Rent Free

Part I: Discovery

You don’t expect to find a cappuccino machine in a criminal hideout.

But that’s what I saw when I walked into the forgotten apartment inside Six Flags—top floor of the maintenance wing, past the breakroom no one used, behind a locked gray door that hadn’t been keyed into the system since 1998.

There was a couch. A leather one. Not torn up or sunken. Clean. A throw blanket folded over the back like someone gave a shit. Wall-mounted shelves. Real ones. Not the pressed board crap from IKEA. Art on the walls. A coat rack. Hardwood vinyl on the floor, soft under your boots. Not a fingerprint of dust.

And that smell?

Not piss. Not rot. Not chemical cleaner.

Cinnamon. And coffee.

Then I saw the man. Sitting on that couch. Legs crossed. Reading Walden, like a goddamn punchline.

He looked up at me—me and two officers in full tactical gear—and he smiled.

“Ah,” he said. “You found me.”

I remember standing there, mouth dry, fists clenched, heart pounding—not from fear. From rage. From confusion.

I didn’t know what this was yet. But I knew I hated it.

---

The call came that morning from Parks Security.

One of their new tech guys—kid just out of trade school, hired to wire in motion sensors—flagged a low-level electrical pull that didn’t match the blueprint. Some breaker buried deep in the admin wing, marked inactive.

Twelve amps. Constant draw. For over a decade.

No maintenance logs. No security sweeps.

They thought it was an old fridge plugged in somewhere.

They were wrong.

I was in my office when the report hit my desk. I still remember the manila folder. Blue pen, all caps: UNAUTHORIZED OCCUPATION - SIX FLAGS STL.

I’m a city prosecutor. Or I was. ADA Leonard Salvatore, forty-three years with the St. Louis DA’s Office. Most of it spent dragging housing scammers and contractor grifters into court and making sure old ladies didn’t get evicted without notice.

This was different.

I read the file three times. How the system just… forgot him. I don’t even think I believed it.

Until I walked through that door and saw the bastard for myself.