Bret follows Robert and enters the Benedict Canyon house is a pivotal episode in the fall of 1981: Bret’s routine of tailing a classmate shifts into trespass, and an apparently empty property becomes, in his mind, a possible link to Matt Kellner’s disappearance and death. The visit produces no proof. Instead, its darkened, neglected setting and Bret’s conviction that someone is watching him sharpen the uncertainty that drives his investigation.

From routine surveillance to a detour

After school, Bret repeatedly follows Robert’s black Porsche from Buckley toward Century City, keeping several cars behind and watching him enter Century Towers. The pursuit has become part of Bret’s new schedule; he describes becoming addicted to it, even as the route initially seems to lead only to ordinary, uneventful afternoons. By the fourth day, however, Robert turns away from his usual route and drives through Benedict Canyon. Bret follows, unsettled by the possibility that Robert might be heading to his own house, then relieved when the Porsche continues elsewhere.

Robert pulls into a secluded property several houses beyond the Hutton stoplight. Bret waits, drives past, turns around, and watches from farther up the road. Robert stays for about ten minutes, then leaves. Bret does not follow him again that afternoon. The unexplained visit has already changed the meaning of the pursuit: Robert’s destination, rather than his familiar commute, is now what matters.

The house and the intrusion

After Robert drives away, Bret returns to the property and goes up its open driveway. A crooked, mud-streaked no-trespassing sign hangs from wrought-iron gates. The house is white with green shutters, set back from the canyon road and partly hidden by trees. Bret finds no visible sign that anyone is living there. He tests the locked front door, then moves around to the backyard.

There he sees a tennis court with a sagging net and fallen leaves, an empty pool partly filled with brackish water, and a brick patio. The shaded windows and rising hillside add to the sense of isolation; Bret observes that the trees and slope leave the house in shadow. He does not find evidence of Robert or Matt, and the visit gives him no tangible confirmation of what he is seeking.

Fear, inference, and Matt’s Datsun

While beside the deteriorated tennis court, Bret feels that a presence on the hillside is watching him. He imagines a hidden observer and associates it in succession with the Riders of the Afterlife, the Trawler, and Matt’s ghost. A rustle seems to come from the hillside, and he leaves the backyard in alarm. The episode does not establish that anyone is actually there: the watcher belongs to Bret’s fearful interpretation of the scene.

What gives the visit a more specific investigative meaning is a remark by Ronald Kellner about Matt’s Datsun. Bret connects the car’s mileage with the house and with the telephone number Matt had written on a notepad, which Bret had found in Matt’s desk. He becomes convinced that the house may be where Matt disappeared during the week before his death, and wonders whether Matt was kept there. This is Bret’s conclusion, not a confirmed discovery; the house yields no evidence that proves it.

The return and the unresolved clue

Later, unable to sleep, Bret drives back to the property at night. The gates are now closed, and he sees a faint, wavering light in an upstairs room. He cannot tell whether Robert’s car is present. As if someone inside has noticed the car idling on the canyon road below, the light goes out and the window darkens; Bret then drives away quickly.

The nighttime visit intensifies the pattern established by the first: Bret sees an ambiguous sign, reads it as evidence of a hidden connection, and retreats without knowing what happened inside. The house remains an unresolved location rather than a solved crime scene. Its importance lies in the way it binds Bret’s surveillance of Robert to his suspicions about Matt, while leaving the crucial question—whether Matt was ever taken there—open.