CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Paige woke to ringing. Sam’s phone, she realized. Her body was curved into his. The covers were twisted around them both. She felt him ease his arm out from under her and rose on to an elbow. Blinking in the watery gray light of early morning, she made out Sam reaching to the nightstand.

He picked up the phone. “Mike.” Sam’s voice was scratchy from sleep.

Paige was close enough to Sam to overhear Mike.

“I’m at Hailey’s, Sam.” Mike’s voice was strained. “There’s something you need to see.”

* * *

Ivy slept with earbuds and didn’t stir when Paige entered her room, now quickly showered and dressed. She placed a note on the bedside table letting Ivy know that she and Sam had been called out for work, then gave Ivy a light kiss on her tousled hair and left.

Garbage trucks were out on the streets when Sam and Paige drove through town. A truck delivering produce was parked in the loading doors of the supermarket. Sam left Main Street behind and not long after turned on to the driveway of the apartment building where Hailey Corbett lived.

Mike buzzed them up and met them at the front door. His expression was grim. He hadn’t dressed for work yet, wore casual torn jeans and an old cotton shirt, but there was nothing casual about his manner. His body was as tense as his voice had been on the phone.

“Back here.” Mike led them down a short hall to the only bedroom.

Hailey was seated on a white eyelet bedspread that had more color than her face.

Paige followed Sam and Mike to a small ornate dresser. One of the drawers was out, turned over on the white dresser top, showing the underside. A few pieces of clear tape hung from it. Mike had placed the drawer in a clear plastic garbage bag to prevent further handling.

“Hailey needed some more clothing and I drove her over here a little while ago before we both had to be at work,” Mike said. “She opened this drawer to take out a few things and accidentally pulled it out all the way. When she went to put it back, she saw an envelope had been taped underneath.” Mike picked up an envelope in a plastic freezer bag that was beside the drawer and transferred it to Sam.

The envelope was a plain white letter size. Someone had noted directions on the front with street names and arrows pointing in various directions.

Sam turned to Hailey. “You haven’t seen this before tonight?”

“The handwriting on the front is Lonny’s.” Hailey’s voice was a whisper. “He must have put the envelope there the last time he was here.”

“Why not before then?” Sam asked.

“I went through my closet and all of my drawers a couple of weeks ago. The school was having a clothing drive for a local women’s shelter. Since I’d emptied the drawers, I went ahead and wiped them down as well. There wasn’t anything taped to the bottom of that drawer then.”

“We found this receipt and key inside the envelope.” Mike pointed to the two items also on the dresser, again, each in separate plastic bags.

Sam set the envelope down and picked up the receipt. Paige looked over Sam’s arm. The receipt was a simple white paper, rubber stamped in red with the name and address of a storage facility. It was for the rental of one storage shed, number one-hundred-twenty-three, and made out to a Ralph Melville. The date on the receipt was for last October, almost one year ago. There were two days until another payment was due.

“Do you know a Ralph Melville, Hailey?” Sam asked. When she shook her head he said, “Does the name have any significance for your brother? An old family friend? A school teacher he was fond of?”

“I know you’re thinking Lonny used that name to rent the shed,” Hailey said. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t have used his own name. I don’t know why he would have chosen that name in particular. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know why he would need a storage shed at all.”

Paige touched the bag with the receipt. “Two-hundred-forty dollars for the one year, paid in cash. A lot of money to Lonny. What could he have wanted to store that was worth that cost?” Paige could see that Sam was thinking the same thing.

“We’re going to need a warrant to take a look inside the shed,” Mike said.

Hailey clutched a pillow and held it to her chest. “I’m Lonny’s legal next of kin. I will give you permission.”

Mike gave Hailey a soft look. “The name on the receipt is Melville, not Corbett. Legally, the shed isn’t rented to your brother.”

A line on Sam’s forehead deepened. “Mike, get these items dusted for prints. Put a rush on it. We’ll see what’s in that shed.”

* * *

The warrant came in later that morning. Paige collected it and the storage shed key, now coated with black fingerprint powder, and accompanied Sam to his truck.

While they’d waited for the warrant, Paige had looked into the storage shed facility, named The You Store. Owned by one man, the facility was located at the end of Kirk almost into the next county. Sam had driven for miles now without encountering another vehicle. Open land stretched as far as Paige could see. “I can’t imagine this place gets a lot of business. It’s not convenient for anyone who needs quick access to their stuff.”

“No, and Corbett didn’t have a vehicle. If he wanted to store something, there are places closer to town. Why come all the way out here?” Sam drove a few miles more then let up on the accelerator. “This is it.” He turned on to the property, the truck bumping over the uneven land.

Paige took in the place. A large plot of sparse land with row after row of sheds. “The check I did told us this was originally farmland. Looks like the owner stopped keeping it up and decided on a different use for the land.”

“No security.” Sam drove on.

Paige wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t a panel to insert a key card or punch in a code. Given the baseness of the operation, there wasn’t even a fence around the property.

Sam stopped at a small mobile home marked “Office”.

Paige left the truck with Sam. Taking care over the ruts in the ground, she walked with Sam into the office. A man with hair pulled up in a man bun sat behind a desk playing computer games and sipping from a can of soda. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth then smiled wide. “Help you?”

Sam showed his ID and the warrant. “Where can we find shed number one-hundred-twenty-three?”

The man’s big eyes became bigger. He said eagerly, “I’ll take you.”

He hopped in the back of Sam’s truck and leaning over the front seat, directed them past shed after shed. Each was about as large as a two-car garage with doors that were fire-engine red. On each door, the number of the shed was painted in black.

Sam parked in front of shed one-hundred-twenty-three then turned to the clerk. “Thank you. We’ll take it from here.”

The clerk’s shoulders slumped, but he left them.

They got out of the truck. Sam crouched in front of the shed, fitted the key in the lock then slid the door up. Inside were devices and the makings for enough explosives to level a city block.