Shift Work (Carus #4) (17 page)

“’Bout time!” Stan growled.

My mountain lion perked up and mentally swatted at him.

I grimaced and slammed the door shut, trying to ignore the loud shriek of rusted hinges. “If I’d realized you’d break every speed limit and traffic law on your way here, I would’ve left sooner. As it is, I’m fifteen minutes early. Bite me.”

“Is that what you say to your Vampire friends?”

The owl lady shuffled her feet.

I glared at Stan.

He narrowed his gaze.

Silence.

Stan grunted and nodded at the owl lady. “This is Mrs. Smith. She runs the place. She’s going to show us Loretta’s storage room.”

I jerked my chin as a hello. “Were you present when Loretta opened an account to rent the space?”

Stan rolled his eyes, and Mrs. Smith cast him a wary glance before shuffling her feet again. Nervous fumes wafted off her skin.

“Easy there, Ace,” Stan grumbled at me. “I’ve already asked Mrs. Smith questions. Including that one.”

“Oh,” I said. How much sooner had he arrived? From Mrs. Smith’s shaky limbs, it looked like she’d received a full interrogation. I squinted at Stan, and he puffed his chest out. So he’d intentionally arrived early to ask questions. Ones he wanted to hear the answers to alone. He must’ve been in PoCo when he called me. Rat bastard!

His mate
, my falcon squawked.

Fair enough. The bird had a point. I’d be a mess if anything… My eyes tingled, and I squeezed them shut. If something happened to Tristan, I’d be a mess. But after I recovered, I’d turn over every rock, burn every bridge, and break any rule necessary to get answers.

“Have you already checked the room, too?” I sighed. “If I got dressed for no reason, I’m going to be supremely pissed.”

“No,” Stan barked. “This way.”

We walked to the pedestrian door beside the security gate for vehicles, and Mrs. Smith keyed in four numbers—0814—before the security pad buzzed and the lock released. Loretta’s storage compartment was located at the far corner of the complex. As a small storage option, it sat beside six identical doors in the room. To access it, Loretta could drive up to the main room’s door, but she had to get out and walk into the main room to access her compartment. She paid $47.50 a month in cash and had never missed a payment during the last eleven months.

On her insurance form, she claimed the room stored personal items.

Mrs. Smith talked and talked, with a nervous quiver in her tone, but the truth of her words rolled over me. She might look cagey, but she hadn’t lied the entire time she walked us to Loretta’s storage room.

When we reached compartment 102, Mrs. Smith turned to us and handed Stan a plain gold key.

“I’ll leave you to go through your wife’s belongings.” Though she spoke to Stan, she stared at the floor. “My condolences for your loss.”

Stan grunted and gingerly plucked the key from the woman’s hands. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Smith nodded and ducked around us to scurry away.

Stan turned toward me. “What if it’s rigged?”

“Loretta’s storage compartment?”

Stan nodded.

I glanced at the orange door. “She was an administrative assistant, not an international spy. What the heck would she booby trap it with?”

Stan shrugged. “Loretta is…was…fuck!” He cleared his throat and looked away. His hands bunched into fists at his waist. “Loretta was always resourceful.”

I hesitated. Maybe I was closer to the truth than I realized. What if Loretta was a spy? I glanced at Stan’s expression as it closed off, but not before the same painful thought flashed across his face.

“Well, let’s get this done,” Stan grumbled before stepping forward.

I flung my arm out and stopped him. “Let me.”

With my nose against the seams of the door, I inhaled long drags of air, followed with short successive ones, to scent the room, its contents and the emotional traces left behind.

Loretta. Guilt. Fear.

No one else, and certainly no explosives. I snatched the key from Stan. As I turned the lock, my fera-heightened senses strained to pick up anything extra. Falcons and mountain lions lacked in the smelling department, but they had considerably better hearing. Other than the lock flipping into place, turning the key resulted in nothing suspicious. Clean. No triggers.

With a glance and a shrug at Stan, I stepped in front of him and pulled the door open.

Nothing happened.

Not sure what I expected, but last I checked, human shield wasn’t a Carus ability. I had bullet scars on my arm and ass to prove it.

A gust of stale air flowed from the room, and an old two-drawer filing cabinet and one storage box greeted us.

“A box?” Stan choked out behind me. “A box?”

His pissed off scent flowed around me, and I turned to see his face twist up.

“Mean anything?” I asked.

“She went to an awful lot of trouble to hide this box from me. There’s got to be three dozen in the attic, and I never fucking touch those. She knew that.”

We turned to the small room, and I hesitated to walk in farther. This was Stan’s business.

“You first,” I said. Despite wanting to discover Loretta’s secret, find her killer, and get to the bottom of the possible KK link, Stan needed to unearth this mystery.

Stan pulled surgical gloves out of his pocket and tossed a pair at me before putting on his own. I mimicked his actions. Guess he wasn’t completely throwing out “the book.”

Stan cleared his throat and stalked passed me. His shoulders bumped mine, but the small space made body checking inevitable. He didn’t do it on purpose. I think.

After squatting beside the mysterious box for a few minutes, Stan took a deep breath and flipped the lid off with a stiff index finger. His shoulders tightened, and his back straightened. He growled.

My mountain lion pushed forward, wanting to shift and protect. I shushed her, but she refused to settle, instead, she paced back and forth, put on edge by Stan’s aggressive posture and angry scent.

He dipped his hand in the box and pulled out a wad of white shredded paper.

“Are you kidding me?” I lunged forward and looked in the box. Sure enough. Stuffed full of machine-shredded office paper. The smell of bulk toner lingered in the box.

“She always liked puzzles,” Stan grumbled.

We exchanged a glance and then went back to staring at the tangle of paper.

“A bit extreme for a hobby,” I said. “It will take days to piece this crap together.”

Stan nodded and shoved the lid back on. “I’ll give it to the forensics department. There’s a few puzzle geeks on the team who’ll get a hard-on trying to put this back together.” He straightened and turned to me. “What does it smell like?”

I shrugged. “Nothing of note. Smells like an office. Paper, pens, and whatnot. A few people, other than Loretta, but no one I know, and no emotional imprint. Either the shredders are sociopaths, or they had no idea what was being disposed.”

“Or they wore gloves.”

My mouth clamped shut, and I nodded. If they’d been really emotional, their scents would still linger on the paper, but no point in debating the finer aspects of blood hound-ery to Stan.

“What about my wife?” Stan asked.

“Loretta’s scent is the freshest, and she was scared when she collected it.”

“Afraid of getting caught.” Stan’s voice remained factual, but his jaw clenched, and his hands balled into fists again.

“Where’d she work again? In an office, right? Tancher Pharmaceuticals?”

Stan froze and turned to me.

“The more we learn, the more I think Loretta’s death had nothing to do with you as a cop and everything to do with what she hid from you.”

Stan’s gaze cut away. “The thought crossed my mind as well.”

“But?”

“But, it doesn’t shake this…feeling. Her… What happened to her is on me. She should’ve told me. She should’ve confided in me,”

“Maybe she wanted to protect you.”

“I SHOULD’VE PROTECTED HER!” Stan bellowed. “Me!” He thumbed his chest and then his voice cut off in a strangled cry. “Me…”

His shoulders shook as he turned around and stomped out of the storage room. I let him go. He needed some time. I ached to take his pain away, but a hug from me, no matter how well intended, wouldn’t go down well right now. What the heck was the point of being the big bad Carus if I couldn’t help my friends?

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and turned to the filing cabinet. One yank and the drawer flung open, nearly knocking me on my ass.

Empty.

Fucking hell.

After shutting the cabinet gently, I opened the bottom drawer.

Also empty.

“Fuck!” I jumped to my feet and threw my foot forward, booting the cabinet across the small space and into the wall.

Sharp pain radiated from my toe, and I bit my lip to prevent howling. The cabinet dented the drywall, and the front end fell heavy against the floor.

Then something metal slid inside the cabinet.

My eyes narrowed.

With supe strength, I hauled the cabinet to me and wrenched open the drawers, while holding it on an angle. Still empty.

I tilted the cabinet.

Swish…

Again, metal sliding on metal.

I tiled the cabinet forward.

Swish…

My heartbeat thudded in my ears. Could this be it? The key to solving everything? Hoisting the cabinet to head level, I planted my ear against the cool metal and repeated the process.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Stan demanded.

I yelped and almost dropped the cabinet. Taking a deep breath, I ignored him and repeated the tilting process.

Bottom drawer.

I set the cabinet down and ripped out the bottom drawer. When I flipped the drawer over, the fluorescent light above revealed no second compartment. No room for any false bottoms. My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to find something. For Stan.

Loretta’s scent clung heavily to the drawer. After I flung it to the side, I turned to sniff out the rest of the cabinet and froze.

A black object reflected light from a cut out groove on the bottom of the compartment, the one used to house the bottom drawer.

A phone.

An ultrathin one. I reached in, picked it up, and rocked back on my heels. The plastic of my gloves stuck to the sleek surface like super-grip dish gloves. The phone smelled of Loretta and no one else. I powered it on and after the brand logo, a password screen appeared.

I glanced over at Stan, expecting him to be leaning over my shoulder, mouth-breathing on my neck, but he squatted a few feet away, rummaging through the shredded paper box.

“Look at this,” he said, before I had a chance to announce my find.

How could he miss it? I’d been dancing the salsa with his deceased wife’s filing cabinet. I held my breath, clutched the phone and closed the distance to hover beside my friend.

He’d pieced together a few strands of paper to make out a header, or some sort of logo.

It looked familiar.

An oval with two feather-like drawings separated by two crude parallel lines and a company name. It resembled an Egyptian hieroglyph.

My stomach sank.

A hieroglyph much like the one tattooed on the inside of Aahil’s wrist.

“Interesting…” I said. Good thing Stan couldn’t detect the waves of unease leaking out my pores. Maybe there was a connection between Loretta’s death and the KK dealers after all…But what? Had Loretta’s death been caused by Stan’s involvement with the KK investigation, or because of something Loretta had been up to?

“It’s the logo for Tancher Pharmaceuticals.”

Huh.
My mind reeled to connect the dots with the new information. The logo was from the company Loretta worked for, not the KK dealer. Many hieroglyphs had a similar appearance, and Tancher Pharmaceuticals was a company in the Lower Mainland. Maybe that’s why the logo looked familiar.

My brain convulsed as the niggling feeling from earlier returned.

Did Aahil have some sort of connection with the pharmaceutical company?

I pursed my lips and racked my brain for a mental image of the dealer’s tattoo. But the harder I tried to focus on the memory, the blurrier it became until the image slipped away.

Stupid brain.

I’d kill for an upgrade to an identic memory right now.

Stan looked up at me, the tattered shred of paper delicately held in his two upturned palms. With wide eyes and upturned brows, Stan’s expression morphed into one of almost hope. The best thing I’d seen on his face since Loretta’s death.

Maybe I’d keep my mouth shut and pay Mr. Aahil the dealer a visit to confirm or dismiss my suspicions. Stan teetered so close to the edge right now, I didn’t want to push him over with a shoddy memory, not when it might incite a cop versus gang shoot out.

“Why would she keep shredded documents from her work in a personal storage locker?” I asked.

Stan’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t know. Do you have anything better?”

I held Loretta’s secret phone up and waved it a little. “You bet I do.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“I needed to run away with Tristan to a tropical beach with whiskey.”

~Andy McNeilly

The rush of adrenalin and motivation quickly seeped from my veins with each attempt and failure of Stan’s to unlock Loretta’s phone. He tried birthdays and anniversaries, but nothing worked, and his momentary reprieve from depression crashed back, physically weighing down his shoulders. I watched his body language slump and finally ripped the phone from his hands.

“There’s nothing special about this phone,” I said. “Let your tech group handle this. It won’t take long for them to crack it.”

Stan nodded, took the phone back, and bagged it. After we moved out of the storage room, he taped up the door with official crime scene tape he grabbed from his car. We walked in silence to the entrance of the storage compound. Stan said a gruff goodbye before flopping into his cruiser and driving away.

With no reason to hang around, I popped my head in the office to thank Mrs. Smith. “We’re leaving now,” I said. “Thank you for letting us in.”

Her owly face popped up from behind the counter. “You’re welcome, dear. Any idea when the VPD will release the storage locker?”