Chapter Seventeen
“Now what?” I ask as we sit in the car just outside of the factory.
We’re in some small town in the middle of nowhere. The only thing of any size is the factory that is bordering the edge of the town limit. Even at this time of night, the place is in full swing, but there’s nothing marking it as suspicious in any way.
If this was a movie, there’d be a fence and guards wandering around with vicious dogs at their heels.
Nope. There is just a mundane building sitting in a mundane town.
The only area that has a fence is where the semi-trucks and trailers are parked in the back, probably just to keep people out of them as they sat and waited for the next shipment.
“Anything interesting or unusual?” Lane asks.
“No…all of the man-doors are open,” I note.
“It’s probably hot in there,” Lane says. “A lot of people working?”
“I don’t know, maybe if we get out and walk the sidewalk along it, I can see inside better. There are…maybe three or four people outside on break. You think they’re making drugs here?”
“Could be. It’d be an ideal spot for it. Places like this already deal with chemicals to clean, so hauling things in for drugs could be simple to do. It’s right in the middle of town, so people aren’t going to suspect that anything unusual is going on.”
“That’s true…do…we walk by it?”
“Is there a sidewalk along it?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Alright, let’s go,” he says as he opens the car door. “Bring Copper, we’ll look less suspicious.”
“Okay,” I say as I get out of the car.
I pull open the back door and Copper wags his tail as I snap his leash on. He hops out and we walk around to the other side of the car where Lane is waiting. I reach out and slide my hand into his before giving him a tug. He follows me as I cross the desolate street and head toward the factory.
“What if I went and asked someone to use a bathroom or something? Snooped a bit?” I ask.
“The issue is that they’re not going to make it easy to find. If this is an actual drug operation, there isn’t going to be a door with a sign on it saying, ‘drugs made down here.’”
“There might be,” I joke.
“Yeah, trust me, we’re not that lucky,” he says.
“Then…what are we even doing?” I ask. “I feel like part of it is that you don’t want to get me involved, but what are we going to do? Walk a circle around the place? Hope they get so tired of seeing us walk around that they feel bad and just tell us what’s going on?”
Lane is silent for a moment as we wait for a street light to change so we can cross.
Since there isn’t anyone in the area anyway, we probably could have crossed whenever, but I didn’t think it was wise to talk about drugs as we circled the building.
Or maybe we would draw their attention and they’d feel bad for us and give us the information.
“Just be my eyes, alright? As you walk around, look for anything out of place. I don’t care what it is. Someone that doesn’t look like they fit. I don’t care. Just look,” he says.
“Okay,” I say as I head across the road. We slowly walk, with me on the right side, so I can gawk easier. “It looks like they’re having a swingers’ party inside.”
“Does it?” Lane asks in mock surprise.
“Everyone’s naked.”
“Everyone?” he asks.
I laugh. “No…but there’s a man and woman outside the door.”
The woman is smoking, and the man is on his phone as we walk toward them. She glances up and watches us, making me wonder if I should let go of Lane’s hand. There’s probably not too much of that kind of thing in this area.
“Your dog is adorable,” she says, and I notice she has a thick accent.
I smile at her. “Thank you,” I say. “Do you want to pet him?”
She nods and puts her cigarette out on the walkway she is sitting on before tossing it.
I move down the walk toward her as I notice the man looking up from his phone. He seems disinterested as he puts his phone away and heads back into the building.
“Aw, he’s adorable,” she says as she kneels.
Copper walks up to her as she reaches a hand out. I notice her fingers are a little unsteady as she reaches for him before sinking them into his fur.
“What’s his name?”
“Copper,” Lane says. “Do you have any dogs?”
She shakes her head slowly. “No…I used to…I miss them,” she says.
“You should get yourself one,” Lane says with a charming smile. “Everyone needs one of these buds to keep them company.”
She smiles as she looks up at him. “I wish. We have such long hours here though.”
“I hate that. I just got off work myself. Thought I’d take the dog for a walk before going down for the night. I always prefer walking at night…there’s something calming about it.”
She nods. “Yeah, I could see that,” she says as she flattens Copper’s ear with a stroke of her hand.
“I heard some crazy ruckus going on a few days ago when walking by here. I was worried something happened,” Lane says.
Her eyes snap up to his before returning to the dog. “Was there? Must have been in the loading department. When you’re inside that place with all those machines running, it’s hard to hear what’s going on. I wonder what happened though.”
“Me too, but I guess it’s not a big deal as long as no one was hurt, right?” Lane says.
She smiles, but the look is unnatural now. “Well…I need to get back from break. I’m already a minute late. Thanks for letting me pet him.”
“Of course,” Lane says. “Maybe we’ll come this way again sometime, so you can see him.”
“That would be nice,” she says as she stands up. “Have a good night.”
She hurries back into the building, so we head back for the sidewalk.
“What was her expression? I could tell there was a difference in her demeanor after I mentioned it,” Lane says.
“She looked kind of startled,” I say.
“Anything unusual about her?”
I think about it for a moment. “Not really…”
“What was her race?”
“Maybe Hispanic? I don’t know,” I say. “She definitely had a Spanish accent, but I don’t know what dialect.”
He nods. “Alright, let’s keep walking.”
I continue around the building with Lane beside me and Copper leading the way. His tail never stops wagging as he sniffs the ground.
“We’re passing the trucks. They’re fenced in, but it doesn’t look like anything unusual.”
“Did the website state which areas it served?”
“I think just surrounding counties,” I say.
“Is the gate open?”
“No, it’s closed,” I say as we near it. It looks like there is a chain around it, but as we grow closer, I realize the chain doesn’t seem to be locked. “It’s not locked though.”
“Let’s go in there. Any windows or doors where we can be seen easily?”
“A few windows that look like they lead to an office area, but they’re dark. There’s a door that’s open though…I can see people wandering around, but no one near it.”
“Alright, quiet as you can, unchain the gate and head in.”
I go over to the gate and find that “quiet as you can” and “chain” don’t fit together very well. As soon as I pick up the chain, it clangs against the metal gate, and Lane turns to me in alarm.
“Quiet,” he says.
“Sorry, I forgot what that means,” I say sarcastically as I gather the chain into one hand before feeding it through the gate as quietly as I can.
Once it’s free, I set the chain in the grass and slowly pull the gate open before leading Lane through it. “What are we doing?”
“Pick a truck that can’t be seen very well from the open door.”
“Okay…” I say as I head over to the furthest one. Who knows what Lane has planned.
“On the sleeper compartments of some cabs, there will be a little side door. Quite often, they get left unlocked. See them?”
I pass the passenger door and reach a little side door just beyond it. “Yeah?”
“Okay, what I want you to do is climb in through that door—”
I stare at the tiny door on the side of the cab before looking back at him. “I can’t fit through there!” I say, but he gives me an apologetic expression.
“I’m sorry, Felix…but with your little dwarf limbs you can,” he says.
“I’ll help you through it. Once inside, you are going to be under the bed.
Head toward the front of the truck, there’s usually a little flap there that you need to push through, and then you’ll be in the cab.
I want you to look around for a little book.
It’s called a driver’s log and it’s something a semi driver has to fill out, stating things like when they’re resting, where they’re going, and when they left.
Rip the last page out of it and write down every city and state they have headed to that is not within thirty miles of here. ”
“Yeah…I really don’t even know what ‘here’ is so sure, this will be easy.”
“Here’s my phone. Don’t turn the flashlight on until you are in the bed of the cab, then pull the curtain shut, so no light comes through.”
“Were you a truck driver in a past life?” I ask, wondering where he received all this knowledge about trucks from. “Sexy truck driver. We could roleplay that if you want? Oh…trucker, no! Don’t bend me over—”
“What? Just go!”
Lane interlocks his hands together as I open the small compartment door.
Stepping onto his hands, he boosts me up, so I can crawl through the open door.
Sadly, I’m able to pull myself inside without even a struggle.
I thought I would have to wiggle around a bit to get through the opening, but nope, I slip right inside.
My first impression is that it’s dirty and smells like feet.
I find the source of the smell as I knock a pair of disgusting shoes out of the way as I reach out and feel the flap.
I weasel my way through it and into the cab.
The nearby streetlight is bright enough that I can look around and see well enough to make out shapes.