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JAMES DIDN’T QUESTIONthe divine intervention. Instead, he grabbed Lainie’s hand and pulled her to her feet. He saw Cole rise, and they darted out into the fresh air while the smoke chased after them.
Lainie gagged and coughed while he did the same. Cole leaned on the unit opposite them, bending over with his hands on his knees, dragging in deep breaths.
Then James looked up to see the stunned face of a young man who couldn’t be more than eighteen years old. “Thank you,” James rasped.
“I ... I saw the smoke and called 911, then came out here to see where the smoke was coming from and heard you guys yelling in the unit. Then the pounding on the door.”
“You saved our lives, kid.”
“Someone locked you in there on purpose.” He held up a metal rod. “This was wedged in where the lock goes.”
“We can’t thank you enough,” Lainie said, her voice low and rough.
Sirens reached them and James nodded. “We’re going to have to file a police report, I guess.”
Lainie shot a look at the unit. “Well, I guess that takes care of having to figure out what to do with the stuff, but unfortunately, it means we won’t ever know if anything was in there that would help us discover what’s going on.”
“Maybe not,” Cole said. He still leaned against the unit, but swiped a hand across his face and pulled a folded stack of papers from his waistband.
Lainie walked over and James followed. “What is that?” she asked.
“About four months’ worth of bank statements. In Adam Williams’s name.”
Lainie nodded. “I’m sure there were a lot of old records and statements, bills, that kind of thing, in those boxes.”
“But this is interesting—”
The fire trucks and police arrived, cutting him off, and he indicated he’d continue after they finished what they needed to do at the scene.
James knew the officers, explained the situation, and while the firemen and women got to work putting the blaze out, they gave their statements, refused medical care, and were finally free to go.
Lainie looked at the storage unit one last time. “I guess we won’t be finding any fingerprints in there.”
James slid an arm around her shoulders, wishing he could take the burden from them. “No, probably not, but they’re pulling security footage, so maybe we’ll get something from that.”
“I’m not holding my breath.” She coughed. “Literally couldn’t if I wanted to anyway.”
“Yeah.”
Cole rubbed a hand over his head. “Wanna find someplace to grabsome food and look at this stuff? I want to show you what I found, but I’m also hungry.”
Lainie shuddered. “We smell like smokestacks.”
“Eh, I don’t care if you don’t,” Cole said.
“I care, but I can ignore it for a while.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it was only five minutes from when the fire started to our rescuer opening the door. It seemed like a lifetime.”
“Or two,” James muttered.
Finally, they were on the way to a local diner where the server wrinkled her nose before leading them to a booth. She set the menus in front of them. “This place is no smoking. If you need to light one up, feel free to step outside and around the corner. That’s the employees’ area, but you can use it.”
James noticed Lainie barely covered a snort, but Cole just smiled. “Thanks, but I think we’ve had enough of smoke for today. I’ll take the Cobb salad, a double cheeseburger, and a large, sweet tea.”
James and Lainie put their orders in and soon had their drinks. Cole shifted and pulled the papers out to spread them on the table. “Okay, these were mixed in with a pile of other papers shoved up under the desk in the back. Like they’d been dropped, then just pushed aside. But anyway, look at this.” He pointed to a deposit made three years ago. “That’s two thousand dollars there. Then down here”—he ran his finger down a few lines—“it’s withdrawn.”
He flipped the page. “This is the next month. Same thing. Same deposit date and same withdrawal date give or take a day or two, depending on how the weekend or holidays fall.” He went to the next month. “Again, the same.” He stacked the papers. “There are five months here. I’m guessing the other statements would have the same thing, but we could check with the bank to make sure.”
“Can we get a warrant for the bank records?” Lainie asked. “To see when the payments started and ended?”
