I did not expect we’d drive to Pic-N-Pac Storage in his tiny, fuel-efficient car while he held a kitten on his lap, its rumbling purr audible even in the backseat.
Damien Garza was a good reminder that people were rarely what they seemed, that judging a book by its cover was a remarkably inaccurate way of taking its measure.
On the way, Jeff called Aline’s work. I checked on Ethan and advised what we’d found.
ALINE MAY HAVE SKIPPED TOWN, I messaged. FOUND TRAVEL RECEIPT TO ALASKA. CHECKING STORAGE UNIT.
It took a few moments for him to answer—a delay that made me worry more about his safety—and I felt a wash of relief when his message came through.
THAT’S A LEAD, he agreed. SORCERERS MAKING GO OF FESTIVAL. MOOD STILL GRIM, BUT BOOZE AND MEAT SOOTHE FEELINGS.
So I’d been right about the meat and beer.
STAY ALERT, he told me, and my phone went silent again.
Communications done, I glanced at Jeff. “Any luck at the office?”
“No answer,” he said. “But her voice-mail box was full.”
“So people have been trying to reach her?” I wondered.
“That’s what it looks like.”
We found the Pic-N-Pac on the edge of town, a run-down area far from the wealth of the Breck estate.
The facility, a few rows of low-slung metal storage sheds, was situated between a mobile home park and a closed skating rink, the FOR SALE sign fading and cracked, not unlike everything else we saw.
We pulled through the gate, passing only a couple of pot-bellied guys in a beat-up truck loading very large boxes into storage. They stared at us as we passed, clearly not happy about the company.
“What number?” Damien asked.
“Forty-three,” I told him. It was the last locker on the second row, its aluminum sliding door closed with a silver padlock.
We climbed out of the car, waited until Damien had built a bed for Boo on the front seat from his leather jacket. Boo immediately climbed inside, pawed at the leather, and snuggled in.
We glanced at the lock. “I don’t suppose either of you has a bolt cutter?” I asked.
“Bolt cutters lack subtlety,” Damien said, stepping forward and pulling a couple of small silver implements from his pocket. He inserted them into the key slot while Jeff looked nervously around.
“Might want to do that quickly,” Jeff suggested. “In case there’s security?”
“Camera’s busted,” Damien said without looking up. “Check Merit’s seven o’clock.”
Jeff and I both looked back to the position Damien had indicated, found a small camera perched on the wall between Aline’s locker and the next one, its unconnected wires dangling below like tentacles.
Little wonder Gabriel trusted Damien with “sensitive” matters. His attention to detail was impressive.
With a snap, the lock flipped open. Damien replaced his tools and tossed aside the lock.
He put a hand on the lever but looked back at us. “Anybody think anything’s in there?”
I lifted the block on my vampire senses, which was usually down so I wouldn’t be driven mad by an excess of sensations. But even with my shields down, I sensed nothing at all.
“Not that I can tell,” I said, but unsheathed my sword anyway. Better to be safe than sorry. Or leave Boo without a father.
“In that case . . . ,” Damien said, pulling up the door with a ratcheting sound. He flipped a penlight from his pocket and shined it into the space.
It was empty except for a cardboard box on the ground, the top flaps woven closed.
“That was anticlimactic,” Jeff said as I slid the sword home again.
Damien moved forward and nudged the box with a toe. When nothing happened, he crouched in front of it and pulled open the flaps.
“Looks like trash to me.” He stepped back, gesturing for me to take a look.
The box was filled with ephemera. Old photographs and paper scraps, notes and holiday cards. I reached inside, pulled out a black-and-white photograph. It was an old-fashioned Polaroid, a pretty woman kneeling on the ground, each arm around a cute kid.
I turned the picture around. “Chas and Georgie,” it read.
I glanced back at Jeff and Damien. “What were the names of the boys Aline wanted the Pack to shelter?”
“Jack?” Jeff asked, looking at Damien. “Something with a ‘J’?”
“George,” Damien said. “And Charles.”
Wordlessly, I handed over the picture, let Jeff and Damien reach their own conclusions.
“I somehow doubt this is a coincidence,” Jeff said, dropping the photograph back into the box. “But why would she bother to get a storage unit for one box of stuff?”
“Maybe this stuff was important to her,” I said. “The boys certainly were. Maybe she wanted to keep these things separate and safe when she decided to run.”
“Or she needed the space for more hoarding,” Damien said, rising again. “And this is the first thing she decided to store here.”
That was certainly the easier answer. The more obvious answer. But either way, the case against Aline was getting stronger.
Without another immediate lead, Jeff and Damien decided to take a break and work through what we knew about her reason for leaving. They picked a twenty-four-hour chain restaurant not far from the Pic-N-Pac, a diner-style joint at the end of the parking lot where the carnival held court.
It was late, music still blasted from the carnival’s speakers, and the Ferris wheel rolled lazily, the spokes outlined in lights that flashed in patterns as it turned. The air smelled deliciously of fried food and sugar. Damien tucked Boo into his nest, and we walked inside, found plenty of quiet booths. While the guys slid into one, arguing about the best way to serve hash browns—plain, or covered with cheese and onions—I stopped at the jukebox inside the door, bosom buddies with a cigarette machine that now held packs of gum. I hadn’t seen a jukebox in years, so I scanned the music choices, which ran the gamut from Top 40 to classic country, heavy on the big hair and sequin vests.
My phone rang, and I pulled it from my pocket, found the number blocked.
“Hello?”
“It’s Lakshmi,” said the prettily accented voice on the other end of the line.
My heart began to pound, and I glanced back at Jeff and Damien, who were looking over laminated menus. I had only a moment to talk.
“Hi,” I nervously said. “Are you trying to reach Ethan?”
“I am trying to reach you,” she said. “I’d like to discuss our previous arrangement.”