Chapter 25

I WOKE alone.

I wasn’t surprised. Mostly because Danny seemed to think sleeping over four hours at a time was high treason. He also thought that getting up early was a wonderful thing. And I’m the one they sent to the department shrink?

I couldn’t be sure whether the vibration of my phone or the running shower woke me up, but I was up nonetheless. I stretched for the phone, and a sound escaped as my muscles protested. I was sore in places people weren’t supposed to be sore. That’s what happened when you had sex every once a millennium.

The phone had another tizzy on the nightstand, and I grabbed it. I scrubbed at my eyes as I answered. “What’s up, Chevy?”

“Tell me you love me,” she said. Instead of, you know, hello. Like most sane people.

“I love you,” I said obediently as I glanced at the time. Seven o’clock. My, my. Satan liked his helpers up early. “Now what the hell do you want?”

“I’ve been sweet-talking your ME, which wasn’t easy, considering I think he’s part gremlin.”

“Don’t feed him after midnight,” I reminded her with a yawn.

“Exactly. He said there was a depressed skull fracture at the back of the skull of your vic, which probably indicates blunt force trauma. He’s still testing implements, but he thinks maybe a tire iron. The official COD is exposure. Likely because of her injuries, she wasn’t able to navigate the marsh, and eventually the weather hastened her death.”

“Fantastic.” I sighed. Because being cracked on the noggin wasn’t bad enough.

The bathroom door opened and let out a whoosh of Irish Spring- scented vapor. I glared as Danny strolled by in little more than a thin, threadbare towel clasped low around his hips. His abdominals flexed and contracted as he rigorously rubbed a towel over his hair. When he looked at me expectantly, I realized I’d been gawking and not listening to a word Chevy was saying.

“Chevy, hang on a sec.” I pressed the mute button on the phone. “Are you serious right now?”

I wasn’t in the mood to mince words. There was no need to put all that deliciousness on display if we didn’t have time to do something about it.

The corner of his mouth tilted upward. “Would you rather I come out naked?”

“Is there a damn difference?”

“Would you like me to show you the difference?”

Fuck yes, I would. My skin felt all tight and shivery as I ran my eyes down his form. That thin towel was suddenly under immense pressure as a particular part began to rise. I swallowed and broke the gaze.

I already knew the fucking difference. “Put on some damn clothes,” I said, not even surprised by the sudden husky quality of my own voice. I silently reminded myself that we didn’t have time for mutual blowjobs, and I unmuted the phone. “Sorry, Chev. So what’s your news?”

“I’ve also been doing a little sleuthing on your mysterious key. The positive is that it’s definitely a storage unit key. The negative is that there are forty-two self-storage facilities in the Brickell Bay area.”

I groaned. “How many units?”

“At least 200–250 per facility, ranging from the smallest five by five units to the larger ten by twenty units. That’s not including the vehicle storage.”

She sounded way too cheerful for what sounded like a lifelong project. My grandchildren would be looking for that storage unit. “Please tell me you have some good news.”

“I didn’t find any units registered to Amy Greene. Or any storage unit charges in her financial records. She must’ve paid cash. That’s if the key belongs to her at all. I also cross-referenced all of your suspects, and there’s no connection there either.”

“You and I need to redefine the term good news.”

“However, I did research on the shape and color of the fob. Only three storage facilities in the area use the orange diamond shape. I’m sending their names to your phone now.”

Thankfully the Danny peep show ended as he disappeared back into the bathroom, a pair of jeans and a shirt over his shoulder. I fell back on the bed. “How many units are we looking at again?”

“Approximately 635,” she confirmed chirpily.

It was a better number than what we started with, but still rather big. With all the technology at our disposal, it was a little frustrating. “Which has the cheapest prices? She was a student, after all.”

There was a moment of key clicking on Chevy’s end. “Griff’s Self-Serve Storage in Pembroke Pines. We’re down to 207.”

My brow furrowed as I thought about what size unit she’d most likely rent. I couldn’t imagine her needing anything oversized. Her whole room would fit into one of the smaller units. And we’d already found her car. “Eliminate the vehicle storage units,” I said.

“195.”

“The ten by fifteens.”

“173.”

“The ten by twenties.”

“152.”

Despite the best of my ability, I couldn’t think of any other variables to eliminate. I sighed. “152, huh? That’s… daunting.”

“Not that big of a task.”

“Big as your Texas hair,” I murmured.

“Texas wishes. I’m from Jersey, hon.”

She hung up on me, and I tossed the phone on the nightstand with a heartfelt groan. It was going to be a very long day. “Happy hunting,” I murmured to no one in particular.

“IF I never see another storage locker, it’ll be too soon.”

I glanced at Danny as we walked down the aisle of endless green doors. I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. “You and me both. What number are we up to?”

“Thirty-six,” he said with a sigh. He checked the log we got from the front desk. They gave us a list of only the units paid for without credit cards and narrowed our 152 down to 42. It was still 41 too fucking many.

I stuck the key in lock 36 and it wouldn’t budge. “Next.”

It was growing dark by the time we happened upon storage unit 103. I pushed the key in the slot, and mother of God, it actually turned. We exchanged a look and matching grins. “Thar be treasure in that there unit,” I said with an awful accent.

He groaned. “Please don’t do the pirate.”

“Why? Ye showed me yer booty just last night.”

He spluttered with laughter. “You’re a perverted Davy Jones.” He leaned down to roll the door up. “And on that note, let’s see what we found.”

The flickering bulb outside barely illuminated the space, and I pulled up the flashlight app on my phone. Danny took out his heavy-duty flashlight and flicked it on. It replicated the surface of the sun, and I scowled.

“Show-off.”

He grinned and shrugged. “Don’t be mad because mine is bigger than yours.”

I turned my phone off and glanced around. The storage room was about the size of a small bedroom and was crowded, mostly with cardboard boxes. A couple aluminum suitcases. A big pink bear. I rubbed his fluffy, torn ear and he stared at me forlornly, as though I weren’t the person he was waiting for.

“What size would you say Amy was?”

I glanced over to see Danny rifling through one of the boxes. “I don’t know. She was tiny, though. Maybe a two or four.”

“Then these must belong to someone else.” He held up a pair of capris. “Size ten.”

“Jenna’s?”

“Sounds about right.” He rifled through the box some more. “All of these are Jenna’s.”

“So Amy was right.” I bit my thumbnail. “Jenna was planning to leave with her. She was probably giving stuff to Amy every now and again to store here. And after Amy disappeared, she had no idea where to look to get it all back.”

“Which means Jenna lied to us.” Danny’s jaw looked tight. “Again.”

“I’m guessing she’s back on the suspect list?”

“Never left, as far as I’m concerned.” He closed the flaps on that box and searched through another. “Dishes.”

I opened another box. “Towels.”

“Bedding.”

“DVDs.”

We spent around twenty minutes searching the unit, and we went through every box. Every nook and cranny. We didn’t find any clues, but we did find every single thing you needed for a new apartment.

I stood with my hands on my hips and stared down at a box full of pots and pans. Those girls had been serious about taking off. But who would have a problem with that? They were both high school seniors—feasibly, they were going off to college the next year anyway. I looked up from the box to find Danny mirroring my pose.

“Personal theory,” I said. “Go.”

“All right. Maybe she lied to Amy, trying to stall her as long as possible. I mean, look at this stuff.” He gestured at the bear. “She starts bringing stuff to the storage unit to show her level of commitment.”

“Only, she brings items of almost no value. Meaningless things that she can do without.”

“Exactly. Eventually Amy figures out that she’s not really going to leave and tells her it’s over. She doesn’t take it well, and… well, you know the rest.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a possibility.”

“Okay.” He pointed at me. “Personal theory. Go.”

“I’ve been thinking about the dent in her car’s bumper.”

“What about it? It’s an older car.”

“Yeah, but it was in relatively good condition. Little dings and scratches, sure, but that was a bigass dent.”

Danny shrugged. “I think it’s pretty much a rule that your first car has to look like it was used for batting practice.”

“Possibly. But that wasn’t her car, it was her mother’s car. I don’t see insurance-scam queen Dinah Greene letting a huge dent like that slide. Hitting someone is a damn good way of getting her to pull over.”

“Someone at her ex-boyfriend’s house?”

“Maybe someone following her. Let’s assume, just for a minute, that she meets up with Jenna and breaks it off with her. She’s angry, and they argue about her mother always controlling her life.”

Danny took up where he left off. “So she heads over to the ex-boyfriend’s house to hook up and get some payback. Only she changes her mind—”

“He’s a hothead, and they wind up arguing. He begins to get violent, and scared, she runs outside. She decides it’s too risky to go back in that house and takes off, leaving her stuff behind.”

“Someone taps her bumper, and she pulls to a stop on a lonely, dark road. No phone. No way to get help. Whoever hit her gets out of his car and comes to her window. Knock, knock.”

They looked at one another, lost in thought. Danny asked the obvious question first. “So who’s there?”

Tap, tap, tap.

Kevin’s sharp rap on the storage unit door almost sent Danny through the roof. I bit my lip to hide a smile as his face grew pink. “You need the teddy bear for protection?” I asked sweetly.

Danny sent me a glare and turned to Kevin, who had a lollipop tucked in his jaw. “What is it?”

“You guys could’ve told us you found something,” Kevin complained. “We’ve got a full team still looking out here.”

Danny eyed the lollipop. “I can see you’re slaving away.”

Kevin pulled it out with a pop and pointed the blue lollipop in our general direction. “Don’t judge me. I have low blood sugar.”

“You have no such thing,” Danny said with a scowl.

“But I could, and that’s important.” He stuck the lollipop back in his mouth. “I’m going to let Tabitha know what’s up.”

“You do that.”

Danny ran a hand through his hair as Kevin disappeared down the dark hallway. He seemed prepared to ignore my general amusement. Mostly because someone carrying a gun shouldn’t be as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. “Not a word,” he said.

“Word.”

“Shut it.”