“And where exactly is it that we're headed to?” I asked, opening the passenger door. “You never did tell me what you think that key opens.”
“It's a generic padlock key,” he said, hopping into the driver's seat. “Which is a horrible because those things are ubiquitous. But once I figured out McGurney's cryptic message, I did a little research that led me to where we're headed tonight.”
I looked across to him expectantly, waiting for the big reveal. Instead, I was met with a smug grin and the turning over of the engine when he started the car. Why none of the men in my life could announce something without theatrics was beyond me.
“And that would be...?”
“A storage unit.”
“Oh boy. That doesn't sound ominous at all.”
“It sounds like we're finally going to get some actual evidence to work with. James would have kept anything of value there if he thought that someone was onto him.”
“But if he thought someone was onto him, how do we know that person didn't know about this storage unit? Maybe he was being followed at that point?”
“We don't know for sure, but McGurney was a secretive bastard. If he wanted something kept secret, he would have moved Heaven and Earth to be certain it was.”
“So we're waiting for the cover of darkness to find this storage facility, break into the unit, and see what it contains? That's the plan?”
“Yep.”
“I guess that's benign enough,” I muttered to myself.
The cover of darkness benefits others in addition to you, Ruby. Don't forget that.
“Wouldn't dream of it,” I whispered.
“What was that?” Alan asked, shooting me an odd glance before he merged onto the interstate.
“Nothing. Sorry,” I said dismissively, turning to look out the passenger window.
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here or did you manage to follow my instructions?” he asked curtly.
“I told the boys I was going to be in Boston all day to get stuff for the shop. Alistair is holding down things at the shop, though I imagine I'll have a debacle to deal with there when I return. He's a worse bookkeeper than I am.”
“And Sean?”
“Like I said, Alan, Sean's out of the picture.”
His momentary pause bought me little time to prepare for the next inevitable question.
“Want to tell me what happened with that?”
“Nope. Sure don't.”
Another pause.
“He didn't hurt you, did he?”
I scoffed in response.
“Physically? No.”
“And mentally?”
“Can we talk about something else?” I deflected. The familiar discomfort that always accompanied any discussion about the demise of my relationship rose within me.
“Does Kristy know?”
“No. She's been acting weird lately,” I admitted, feeling uncomfortable for an entirely new reason. I was worried about her behavior, but I didn't know if I should really be bringing it up with her husband. He had to have known something was off with her, but I didn't want to overstep in any way. Nevertheless, she seemed to have been far from herself during our last encounter, and that worried me.
“Yeah,” he sighed. That was his only response.
I turned to study his profile for any clues. His eyes remained fixed on the highway before him. I wanted to press him on the issue, especially after I felt the worry emanating from him, but it just didn't seem appropriate. If there was something going on between the two of them, that was his private business. Lord knows I had enough of my own to empathize.
“Do you want to pick up some snacks and such before we check in to the hotel?” he asked, his energy still abuzz with a dissonant vibration. Whatever he was thinking about, it seemed to be a demon he couldn't easily shake.
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
We picked up some junk food and made our way to a moderately sketchy hotel not far off the highway. The hours passed slowly while Alan and I stared blankly at the TV, both of us acting like we were on a precipice of sorts. Whatever we found in that storage unit could change things for us, and it seemed we both knew that.
When the sun had almost fully set, I stepped into the bathroom to change into something black. I wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Alan had been doing a little research online about where we were headed and had obtained as many images, especially aerial views, of the facility as he could. He had drawn up schematics and made notes while I hydrated and caught up on the latest celebrity gossip.
While alone, I took the opportunity to send Gavin another text message. I was really starting to fear that he had met the same fate as the other fey. But knowing Gavin, he might have just been trying to punish me for outing him. There was just no way to know until I heard from him. I prayed I would soon.
I put my phone down to lace up my boots and finish getting ready for the night's events. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that we hadn't had any real food to eat for hours. I couldn't help but feel that fueling up before we left was a good idea. When I opened the bathroom door to share that thought with Alan, I didn't realize he was on the phone.
“Hey, I was thinking that maybe we should―”
Alan wheeled around on me, flashing me a death glare while flailing his free arm, frantically trying to get me to shut up. I stopped dead in my tracks and shut my trap. I had no idea why I thought moving was a bad idea, but silence and stillness seemed to go hand in hand for me.
We all have our quirks.
“Who was that?” Alan asked, feigning confusion. “Oh, that. The waitress came up to suggest something and then saw that I was on the phone. Sorry about that, Kris.” I watched as his jaw worked overtime to contain the frustration that was mounting within him. Clearly his efforts were in vain because I could sense it from across the room. “Yep. With any luck, I should be home tonight, but there are no guarantees I'll be able to find what I was sent down here for that easily. I'll be looking through files for hours. If I don't get it done tonight, I'm sure I will tomorrow, okay?” Again, the muscles in his neck and jaw flexed violently. “I love you too, Kris. Give Louie a kiss for me.” He then pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it in irritation before he threw it onto the couch. “Great.”
“Soooo, wanna tell me what that was about?”
“Do you want to talk about Sean?”
Nope.
“Message received,” I said with a salute as I walked over to the fraying chair in the far corner of the room. The chair with the bag of snacks sitting upon it. “We need food. Real food.”
“Agreed. I also think we need to put our plans off until later tonight. From what I could gather online, they lock up the exterior gate to the storage place around 9 p.m. We want to go after that.”
“Why? It's not like we don't have a key. Nobody will know it's not our unit.”
“Right, but we don't know which one it is.”
“We don't?”
“No. We don't.”
“McGurney didn't think that would be a crucial piece of information?”
“McGurney wrote me a note telling me that creatures of the night exist. I highly question his mental state by the time he actually got around to procuring this storage room and planned how to send me the information about it.”
“Fair point.”
“To be honest, the fact that he didn't only concerns me more.” Alan's eyes finally landed on mine, showing me something they never had before—fear. “Ruby,” he started, visibly searching for the best way to ask whatever it was that he needed to. “What you said the other day, in your shop. Did you―”
“Alan, I talk out of my ass at least eighty-five percent of the time.”
“I'm well aware of that, Ruby. What I'm wondering is if what you said was part of the fifteen percent of the time when you don't.”
I steadied myself, realizing that this moment had been inevitable. I had opened that can of worms myself
, and if the storage unit hadn't been wiped clean already by the people responsible for McGurney's death, there was likely some corroborating evidence awaiting us there. But I couldn't be certain. If I showed my cards too early, I ran the risk of endangering Alan and his family with the knowledge that McGurney’s “creatures of the night” were real. If I lied, I feared that was the nail in the proverbial coffin as far as Alan’s opinion of me was concerned. Riding the fine line between disclosure and deceit was the name of this game.
Unfortunately for me, it was a nearly impossible task.
“Alan,” I sighed, trying my best to look apologetic. “I don't want to get into a fight about that. We're both stressed enough as it is. Can we just get through tonight and then discuss what happened that day?”
He pressed his lips together firmly, his standard detective stare falling seamlessly into place. I figured I was screwed for sure. The only viable play I had had been shot down with his hardened gaze.
Or had it?
“Fine,” he agreed, much to my surprise and delight. “We'll discuss it on our way home tonight―if we go home tonight. You did only buy a one-way ticket like I told you to, right?”
I smiled.
“Yes. I can follow instructions on rare occasions.”
“Good, because you'll be following them tonight. To the tee. No improvisations, understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I'm going to go change, then we can go kill some time at the restaurant before we do this.”
He disappeared into the bathroom without another word, but he didn't really need to say anything else. The stress creasing his brow said it all. He wasn't excited about what we were going to do that night.
That made two of us.
Chapter 26
The car ride to the unit was spent in nervous silence. Neither of us knew what to expect when we got there, or if we would even discover anything at all. Regardless, we were going to find out. I only hoped that, if the key Alan clutched in his hand while he drove did in fact open one of those storage containers, it wouldn't blow the roof right off the human world for Alan.
After hours at the restaurant and a solid forty-five minute drive out of town, we arrived at the entrance to the rather downtrodden facility. The chain-link fence that surrounded the perimeter was rusted out in places, allowing holes to gape open along the length of the barrier. The rows of barbed wire that crowned the top of the fence weren't especially welcoming either, but we continued on anyway. We needed to find McGurney's secret locker, if there was even one to find.
It was well after the hours when the gates were guarded, leaving us with few options for entering the premises. The key we had didn't open the padlock on the main gate, so we were forced to leave the car in the entrance drive and try to find a hole large enough for us both to fit through or climb the decaying fence. After circling the entire yard, I realized the latter offered our only way in.
“Need a boost?” Alan asked, stepping over to a section that looked more stable than the rest.
“Nope. I got this,” I replied, thinking that climbing wasn't going to be my issue. Getting over the sharp fence topper without severing a major artery was.
Knowing that he was watching me, I started to make my way up the fence, securing the toe of my shoe snuggly into the chain-link before climbing any further. Once I was halfway up, Alan began his ascent of the ten-foot-high fence. His aggressive pace shook the loose metal just as I was hovering over the barbed wire, with one foot on either side of it.
“You wanna keep that thing still for a second?” I asked, precariously lifting my leg up and over the barbs that threatened to slice open my pants and so much more.
“I forget that you're a klutz sometimes,” he said with a hint of joviality in his voice.
“It should be pretty easy to remember, Alan. I ran right into you the first time we met, and not long after that I did it again. Grace is my gift on stage. Eternal lack of coordination is my curse off of it.”
The words had no sooner left my mouth than my foot tore through a rusted section of wire. I struggled to maintain my original position, but my downward momentum was too much to stop. I fell from the top of the fence, crumbling to a heap on the ground below.
At least I'd landed on the right side.
“Jesus, Ruby. Are you okay?” Alan called to me as he hurriedly navigated the barbed wire to make his own descent. Before long he was at my side, scooping me up off the ground. Thankfully, for once, I hadn't injured anything, not badly at least. “Let me see,” he demanded, taking my bleeding hands in his.
“I'm fine, Alan,” I grumbled, patting them off on my pants. “Let's go see if we can find this thing.”
“They wouldn't provide me with any information when I called,” he reiterated. “We're going to have to try all the locks.”
I looked over at the sea of buildings sprawled across the lot before me. It was going to take hours to try all the locks. I sighed, wondering if we were on a wild goose chase. Alan shot me an incredulous look. My lack of faith was clearly disappointing.
“You forget, Ruby. I knew Jim better than almost anyone else. He was shrewd and cunning. He wouldn't have rented just any unit.”
He started off toward the back of the property where the lights were fewer and the forest beyond provided an eerie backdrop. It made me uneasy, but Alan was too intent to be questioned, so I followed him like an obedient puppy, never taking my eyes off of the wooded area while we made our way back.
“Here,” Alan said, pointing to a building near the far edge of the facility. “You see that dirt path in the woods?” I nodded. “Jim would have wanted something near this. He would have wanted an easy escape if he needed it.”
And McGurney had ultimately needed a quick getaway. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't had one when he was ambushed and murdered in his home. Knowing that he had been so methodical and borderline paranoid, I contemplated the type of individual capable of sneaking up on him at his house and killing him without him even having a chance to act.
The thought sent chills down my spine.
While I had been ruminating over McGurney's death, Alan had already started trying the key in the locks on nearby units. I anxiously looked on while he went from door to door, trying to open them.
Until he succeeded.
I heard the click of the metal lock when it sprung open. Alan's disbelieving eyes shot to mine the second it did. Running to his side, I watched him throw the lock to the ground and grab the handle on the corrugated metal door. Our faces were close to each other's while we stared into one another’s eyes, each looking for a sense of certainty. But there was none to be found. We held our collective breaths when he lifted the door up in one motion. Shining his flashlight into the vast space, he illuminated a scene that caused every hair on my body to shoot up on end. Disturbing didn't even begin to describe what I saw.
Horrifying did.
I had seen movies that eerily depicted what could happen to people once their minds broke, the thin line between genius and madness eroding away. I had never expected to see it in real life.
Every wall was covered in photos, floor to ceiling, front to back. Amid all the reconnaissance he had conducted, hand-written notes were taped to the wall; sticky notes of various neon shades peppered the evidence he had amassed in such a short time. It was truly a sight to behold, unnerving or otherwise.
Alan and I stood paralyzed, neither one of us able to both comprehend and move at the same time. Our minds were far too overwhelmed with the portrait of instability that lay before us. McGurney had gone off the deep end, of that I was certain, but what drove him there was plastered across the walls of his rundown storage unit. And the thought of taking in more closely what had shattered his mind scared me to death.
Once Alan composed himself, his detective instincts kicked in, and he made the first move into the room.
“There are boxes in that far corner,” he said, illuminating them with his lone flashlight. “
Grab those and see what you can find. I'm going to take pictures of the walls before I take anything down. The order they are pinned in may be important, and I want to be able to recreate this if we need to.”
I nodded tightly, taking the flashlight from him and making my way over to the legal-style filing boxes that awaited me on the far side of the room. The sheer volume of what he had stored was mind-blowing. By our timeline, we had estimated that McGurney had had only a few days to look into matters by the time Sean found him dead. Either he'd hit the mother lode of intel or someone had to have furnished him with information they had already collected.
Information that then got Jim killed.
The flash of Alan's camera seemed especially harsh in the darkness surrounding us while he walked around the room, meticulously documenting every inch of the place. While he did that, I sifted through the few boxes, looking for anything that made sense to me or might make sense to anyone else. Most of the papers were classified documents containing lines upon lines of inked-out text, only showing a few words per line. Page after page, I found the same discouraging documents. Even if those documents were pertinent to solving McGurney's murder or what led to his assassination, there was no way to make sense of them so long as the important words remained hidden behind swaths of black ink.
Thumbing through the final box, I came upon a folder that made my breath catch in my throat. Hearing my response, Alan came over to me, bending down to see what I had found. In my hand was a simple manila folder with a tab at the top containing a name. An important name.
Keith James.
The Rev...
I gripped the folder so tightly that my hands nearly cramped. I feared what might be inside it.
“Open it,” Alan pressed, his shoulder leaning into mine while we huddled together, nervous and excited about the information I had unearthed. But I couldn't, and not for the obvious reason. Though I dreaded what I would find inside that file, that wasn't what kept me from obeying Alan's request.
The light fall of approaching footsteps echoing between the buildings did.
STRAYED Page 23
