Chương 7
June looked at me.
“I officially dislike him.”
“You’re not the first.”
Marcus smiled.
“I’m devastated.”
June called.
Sam answered on the fourth ring.
She put him on speaker after telling him who was in the room.
His voice was cautious immediately.
“You people asking me about a customer?”
“We’re asking whether a unit exists,” I said.
“That’s customer information.”
“Is F. Turner still on your books?”
Silence.
Then, “Who is this?”
“Frank Turner’s daughter.”
Another pause.
“I knew Frank.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
The answer was too quick.
Marcus and I looked at each other.
I lowered my voice.
“Mr. Patel, I’m not asking you to open the unit.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking whether unit 214 exists.”
“All the numbers exist.”
“Is it rented?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“Has anyone accessed it recently?”
“I definitely can’t discuss that.”
June leaned toward the phone.
“Sam.”
“Don’t Sam me.”
“Somebody followed me to Evelyn’s diner.”
That changed his breathing.
“June, what did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That means something bad when you say it.”
Despite everything, she looked offended.
“I’m calling about Raymond.”
The line went silent again.
When Sam spoke, his voice was lower.
“You should come here.”
Marcus shook his head immediately.
I ignored him for one second.
“Why?”
“I’m not saying it on the phone.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Who’s with you?”
“A customer.”
“Do you feel safe?”
Sam did not answer.
Marcus moved closer.
“Mr. Patel, this is Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Bell with the United States Army.”
I stared at him.
He continued before I could object.
“I have no law-enforcement authority in this matter, and I’m not claiming any.”
Good.
“But if you believe you are in immediate danger, call 911.”
Sam gave a strained laugh.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The man standing in my office is Sheriff Harper.”
Nobody moved.
Through the speaker, another voice came faintly from farther away.
“Sam?”
Harper.
My mother gripped the counter.
Sam whispered, “He got here ten minutes ago asking about unit 214.”
The line went dead.
June swore.
Marcus took out his phone.
“Now we have a problem.”
“We already had one.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Now we know the problem is moving.”
My mother reached beneath the counter.
When she straightened, she was holding her car keys.
“I’m going with you.”
I started to argue.
She cut me off.
“Don can recognize your face from half a mile away.”
“He can recognize yours too.”
“Yes.”
She pointed toward the swinging kitchen door.
“But he cannot recognize Luis’s van.”
From the service window, Luis shouted, “Absolutely not.”
My mother raised her voice.
“You still owe me for the transmission.”
Luis appeared.
“That was seven years ago.”
“You still owe me.”
“You said forget it.”
“I changed my mind.”
He stared at her for a long second.
Then he dug into his pocket and threw a ring of keys across the counter.
My mother caught them badly with her good hand and nearly dropped them.
Nobody commented.
Marcus looked at me.
“If we go, we do not enter the property until we know what Harper is doing there.”
“Agreed.”
“We observe.”
“Agreed.”
“We call state authorities if he touches that unit.”
“Agreed.”
“And your mother stays in the van.”
My mother said, “Not agreed.”
Marcus sighed.
“I tried.”
Ten minutes later, the three of us were squeezed into Luis’s dented catering van while June stayed behind with Kayla and the envelope copies.
My mother sat in the passenger seat because she claimed the rear suspension was designed by sadists.
Marcus sat beside me in the back among boxes of paper cups and gallon jugs of cooking oil.
Luis had been telling the truth about one thing.
The van smelled permanently of onions.
We parked behind a closed tire shop across from Piedmont Self Storage.
Through the windshield, I could see the facility gate.
Sheriff Harper’s cruiser was inside.
So was the blue pickup from outside the diner.
My mother stopped breathing for a second.
“That’s Wade’s maintenance truck.”
I looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve watched it drive past my house twice a week for three years.”
A man stepped out from behind the office building.
Baseball cap.
Forties.
He walked toward the row marked 200.
Harper followed him.
Then Sam Patel appeared in the doorway and stayed there.
He did not follow.
Marcus lifted his phone and began recording.
I watched Harper and the other man stop in front of a beige metal door.
The number was small, but I did not need to see it.
The man in the cap took bolt cutters from the truck bed.
My mother whispered, “Nicole.”
“I see it.”
Harper looked once toward the road.
Then he turned his back while the man cut the lock off unit 214.
The cut lock hit the concrete and bounced once before disappearing beneath the truck.
Marcus kept recording.
“Plate first,” I whispered.
“Already have it.”
“Driver?”
“Still working on the face.”
My mother leaned toward the windshield until the seat belt caught across her chest.
“Sit back.”
“I can see.”
“You can see through glass without climbing into it.”
She ignored me.
Across the road, the man in the baseball cap hooked his fingers under the bottom of the storage door and pulled.
The metal shutter rattled upward.
Harper stepped closer.
Nothing happened for several seconds.
No box appeared.
No folder.
No sudden discovery.
The two men simply stood there looking into the darkness.
Then Harper turned toward the office.
Sam Patel had vanished from the doorway.
“Where’s Sam?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus lowered the phone slightly.
“That matters.”
The man in the cap entered the unit.
Harper stayed outside.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then a minute.
My leg began bouncing against the van floor.
Marcus noticed.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sitting.”
“You’re preparing to stop sitting.”
“I’m watching evidence disappear.”
“We don’t know what’s in there.”
“That is not the point.”
May you like
“It’s exactly the point.”
My mother looked back at us.
