Chapter 13 - Unit 412
The rain had turned into a slicing, horizontal sleet by the time I reached the industrial strip on North Dixie Highway.
The storage facility was surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with rusted coils of razor wire. Security floodlights cast harsh, yellow halos through the freezing mist. A solitary security camera rotated on a metal pole above the automated keypad.
I rolled down my window, typed the eight-digit code from Bonnie’s receipt, and held my breath.
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
The heavy metal gate groaned, sliding open along a rusted iron track.
I drove my crossover between the narrow rows of corrugated blue garage doors, my headlights reflecting off oily puddles.
*408... 410... 412.*
I killed the headlights and the engine, plunging the row into shadows.
Unit 412 was a double-wide bay at the far end of the facility, shielded from the main entrance by a cinderblock retaining wall. A heavy brass Master Lock hung through the steel latch.
I pulled Derek’s workshop keys from my pocket.
The third key—a small, silver Yale blank—slid into the cylinder with a satisfying, oily click.
I pulled the padlock off, grabbed the steel handle at the bottom of the roll-up door, and heaved it upward.
The metal door rattled loudly as it rolled into the ceiling track.
I clicked on my heavy Maglite flashlight, sweeping the beam across the concrete interior.
I had expected furniture. I had expected boxes of Derek’s old hunting gear, or maybe construction supplies skimmed from his job sites.
Instead, the beam illuminated three rows of industrial steel shelving.
On the shelves sat dozens of clear plastic storage totes, each labeled with professional, printed barcode stickers:
*BENTON MEDICAL LOGISTICS — REGION 4.*
*ST. JUDE MEMORIAL — PEDIATRIC VENTILATOR VALVES.*
*OHIO HEALTH — DEFIBRILLATOR HARNESSES (LOT 884).*
The air vanished from my lungs.
These weren't construction materials.
This was medical equipment. Specialized, life-critical diagnostic and surgical hardware stolen from the regional supply warehouses I managed for my employer in Columbus and Dayton.
My company had launched an internal fraud investigation four months ago after nearly four hundred thousand dollars in high-end surgical inventory vanished from our regional transit hubs. I had spent weeks filling out compliance audits, terrified that my division would be blamed for the supply chain leak.
Derek had been using my security clearance codes.
He had access to my company laptop, my digital key-fobs, and my delivery schedule. He knew exactly which transit warehouses were unmonitored between midnight and 4:00 a.m. on the weekends I was traveling for training seminars.
And sitting against the back wall, under a grey canvas tarp, was a wooden shipping crate addressed to an export freight forwarder in Miami, Florida.
The recipient line: *Vance International Holdings.*
Footsteps splashed in the puddle behind me.
I spun around, pointing the blinding beam of the Maglite toward the open bay door.
Standing in the freezing rain, silhouetted against the facility’s yellow security light, was Derek.
He wasn't wearing his Carhartt jacket. He wore a long black wool overcoat, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Behind him, parked in the shadows with its engine idling silently, was Vanessa Vance’s black sports car.
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“You always were too smart for your own good, Mara,” Derek said, his voice flat, carry-ing easily over the hiss of the rain. “I told Arthur you’d find this place. He didn't believe me, but I knew.”
***
