“But I’m here to tell you right now that I know this is a line I’m crossing.” He motioned to Maggie. “But it’s worth it if we can finish this damned case. You just have to trust me on that.”
Caleb looked between them. Matt wondered if he was thinking about the lines he’d crossed to help his now girlfriend, Alyssa, when she’d found herself with a wild target on her head, too. He’d had moments of going rogue in his tale to save the girl. And that was probably what helped him agree.
Though it took a few beats before he answered.
“Fine. But you gotta tell Billy. You need backup, no matter how good your intentions. You know the sheriff will argue but he won’t stop you from going.” Caleb grinned. “Especially if you give him that ridiculous speech you just gave me.”
Matt snorted.
“Hey, I thought it was pretty eloquent myself.”
“It was sure something,” Maggie piped in. It made Caleb all out laugh.
“Okay, you two, get it all out,” Matt said, waving them on. “We have serious work to do, so go ahead and get all of this mess out of your systems.”
Maggie burrowed into a series of laughs before coming to a stop. She nodded. Caleb, too. It was a nice stress release, Matt realized. The three of them had been wound tight, ordered to stay on their toes for whatever attack may come. Matt also realized it would have been nice of him to talk to the deputy more during his posts.
“Thank you, Caleb,” he said, sobering. “I know this hasn’t been the most exciting detail.”
The deputy fell back into his deputy composure.
“You don’t hear me complaining,” he assured. “You two be careful. I’ll make sure Cody stays safe.” He said the last part to Maggie. “Only a few of us even know you’re here. If we do get any trouble, though, I swear to you nothing will happen to him.”
Maggie nodded, all traces of humor gone from her expression.
“Matt trusts you, so I trust you.”
It was a simple statement but said with such basic honesty that Matt was taken aback.
Maggie didn’t just trust him, she trusted his word. His instinct. On voucher alone she trusted a stranger to protect her child, her entire life, as she’d said earlier. A slow yet nearly overwhelming emotion started to slip into the detective’s heart.
Pride?
No.
Gratefulness?
Not quite.
Affection?
Maggie found his gaze. Beautiful, trusting, determined eyes.
Qualities that easily described her, as well.
For days they had been trapped together within their rooms, connected by a door that had stayed mostly opened. Now, looking at a woman he used to loathe, Matt realized something had shifted between them in that time. Or, maybe, something had been building. Something they’d been trying to ignore or resist. Something unspoken.
Something coming to a head.
With every conversation, every wayward glance, every subtle touch, Matt had struggled to stay focused on the case and only the case. Instead he’d found his eyes straying to Maggie’s lips, his thoughts hovering on her laughter, and his mind being filled with images of what could be between them.
It had been nearly impossible to stop.
It was distracting.
It was dangerous.
Yet, Matt couldn’t help but wonder...
What would happen after the case was finished?
Chapter Sixteen
Danny’s Storage Facility was near the city limits of Kipsy. It needed the room to stretch, taking up half an acre of indoor climate-controlled and outdoor non-climate-controlled units. No other businesses butted up against the place, but an old T-shirt press sat abandoned across the road.
Maggie wondered what kind of shirts they used to make as Matt drove their third car in a week up to the main office, the only building on the outside of a gate that closed in all the units. Matt’s eyes were taking that gate in when he finally spoke.
“The buildings in front look brand-new,” he noted, driving along the gate until they were in the parking lot. “How long did you say this place has been here?”
“At least a decade, I think.” She pointed in the direction opposite them. “The article said they’ve recently been renovating. I assume out that way are the older units since you can’t see them from the road. Still, there seems to be a lot of security here. At least around the gate.”
Maggie tilted her head to the side, trying to size up what she would do to get inside, which would basically entail breaking and entering.
“I’d probably cut a hole in the fence before I’d attempt to climb that sucker,” she said out loud. It earned her a questioning look from the detective. “I was just thinking about how I’d try to break in to this place. The answer would be cutting a hole somewhere in the fence. It looks like it’s almost eight feet tall. No way I’d climb that. I may be fearless but I’m not stupid. My clumsy self would fall and break something.”
Matt laughed and joined her looking out the windshield at the tall compound-like fence.
“But why would you break in if you have the key?” he pointed out.
“Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have the key in the first place?”
Matt sighed and started to get out of the car.
“I’m going to be really glad when we can hang out and not just sit and ask each other questions we don’t have the answers to.”
Maggie grinned.
“Are you telling me we’re going to hang out when this is all done with?” she teased. It was half-hearted. Her nerves were starting to mount. They’d already told the sheriff where they were going and had a car in the area just in case they needed help. But still, they’d thought they had a hold on everything earlier that week...right before they’d been bulldozed in the middle of an intersection. Sarcasm and teasing were an easy way to distract at least some of that tension. Plus, Maggie couldn’t deny there was some curiosity there, too. “What would you even talk to me about if you couldn’t question my motives?”
Matt snorted and led the way to the front door.
“I’d probably just tell you that you talk too much.” He grabbed the door handle and pulled. “Or finally just arrest you like I’ve always wanted.”
His lips had pulled up into a dazzling smile. Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised that her body seemed to take a moment to appreciate how good-looking the man was again. A warmth and longing started below her waist and moved across her body until the warning of an incoming blush made her move past the man inside. She hoped he hadn’t read the excitement in her expression. They didn’t have time for that.
Though Maggie was starting to come to the realization that she wouldn’t mind making time for it later.
The lobby of Danny’s Storage Facility wasn’t as sterile as she thought it would be. Instead of the whites and gray and shine on the outside, there was more warmth and color inside. Framed pictures of family members and employees hung on the walls, comfortable-looking furniture and a silver-haired woman standing behind a desk with a generous smile, all contributed to the warmth that was clearly lacking on the outside.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted. “Welcome to Danny’s! How can I help you two?”
Matt didn’t lead off by showing the kind woman his badge. Instead, he pulled out a smile that would make any woman’s knees weak. Maggie was amazed the older woman was still standing by the time they were in front of her.
“Howdy,” the detective greeted, amping up his Southern drawl. It was smooth and thick like peanut butter. Tasty. “I’m a detective with the Riker County Sheriff’s Department. My name is Matt Walker and this is my associate.” He motioned back to Maggie, omitting her name on purpose, no doubt.
The woman continued smiling and nodded to Maggie. If she recognized her, she didn’t show it in her expressi
on. Her focus zipped back to Matt.
“Nice to meet you two. How can I help you, Detective?”
“We heard about the break-in you reported this morning. We were wondering if you could tell us about that. We think it might be linked to a current case we’re working.”
The woman’s expression pinched. She twisted up like she’d tasted something sour.
“It’s the first time in ten years we’ve ever had something like this happen,” she started, riled up in an instant. “Someone breaking in to our legacy units.”
“Legacy units?” Matt asked.
“The units at the back of the facility that have been with us for years but have no one currently paying for them.” Her look of anger turned momentarily sheepish. “I won’t let my son Ralph empty any of them out. Some of those renters have been here since the beginning and, without them, we wouldn’t have been able to get to where we are now.”
A man walked out of the next room, cleaning his hands off with a paper towel. He shook his head but kept a smile on his face.
“Where we are now is my wife, Emily, putting in overtime to try to hunt down the owners of those units and telling them to pay up or lose their things. She’s been glued to the phone and internet at the house for weeks, trying to find people.” He walked up to Matt and nodded to them both. “A thankless job if I ever did hear one.”
“And you must be Ralph,” Matt guessed. The man nodded.
“They’re here about the break-in,” the woman explained. Just like that her earlier anger transferred to her son. He shook his head in disbelief.
“I guess it was only a matter of time before someone tried to break in, but it still gets my blood going,” he said.
“Do you know what was taken?” Maggie jumped in.
Ralph must have really taken a good look at her then. His eyes stuck to the cuts healing across her face. No amount of lipstick could distract from them.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he admitted. “We have thirteen legacy units and never kept stock of what was inside each. I wouldn’t even have known anything was taken at all if all the locks hadn’t been cut.”
Maggie couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Wait. All of the locks?”
Ralph nodded.
“All of the legacy units had their locks snapped off. With a bolt cutter, if I had to guess.”
Well, that put a wrench in their theory. If Maggie had a key to one unit then why would she have needed to destroy all of the locks?
“And the report said you found them this morning but suspect it happened last week?” Matt asked, no hint of confusion in his expression. He was keeping a tight lid on his thoughts in front of the strangers.
“Since working on the renovations on the front of the facility, we rarely go to the back.” Ralph motioned out the window that showed the tall fence. “We’ve added security cameras and a gate code to the front and haven’t had any issues of break-ins or vandalism since. The most trouble we get is someone trying to let their friends follow them in without reentering their gate code. And even then that’s not a big deal. The only reason I went back there was to help my wife try to track down the owners of the legacy units or their kin. Before today, the last time I had to go into those units was last Tuesday.”
“That’s—what—about eight days between now and then?” Matt asked. “Why do you think it was done Wednesday?”
The mother and son duo shared a look.
Embarrassment.
“Because that’s when we found the hole in the fence.”
* * *
MAGGIE COULD BARELY contain herself. She bounced from foot to foot next to Matt as they stood in front of the new portion of the storage facility’s perimeter fence.
“We didn’t make a police report because I was afraid it would hurt business.” Ralph rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable with the choice he had made. “When I did a pass-through to see if anyone was around, there was no one and I didn’t notice the locks had been broken. To be honest I didn’t look that hard at first in the back since no one goes there. Again, it wasn’t until my wife sent me after the legacy units that I saw the locks.” He sighed. “I made sure to include that in my statement today with the police. We also ordered more security cameras for the few weak spots we realized we had.” Matt glanced over at Maggie. Her eyes were wide, taking in the now-repaired fence.
The one she said she would have never climbed to break in. The one she said she would cut a hole in instead.
“Can we go see the legacy units now?” Matt asked.
“Sure thing.”
Ralph started to walk away but Matt held back enough to grab Maggie’s hand. She tore her eyes away from the fence.
“We still have questions,” he said, voice low. “Not answers. Okay?”
It took her a second but then she nodded.
They followed Ralph. It wasn’t lost on Matt that he held Maggie’s hand longer than necessary. He also couldn’t deny that if felt more right than he expected.
This case had been full of surprises, but Matt was starting to see it wasn’t just the facts that were throwing him. It was Maggie herself.
Or, really, how he felt when she was around.
“This starts the lot of them,” Ralph announced when they’d walked for a few minutes. It pulled Matt out of his head. “All legacy units are non-climate-controlled. The units on either side of the thirteen are empty. My brother is out getting new locks so, for now, they’re open.”
There were no clues outside the units that would lead them to any answers on why someone, possibly Maggie, would break all—or any, really—of the locks. The thirteen small units looked as normal as he would expect.
“Do you mind if we take a look inside them?”
Ralph shook his head.
“If these were normal units, I’d object, but seeing as no one has officially claimed them in years, have at it. Just please let me know if you want to take anything. Then we’ll have to get into the details. I’m going to go check a few other empty units. Holler if you need me.”
Ralph gave them space as Matt and Maggie started with the closest unit.
“Here we go,” Matt said beneath his breath, becoming tense. Maggie gave him a quick smile. It actually helped.
* * *
HALF OF THE units were filled with boxes of odds and ends that had once meant something to someone. It felt eerie in a way to look at someone else’s life, especially knowing that for whatever reason they hadn’t come back to get or see about their things. Maggie tried to be respectful as they looked around each space, seeing if something jumped out at her. Nothing seemed disturbed and no memories surfaced for Maggie.
“Maybe this really wasn’t you,” Matt said when they were done looking in the eighth unit. “Maybe we’ve just been itching for a new lead so we fabricated this one.”
He pulled an open box of trinkets closer to him. He peeked over the edge of the cardboard.
“There’s too many coincidences,” Maggie argued. She had to focus on not stomping out of the unit like some angry child. Her frustrations were starting to get the better of her.
Maybe Matt sensed that rising aggravation. He hung back as she went through the next unit. By the time she went to the twelfth, he had just gone into the tenth.
What if Matt was right?
What if they were creating more questions just because they couldn’t find their answers?
It was a thought that almost cost Maggie the very thing she was looking for.
Unlike the other units, this one was less cluttered and more on the empty side. A few pieces of old furniture, a metal cabinet with a lock and boxes without labels lined the walls.
Maggie’s attention zipped back to the lock. Her breath caught. It was the same type of lock that had been on the storage unit doors. But this on
e wasn’t cut.
“Because you don’t need to cut a lock when you have the key,” she whispered to herself.
She took a step closer, trying to remember anything that would tell her what was in the cabinet, when a box next to it pulled her focus away.
And then trapped it.
“Oh, my God.”
Maggie’s heartbeat sped up like a racehorse out of the starting gate. Her hands nearly shook as she picked up the picture frame she couldn’t take her eyes off or, rather, the picture in it.
“Did you say something?” Matt called out.
For the first time, Maggie felt like a fish out of water, gulping air while she tried to find the right words. At least the right way to say them.
They had finally found a lead. However, Maggie felt no joy in it. No excitement. Because, if she was right, there was a good chance that it was going to hurt the detective.
“Maggie?”
The concern in his voice only made her discovery that much more bittersweet, but she couldn’t hide it forever.
“I did.” She cleared her throat and spoke louder. “I found something.”
Maggie turned toward the opening, ready to look at Matt Walker and tell him she was standing in his late wife’s secret storage unit, when the calm breath she’d just claimed disappeared in a gasp.
Someone was standing in the walkway in front of the unit but it wasn’t Matt. It wasn’t even Ralph.
It was their mystery man.
He was smiling.
Though he could have been making faces and singing “Dixie,” and Maggie wouldn’t have cared. It was the gun he had pointed at her that made all the difference.
Chapter Seventeen
He was wearing clothes that were as average as they came, just as he had been the day he’d pummeled them with his truck. There were dark circles under his eyes and one heck of a bruise across his nose, but he seemed to be feeling better than they had been. Which probably meant he’d had his bullet wound in his shoulder doctored. He certainly didn’t seem to have any issues holding the gun on her.
“Detective, I think it would be best if you put down your weapon. Or this time I’ll do what the car crash didn’t to Ms. Carson here.”
Forgotten Pieces Page 13