Chapter 12 #2
She’d promised her brother she could babysit for a much-needed date night tonight, and it was the only thing getting her through the day.
Especially now that Archer had warmed up to her and no longer screamed his head off when she arrived at the house.
Lily had sent a text at lunch with Simon’s itinerary for the evening.
Her night would include monster trucks, books on construction vehicles, and an episode of Bluey. How cute was that?
Plus, she needed to figure this embezzling thing out soon. Anything had to be better than this.
Funny, she hadn’t minded going over Gary Donner’s financials with Michael a few nights ago.
Trying to piece together the man’s life had made it interesting.
And working with another person made it a million times better than this solo gig.
Not that they’d found anything special. Donner had spent more than he’d made and taken side jobs to help cover costs, but he’d never seemed to crawl out of the red.
Now she was back at SL and endless spreadsheets about payloads and cargo.
She rolled her chair closer to the door to see the open office area. Owen and Chris, the IT guy, had left already, but Shirley stood laughing at something Van had said.
As tempted as she was to see what was so funny, if Dani got caught up in whatever they were joking around about, she’d be stuck here even longer.
She had a face-to-face with Kumar tomorrow morning—she’d called it a dentist appointment on the PTO form—so she needed to make up the hours tonight.
Then she could rush to Josh and Lily’s and start her evening of auntie fun.
“Well”—Shirley’s voice carried over—“I’d better get. I’ve got a dog to feed.” She picked her leather purse off the desk.
“I’ll walk out with you,” Van said.
Lucky ducks.
Dani continued to plug in numbers from invoices and balance the columns while the little natural light that filtered in from the open office space diminished to almost nothing.
She still needed shop expenses from Campos to finish this last report.
Going back to her email tab, she found nothing in her inbox from him.
Ugh. She’d told him this morning that she needed them.
Maybe, like last time, he’d left them in the shop.
Once she got them, she could leave. She stepped outside the back door.
Brr. With the sun sinking behind the mountains, the temp had dropped drastically from the sunny sixty-eight degrees it had been earlier.
Dani pulled her sweater sleeves down over her hands and set a brisk pace to the shop.
The sooner she got those numbers and got out of the wind, the better.
She reached for the handle on the main entrance door, but it didn’t budge. Great. Locked, and she didn’t have a key. She jogged around the corner and stilled at the sound of a large diesel engine.
Well, that’s weird.
An RWM truck pulled out from behind the building. It wasn’t the typical garbage truck but a flatbed trailer with oil drums. Seemed late, though, for a pickup. Then again, she didn’t know the typical schedule. Maybe she’d ask Campos about it tomorrow.
Right now, she only needed his expenses.
Dani tried the first two truck-bay doors with no success.
Finally, on the third one, she caught a break.
The huge roller door was cracked open. She’d have to army crawl to get in, but she didn’t want to wait any longer.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t get oil stains on her jeans.
She lay on the freezing asphalt and shimmied under the door, then stood up inside and dusted off the dirt.
Now, Campos, where did you leave those expenses?
She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness permeating the building.
It was a completely different vibe, being here alone in the pitch black except for the red Exit signs.
She should’ve brought her phone for the flashlight, but she was already here now.
She kept her arms in front of her and slowly walked into the middle, where she wouldn’t trip over equipment.
An air compressor engine roared from the opposite side of the shop.
Dani jumped.
Come on, Kim. Get the numbers and get out.
She finally found Campos’s desk, but she couldn’t see which stack of papers she needed. Guess she could take all of them and return what she didn’t need. She reached down for them but stopped at the sound of quiet echoes.
Voices? Who would be here now? And what were they doing in the dark?
Of course, if it was Campos, he could get her the papers right now.
“Hello?” she called out. Like talking in a cave, her own voice bounced back to her.
Whatever she was hearing stopped. Maybe it hadn’t been voices. It could’ve been a radio or a machine. But there had been something.
She quietly wound her way around the standing toolboxes and shop equipment, toward the other end of the shop. The sound of metal hitting the concrete floor clanged loudly.
Okay, somebody was here.
Dani felt her way around a hydraulic lift and finally saw a faint glow from a semitrailer’s back door all the way at the other end of the shop.
It was only a sliver of light, but it was enough.
More sounds came from inside it. One of the workers could be in there and not able to hear her. She crept faster now. “Hello?”
She reached the cracked-open door of the trailer and swung it wider.
It was empty.
Suddenly, a shove from behind lifted her body and propelled her in.
“Should’ve stayed out of this, sweetheart.” The low grumble she barely caught came right before the doors closed—too late to warn her. She picked herself off the icy metal floor and pounded on the door. “Wait! Let me out!”
The air inside was even colder than the mountain wind. She pounded again and looked around. Ice crystals caked the corners of the insulated walls. She was in the reefer.
She kicked at the door and waited.
Nothing.
Whoever was out there had left her here to die.