame and headboard. The balcony was devoid of any other furniture. The sun had disappeared behind the Pacific and dark was falling, but one glance off the north end of the balcony proved that the furniture had been thrown down the cliff toward the boathouse. Most of it lay in splinters on the rocks.

Resting on a ledge above where the master bedroom had been sat a handheld video recorder. A cord tethered it to the master TV, which was the only piece of furniture or area of the house that had not been violated by the party. I was pretty sure I did not want to see what was on that recorder, but I thought it might help me determine if Zaul had been here and what his new best friends looked like.

The video recorder contained more than eight hours of unedited content. Someone had spent a good bit of time recording and narrating the events over what looked like three days of a rather epic party. The voice sounded female, but I couldn’t understand a word as it was all spoken very fast and in Spanish. She did an excellent job of documenting the escalation of the party and the total destruction of Colin and Marguerite’s house. A few minutes into the video, I heard a clinking of bottles behind me in the master bathroom. I paused the video and found a young man in what was once a tuxedo crawling out from underneath the laundry bin in the closet. He was in the early stages of waking up and experiencing the mind-splitting headache accompanying what was probably the worst hangover he’d ever known. His eyes were slits, one hand was attempting to shade his eyes, and at some point in the last day, he’d thrown up all over himself, which explained the smell. He was rank.

I looked at him and he grunted at me.

“Hi.”

He lay his head back down on the floor, put one hand on the wall and one foot flat on the floor. He cracked a whisper. “Make it stop.” His Spanish accent was thick and fell on the English words in all the wrong places.

I laughed. “Spinning a bit, is she?”

“Dude…” With that, he turned on his side and emptied what little remained in his stomach. It wasn’t much. I turned the shower on cold, dragged him into it, and sat him up while the water ran down his head and chest. He might have been sixteen, and judging from his demeanor, I didn’t take him for an invited attendee to the party. He looked to me to be someone who, at least initially, had worked the party.

While the water ran, I walked downstairs and scrounged up enough to make a pot of coffee. When ready, I carried a cup to the kid, who had now turned off the water and sat dripping in the shower. He accepted the mug with a thick-tongued “Gracias.”

I handed him some swim shorts and a T-shirt that might have been Colin’s and then returned to the video. About fifteen minutes later, he stumbled out. The mug hand was both shaking and shading his eyes while the other felt and steadied his way along the wall. He began speaking in mumbled and nearly incoherent Spanish. Thirty seconds in, I held up a hand and spoke most of the Spanish I knew. “No hablo español.” He smiled, nodded, and began speaking slowly again in broken English. I managed to piece together that Miguel was an employee of the seafood caterer—or had been three days prior—and had accepted an invite when his shift ended to join the bartenders and work for tips. Sadly none of which were still in his pocket. But to his great pleasure, the alcohol had flowed, as had the tips, as had the girls dancing on the balcony. Following his tenure at the bar, he’d met a beautiful girl and they’d danced away the night—which he surmised was two nights ago—only to wake up in her arms on a lawn chair by the pool. They spent that day on the beach, partied into the night, and the last thing he remembered was pumping beer into the hot tub. As best he could recall, he’d been passed out in the closet for the better part of a day.

I clicked on the video and asked him to help narrate, which he did with animated delight. He told the stories of the girls and what they drank. Who liked rum. Martinis. Shots of tequila. He snapped his finger. “Flor de Caña de bomb. E’body ly’ fruit of cane.” We watched as the crowd grew and beer foam began to spew across the pool. Early on the first evening, some guy with long, sun-bleached hair dragged a hose into the house and started filling in the living room. Late into the night, bikini-clad girls swung from the chandelier. Soon, they were blindfolded, soaked in oil, and wrestling on the upstairs mattress. Somewhere in the middle of the night, another guy—a walking spark plug, muscled, bald—began breaking the teak patio furniture into splinters, which he promptly threw into a pile and doused with gasoline. The crowd of about a hundred danced around the fire, and most passed out within its glow. The second day followed much like the first, except a couple more sun-bleached and tanned guys showed up. Muscled, powerful shoulders. Not much fat. Four in total.

I pointed them out. “You know them?”

“Sí.” He nodded as if it was a stupid question. “Surfers mostly, but—” He mimicked smoking a joint. “You need som’sing, I hook you up. Dey ha’ good produc.”

Whenever Zaul showed in the video, one of the other four weren’t far. I asked, “And him?”

He shrugged. “He new. Quiet. No smile much. But—” He rubbed the fingers together on his right hand. “He loaded.”

With the video, I was able to put together a pretty good idea of Zaul’s new circle of friends. Because Miguel also worked at the resort on weekends, he knew of most of the guys. Except Zaul. “No, he jes’ roll in. Big wad of cash. Pay for whole party. Tip me…” He dug his hands into his tux pants and shook his head. “Hundred dollars.”

When I asked him what had happened to everyone and their party, Miguel shrugged and pointed at the closet. His disappointment was obvious.

“Any idea where they went?”

He rewound the video and let a section play where the four surfers were talking with Zaul. They were animated, talking with their hands as much as their mouths, trying to persuade Zaul to come—and bring his money—to someplace where the waves were big and the girls were plenty and scantily clothed. Miguel translated. “Here, they talk about the surf being broken.”