“Could be super valuable stuff maybe? Crimes of opportunity don’t happen when you have to drive an hour to break the lock on a storage unit.” Lily pulled out some papers. “From what I can tell, she paid for the most expensive unit. Climate-controlled, antipest, you name it. What would you need all that storage for?”
“A comic book collection. I had a client years back who kept all his comics in a space like that. Kind of sad when he died—they quickly became money that his heirs fought over. Not a single one of them gave a damn about the golden age of comics.” Beth tapped the steering wheel, ignoring the sound of Lily slurping fry sauce straight from the container. At what point did materialism become an unhealthy obsession? She remembered his face but not his name, the comic collector. He hadn’t visited his comics in over a decade, wanted to keep them in mint condition. But for what? She still remembered handing the check over to his children from the sale of the collection. Not a tear had been spared for their father, and they hadn’t even bothered looking to see if there was something in his collection they would want.
It made her sad, thinking about how people treated their property. If you locked it away to keep it safe, could you ever truly enjoy it?
“Up ahead,” Lily said, pointing at a large concrete wall that appeared as if by magic. The road curved dramatically in places, and they found themselves in front of New Castle Storage Solutions.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Beth muttered, forgetting she had an impressionable intern inside of the car. The front of New Castle Storage Solutions had been designed to look like an actual castle because it had originally been built for a failed Renaissance festival. Tiny red flags still flew at the tops of the buttresses, and the gate was open, ready to accept moving trucks of all sizes. The old signs for the festival were still up, cleverly altered by someone with basic knowledge of paint and a cheap woodburning kit. Beth had forgotten all about the place—yet another memory she never had any need for.
“I kind of like it,” Lily offered, startling Beth out of her reverie.
Grabbing her briefcase, Beth got out of the car, followed closely by Lily. They walked along a path that took them to a side building labeled Captain of the Guard.
A disinterested twentysomething sat in the air-conditioned building, his gaze on a set of monitors that revealed that there was a whole lot of nothing going on. In the monitors, Beth saw the parking lot. Except for a few trucks parked near the back, hers was the only one in the lot.
“Can I help you?” he asked, swiveling in his chair. His dangling name tag revealed that his name was Randy.
“Hello, my name is Beth, and I am an estate agent for a Mr. Mike Radley.” Beth handed over her card. “There is a storage unit in the possession of a previous client of mine who passed away. You see, her estate made arrangements to pay for all her rental fees, and I was wondering if I could get some information from you regarding the potential illegal sale of some of these items.”
When Randy didn’t respond, she realized he was staring at her tits. “Hey, eyes up here.”
“Yeah, you kind of lost me there for a second. Are you some kind of lawyer or something?” Randy asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“I’m afraid that’s my boss’s department.” Randy’s eyes lit from within, a mischievous grin crossing his lips. “You’re gonna have to speak to him.”
“Where is he?” Beth asked.
“He’s on a cruise with his wife. He’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”
“I don’t have a couple of weeks,” Beth told him, narrowing her eyes.
“Yeah, well I’m not risking my job over it.” Randy turned his attention back to the monitors.
“How about if I get the cops involved?” Beth threatened. “I do have a legal right to my client’s records.”
Randy slid his phone toward her. “His name is Buttweasel in my contacts, but you should call him Eric, or maybe just sheriff. Feel free to have him come out; I haven’t seen him since Fourth of July when we had dinner at Grandma’s house.”
Beth stared at the phone, clenching her hands. She wanted to pull Randy across the counter and scream in his face but didn’t feel like getting arrested by a guy who went by the nickname Buttweasel.
Lily laid a calming hand on Beth’s shoulder. “Why don’t you head outside? I’ll see what I can do,” she said with a wink.
Beth rolled her eyes, then stormed out of the office to wait in the yard.
Mike stumbled again, placing his full weight on Zel’s withers. He stood still for a few moments, sucking in deep breaths.
“How are you feeling?” Zel looked back at Mike over her shoulder.
“Kinda shitty,” he admitted. Already, he had a strong urge to ask her for more of that recovery potion. “I’ll be fine for a few minutes, and then my body just wants to give out.”
“That’s your cells going through a refractory period,” Zel explained. “Since your body is regenerating so rapidly, you’ll get hit with brief periods of time where the energy inside you isn’t converting fast enough.” She stuck her hand in one of the many bags she had strapped to her body. “You are burning fat to replace what you have lost, but you don’t really have all that much fat to lose. Eat this.” She put a thick block into his hand.
“What is this?” Mike asked.
“Energy bar. I keep a stash of these on hand for emergencies. You should eat half of it now. That should help with the fatigue.”
Mike inspected the energy bar. It looked like
