Page 77 of All the Ways You Save Me
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’tallbe 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 fullof 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.
FORTY-SIX
PRESENT DAY
Madeline
Garrett sucks in a breath and releases me abruptly. “This is it.”
I turn around, following his gaze to the top shelf, where the boxes look exactly like all the other boxes we’ve opened tonight. “How do you know?”
The warehouse shelving is high, and Garrett can’t quite grab what he’s reaching for. He shines his light around the room, finds a step stool a few feet away, and drags it over. He climbs up and passes the box down to me.
I stare at a normal-looking cardboard box that’s maybe a cubic foot in volume. It’s heavy, like a box of books, and the contents shift slightly as I back up so Garrett can climb down.
“This.” He holds his light close to the swirly red logo. “This was on the boxes we used to transport. If there’s cocaine in this warehouse, I bet it’s in here.”
I set the box on the ground as if there’s an actual spider perched on the cardboard. Garrett’s lips quirk at my reaction as he carefully lifts two more boxes with similar logos and passes them to me. I quickly line up all three on the floor in frontof us.
I point to the first box. “That one looks like it was opened already.” Someone has peeled the tape up and stuck it back down. Garrett chooses that box, slowly tugging the tape up again, and my chest squeezes with hope that this is our chance to finally be free.
He pulls open the flaps, revealing two neat stacks of tightly packed black plastic, and for a moment, I’m afraid we’ve found more computer equipment. But then I look closer and realize they’re brick-shaped objects wrapped in thick contractor bag material that shines under Garrett’s phone light. He pulls one out, weighing it in his hand.
My breath catches. “Is that—” I was expecting Ziploc bags of white powder.
“Cocaine?” He nods. “Probably. I’m sure they wrap it well, so it doesn’t shift around and leak out.” He sets the package back down in the box. “Let’s open these other boxes and take photos.” He carefully tugs up the tape on the other two boxes, and I snap pictures with my phone. We’re about to close them up when he pauses with his hand on the first box. “There’s a package missing from this one.”
“What?” I lean in to look, and he’s right. The two other boxes are packed all the way to the top, but the third has a space where the package should be.
I do a slow circle, looking for it on the floor, but Garrett grasps my arm. “That’s the one that looked like it was already open. The tape was peeling up, and the contents moved when I handed it you.”
I remember the weight shifting. “Someone must have taken one of the bricks out. We should pack this stuff and get out of here. We have enough evidence to show the authorities.” I bend over to smooth the tape back onto the cardboard.
“No.”
I look up. “What do you mean?”
Garrett frowns. “Maybe we have enough to show the authorities to implicate Waylon. But what about Jason?”
Even in the semi-darkness, I can see a shadow drift across his face.
“If Jason is willingly working with Waylon… I need to know.”
My heart aches at the pain in his eyes. When we were teenagers, Garrett believed that his best friend saved him, and when given the opportunity, he saved Jason right back. But what if Jason wasn’t just a dumb kid after all? What if he knowingly put us at risk and let Garrett take the fall?
