24. Tara
TARA
Xander pulled out of the parking lot, following the GPS directions to the storage facility.
We drove in silence, both lost in our own thoughts.
My hand found his on the center console, our fingers intertwining without discussion.
The simple contact anchored me as my mind raced ahead to what we might discover.
The storage facility appeared on our right after about twenty minutes—a sprawling complex of identical orange metal units baking under the sun.
A faded sign proclaimed “SecurStore Self Storage” above a small office building.
Xander pulled into a visitor spot, and we both stared at the rows of numbered doors stretching into the distance.
The woman at the front desk barely glanced up when we entered, focused on her crossword puzzle. An oscillating fan pushed hot air around the cramped office.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“We need to find Unit 218,” Xander said. “We have the key.”
She pointed a pen toward a map on the wall. “Row D, about halfway down.” Her eyes flicked to us briefly. “You have until six.”
Outside, we followed the lettered signs until we reached Row D. The units stretched before us, each identical to the last except for the numbers stenciled on the rolling doors. My heart hammered against my ribs as we counted down—222, 220, 218.
We stopped. The padlock hung from the latch, unremarkable and rust-spotted.
Xander held out the key. “You should do it.”
I took it, surprised by how heavy it felt in my palm. My fingers trembled slightly as I slid it into the lock. It turned with a reluctant click, and the padlock sprung open.
Xander lifted the door with a metallic rattle. The smell of dust washed over us. We stood side by side, peering into the gloom.
The unit was small, maybe ten by ten feet, and surprisingly empty. No towers of cardboard boxes or old furniture like I’d expected. Just a few plastic containers stacked in one corner, a folding table against the back wall, and on it, a single metal lockbox.
Our prize.
“There it is,” Xander said quietly.
We stepped inside, the concrete floor gritty beneath our shoes. The air was stifling, trapped heat making it hard to breathe. Xander pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight, illuminating the space more clearly.
I approached the lockbox slowly, as if it might disappear if I moved too quickly. It was military-style, olive green with a combination lock on the front.
“Shit,” I breathed. “We need a combination.”
Xander kneeled beside the table, shining his light across the dusty surface. “Check underneath. People always hide codes under things.”
I ran my fingers along the bottom of the table and felt a piece of tape. Peeling it back revealed a small slip of paper with four numbers: 1-9-6-7.
“Birth year, maybe?” I suggested, entering the digits into the lock. It clicked open on the first try.
Inside the box lay a single manila folder, labeled in neat block letters: “SWANSON, J. - ORIGINAL NOTES - DO NOT FILE.”
My throat constricted. I’d been building my entire life around finding Xander, confronting him, making him pay for what I thought he’d done to Jimmy. And now the truth was literally in my hands.
“I can’t—” I started, then stopped. “Can we look at it in the car? I need air.”
Xander nodded, understanding without explanation.
He took the folder, and I closed the lockbox, leaving everything else untouched.
We pulled the storage unit door down, replaced the padlock, and walked back to the car in silence, the folder clutched in Xander’s hand like a bomb that might detonate at any moment.
Once inside, the air conditioning washed over my flushed skin. Xander placed the folder on the console between us, neither of us immediately reaching for it.
“Let’s do this,” he said quietly.
I nodded, steeling myself. Then I picked up the folder and opened it.
The first page was a handwritten note on police department stationery:
Case #94-7821 - Fatal MVA - Swanson, James (deceased)
My hands shook as I turned the pages—a detailed accident reconstruction report with diagrams, measurements, and photographs.
Unlike the sanitized version in the official record, this one left nothing to the imagination.
The car’s path, the angle of impact, the position of the bodies afterward—it was all there in detail.
I forced myself to read every word, absorbing the technical language that painted a picture so different from what I’d believed:
No skid marks present for minimum 50 yards prior to impact point.
Acceleration marks indicate vehicle INCREASED speed before collision.
Driver’s side sustained catastrophic impact. Passenger protected by seatbelt and airbag deployment, and deliberate positioning of seat (fully reclined, maximum distance from dashboard).
Blood alcohol level of passenger (Alexander McCrae): 0.18%
Blood alcohol level of driver (James Swanson): 0.00%
The words blurred as tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away, determined to see this through.
The next page contained Morrison’s handwritten conclusion:
Based on physical evidence, witness statements, and scene analysis, the death of James Swanson was a deliberate act of suicide.
The positioning of the passenger seat, the lack of braking, and the acceleration marks all indicate the driver intentionally crashed the vehicle.
The passenger (A. McCrae) was unconscious at time of impact due to intoxication and was deliberately positioned by driver to minimize injury.
Final conclusion: Suicide.
The folder slipped from my fingers, papers spilling across my lap. A strangled sound escaped my throat as the truth crashed through twelve years of certainty.
Jimmy killed himself. He had deliberately ended his own life.
And my father had covered it up.
“Tara,” Xander said softly, his voice breaking through the roaring in my ears. “Tara, look at me.”
I turned to him, vision blurred by tears. “He did it on purpose,” I whispered. “Jimmy killed himself.”
Xander reached across the console and took my hands in his. They were warm and solid when everything else seemed to be dissolving around me.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Why?” The question tore from my throat. “Why would he do that? He wasn’t depressed. He wasn’t... there were no signs. I would have known. I would have seen it.”
How had I missed it?
“We were so close,” I said, my voice breaking. “I thought we told each other everything. But he was planning this, and I never saw it coming.”
Xander squeezed my hands. “Tara, you were sixteen. You can’t blame yourself for not recognizing signs that adults miss all the time.”
“But I should have known. I should have...” The words dissolved into a sob that I couldn’t suppress.
Xander unbuckled his seatbelt and awkwardly pulled me into his arms across the center console.
I buried my face against his shoulder, finally letting the tears flow freely.
He held me without speaking, one hand stroking my hair while I cried for the brother I’d lost twice—once to death, and now to the truth.
When the sobs finally subsided, I pulled back, wiping my face with shaking hands. “There’s more,” I said, picking up another page from the folder. “Read this.”
Xander took the paper—a statement from a witness who’d arrived at the scene moments after the crash:
I heard the impact and ran over. The dark-haired kid in the passenger seat was coming to. He was dazed but conscious. The other boy—the driver—was pinned behind the wheel, bleeding badly. I heard him say something to the passenger. Then he stopped breathing.
The paper trembled in Xander’s hands. “I thought I had imagined it. I was so drunk, and everything was hazy, but I remember now.”
His words sparked something in me. I flipped through the remaining pages until I found what I was looking for: a receipt stapled to a handwritten note.
Arrangements made with H. Swanson - a donation for discretion regarding manner of death.
“He knew,” I said, my voice hardening. “My father knew it was suicide, and he covered it up. He 'donated' to Morrison’s retirement fund for him to falsify the report.”
“Maybe to protect Jimmy’s memory,” Xander suggested. “A lot of families want to hide suicide.”
I shook my head, anger building. “But that’s n ot right. Blaming you when he knew it was a suicide.”
My father hadn’t just buried the truth about Jimmy’s suicide—he had deliberately used my brother’s death to drive away Xander.
“We’re going to expose him,” I said, my voice steady despite the hurricane of emotions inside me. “My father manipulated me, he manipulated you, he manipulated everyone. And he’s still doing it now, with this Brittany situation.”
Xander nodded, his jaw set with determination. “We take this to a lawyer first. Then we go public with it—all of it. The original police report, Morrison’s ledger entry, everything.”
“He’ll try to discredit us,” I warned, gathering the papers back into the folder with trembling hands. “He’ll say we fabricated the documents.”
“That’s why we need to talk to Morrison’s ex-partner, Miller. Get him on record corroborating that Morrison kept these kinds of records. And Valdez can verify the ledger’s existence too.”
We started formulating our plan as Xander pulled back onto the highway toward Miami. The truth was finally in our hands—a weapon we could use to right twelve years of wrongs.
Xander’s phone rang through the car’s speakers, interrupting our strategizing. Ben Carter’s name flashed on the display.
“Hey, Ben, what’s up?” Xander answered casually.
“Xander! Oh thank god.” Ben’s voice was breathless with panic. “I need help. It’s Diego—they took him!”
My stomach dropped at the fear in Ben’s voice.
“Whoa, slow down,” Xander said, immediately alert. “Who took Diego?”
“These guys he owes money to—he’s into them for like two hundred grand from gambling. They took him from the penthouse parking lot. There were three guys… they forced him into a van.”
Xander’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Have you called the police?”
“These guys will kill him if the cops show up.” Ben’s voice cracked. “But I heard one of them mention El Santuario. It’s this place in the industrial district where they run these high-stakes games. Diego wanted to take me there once. But I told him I didn’t gamble.”
“Text me the address,” Xander said without hesitation. “I’ll meet you there.”
He ended the call and I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re not actually thinking of going there.”
“I have to.” His voice was quiet but firm.
“This is crazy! These people kidnap guys over gambling debts,” I said, staring at the address. “We should call the police. Let them handle it.”
“The police won’t get there in time,” Xander said, his voice grim. “And they won’t have the leverage I might have.”
“What leverage?”
“I’m Xander McCrae,” he said simply. “I’m famous in latin circles. You know how they love football. I’m valuable. These guys might be criminals, but they’re still smart enough to know that killing or kidnapping a high-profile world-class player brings the wrong kind of attention.”
I wanted to argue, wanted to point out all the ways his plan could go wrong. But I could see the determination in his eyes. He wasn’t about to fail to save a teammate, no matter how much he disliked the man.
“Then I’m coming with you,” I said.
“Absolutely not.”
“You need backup,” I insisted. “You need someone with medical training in case Diego is hurt.”
Xander looked like he wanted to argue, but another glance at his phone—probably another panicked text from Ben—changed his mind.
“You stay in the car,” he said finally. “No matter what happens, you stay in the car and you call 911 if things go bad.”
I nodded, though we both knew that if things went bad enough to require police intervention, it would probably be too late for all of us.
Xander accelerated toward the industrial district, the precious folder secure in my lap. My father’s reckoning would have to wait—but it was coming.