An hour later, Vero slowed, easing the Charger onto the crumbling shoulder of a rural road and turning in to a gravel parking lot. A high chain-link fence bordered the property, surrounding a small brick house with a neon OPEN sign in the window and several rows of run-down storage garages. Vero parked the Charger just outside the fence.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked when she slumped in her seat, checking her phone.
She shot off a quick text message. A notification pinged, and she glanced up at her rearview mirror. “That.”
A white panel van pulled alongside us. The window rolled down. The passenger dragged his mirrored sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, his dark eyes twinkling as he smirked at us over the rims. “You owe me big-time, V.”
“You lost that bet, fair and square. All I did was cash in.”
“Yeah, well, if I start hearing banjos, I’m outta here.” His eyes skated to me. Then past me to the rows of storage garages behind us. He looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place why. “What’s the unit number?” he asked.
“Seventy-three.”
“Give us a minute to scope it out.” The passenger slid his glasses back in place as the driver pulled forward and parked in front of us.
“Who’s that?” I asked as the two men got out of the van, both close in age to Vero if a bit older.
Vero ducked her head to watch as they slipped between the gap in the gate. “My cousin and his friend.”
“That’s Ramón?” I’d seen Ramón from a distance, when he’d towed Theresa’s car once, but I’d been fleeing the scene, running too fast in the opposite direction to get a good look at him at the time. All I remembered was his dark, closely cropped hair and the baggy blue coveralls he’d been wearing. “How have I never met him?” Vero had dropped off my van at his garage for repairs. I’d talked to him on the phone when he called to tell me it was ready. But when I’d gone to pick it up, Ramón’s office had been empty, and Feliks and Andrei were there waiting for me. Ramón had felt so bad about what had happened that night, he’d discounted my balance and delivered the van to my house. I hadn’t been home at the time, and Vero had paid the bill.
Vero shrugged. “He’s not here for a social call. He’s going to get us inside Steven’s storage unit, and then he’s leaving,” she said firmly. She checked her phone. “That’s him. Let’s go.”
We left the Charger at the curb, and I followed Vero through the gate toward the last row of garages. Crushed cans and empty oil pints littered the fence line. BEWARE OF DOG signs had been zip-tied to the rusted chain links.
“This place is a dump,” I said, my sneakers crunching on broken glass. “I thought you said it was a climate-controlled unit.”
Vero dodged a pile of fly-ridden dog turds. “Steven’s been paying extra for electric. I assumed that meant it was climate-controlled, but this place isn’t exactly the Ritz.” We rounded the last row of storage units and found Ramón’s friend kneeling in front of a dented steel door, a padlock cupped in one hand and a pick in the other while Ramón looked on.
“Lucky for you,” Ramón’s friend said without looking up. “Fancy storage places have cameras.”
I glanced up at the eaves above the garages, then up to the single security lamp mounted on a pole at the end of the row. He was right. No surveillance cameras. The garages didn’t even have power of their own. A thick orange extension cord snaked out from under the door of Steven’s storage unit. Daisy-chained to another extension cord, it barely reached the electrical outlet under the rental office window.
Ramón’s friend bent over the lock, his glasses perched on his head. His dark hair was pulled back in an elastic band at the nape of his neck, showing off deep bronzed skin and the dark edges of the tattoos that peeked out from the collar of his black T-shirt.
“Your mom called my apartment this morning,” Ramón said over the quiet scrape of the pick in the lock. “Said someone came around her place yesterday looking for you.”
Vero was silent for a long moment, the shift of her body language so subtle I would have missed it if I wasn’t so on edge. “Who?”
“He wouldn’t leave a name.”
“What did she tell him?”
“I’m done being your damn go-between, V. She’s still pissed that you didn’t show for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s been a month since you talked to her. Call her yourself and ask.”