Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
PRESENT DAY
Garrett
Madeline doesn’t need to direct me to the warehouse where Jason works because I’ve been there dozens of times before. It’s where I dropped off dry cleaning and delivered sushi and unknowingly picked up box after box packed with cocaine.
After Jason left, Madeline and I decided that if we couldn’t include him in our plan, we’d have to find proof of Waylon’s illegal activity on our own. A part of me is holding out hope that maybe Jason isn’t involved and something in this warehouse will prove it.
We hide the car in an alley down the street. Madeline reaches for her door handle, but I put a hand on her arm to stop her. “What if someone is in there? I think you should let me go in alone.”
She shakes her head. “Waylon is never there at night. If Jason works late, it’s usually just his assistant Layla who stays, too.”
I remember the guys who used to hand me packages to deliver out the back door, and I wonder if that’s Layla’s job now .
“If she’s in there, she’ll know me,” Madeline continues. “I can pretend that Jason left something, and I came by to pick it up. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than her encountering a strange man all alone.”
We approach the building on foot, and I keep an eye out for security cameras.
I don’t remember there being any ten years ago, but I wasn’t really looking, and times have changed.
There’s nothing mounted on the brick walls around the building, though, and I wonder if they don’t want evidence of what’s coming and going.
We enter the space using the key card Madeline took from Jason and step into a dark, quiet lobby.
“That’s where Layla sits,” Madeline whispers, nodding at the desk. “I don’t think anyone is here.” The hallway behind the lobby is pitch black, so we use our phone lights to find our way.
“I think we should look for a storage area,” I whisper. “Somewhere that they’re keeping the drugs until they send them out with their delivery drivers. That’s the kind of evidence the authorities are going to want.”
Madeline gestures to a row of doors. “These are the offices, so I think the storage is back here.”
We come to a metal door at the end of the hall, but it’s locked. Thankfully, Jason’s key card opens it, and we enter into a spacious warehouse area lined with floor-to-ceiling steel shelving stacked with cardboard containers of all shapes and sizes.
Madeline blows out a heavy breath. “They can’t all be drugs, right?”
I shine a light at the first row of boxes.
They’re bigger than the ones I used to deliver, and when I lift one, the contents shift.
“It’s a tech distribution company, so it makes sense that they’d have that sort of stuff here as a front.
I’m betting they’re running this place as a legit business and hiding the drug money in their books. ”
Gently tearing away the tape, I find the box is full of circuit boards.
I smooth the tape down and put the box back on the shelf.
We work our way down the line, peeking in different-sized boxes and coming up with connectors and cables and electronic devices that I can’t identify, but that also look legit.
After probably twenty boxes, Madeline slumps back against one of the shelving units.
“We could literally be here all night. This warehouse is huge, and it’s all just this junk. What if nothing is here? Maybe they store it somewhere else now. If we can’t find any proof that Waylon is doing anything illegal, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
I’m starting to worry, too, but I don’t want to add to her stress. I slide the box I’m holding back on the shelf and walk over to wrap my arms around her. “If it’s not here, we’ll figure something else out.” I pull her against my chest, resting my chin on the top of her head.
And that’s when something on the very top shelf behind her catches my eye. A logo on one corner of a box, so small I wouldn’t have registered it if I hadn’t seen it dozens of times before. It’s a series of red circles that, if you look really closely, vaguely come together to resemble a spider.
I’ll never forget that logo for as long as I live. It was on every otherwise nondescript box I set in the back seat of my Bronco and drove across state lines.