Time: 10:23
Forensics finally fucking emailed me the full report on Virna Musgrave’s car. Our boy Tavish may have made his first mistake. I don’t care if Grace Green thinks the sun shines out of his ass—he did this, and I’m going to nail him for it.
Chapter 43
There was no sign of life anywhere inside the echoing vastness of the warehouse, and I realized the stupidity of my entire plan about two minutes into my heart-pounding run through the long alleyways between metal racks stacked up to the ceiling with various goods. Purple toasters, sleek white heat pumps, and an endless array of table lamps of every variety, a blur of shiny boxes peopled by perfect faces.
The place was too damn big and too damn dark. Bobby could be standing one rack over and I’d never know it. But even more important—there was nowhere to hide in here. No special office as I’d imagined. Bobby couldn’t have stayed here without being spotted, and there was no way countless employees would’ve kept his presence a secret.
Giving up, I was about to run back and out before I was busted when I spotted the small room tucked into the back right corner of the warehouse. Unlike the pickup area out front, this one was a full cube, with a door and windows. Sweat sticking my T-shirt to my skin under the hoodie, I turned the handle on the door.
It opened with ease.
Pushing my way inside, I looked around for anything that mightbe helpful. Invoices littered the desk, anchored by a mug still half-full of a thick black liquid that might’ve been coffee. Yellow sheets of paper sat on another end, carbon copies of the delivery drivers’ logs. More papers were stuffed into the filing cabinets in back, while files sat spine out behind the desk.
I frowned, my eye caught by the red lettering under the mug.
I carefully moved the mug to another pile. Even if I forgot to move it back, there was no chance the person who worked here would remember exactly how they’d left this mess of a desk.
OVERDUE!
That was the red stamp, the edge of which I’d glimpsed. On its own, it didn’t mean much. Even businesses this big sometimes slipped. A human input error and a supplier didn’t get paid in time. It happened.
Except…
I flipped quickly through the pile of invoices.
OVERDUE!
OVERDUE!
OVERDUE!
The entire stack blazed red ink, and when I looked at the dates, I saw that they went back at least two months. The wall clock ticked, the second hand sounding like a hammer. Realizing I’d passed the ten-minute mark three minutes ago, I grabbed a handful of invoices out of the pile, then closed up the office and ran.
I was expecting to hear voices at any second, see headlights spearing through the windows, followed by the sound of a police siren, but the world was as silent as when I’d entered. Shimmying my way outof the window, I didn’t dare linger to catch my breath and—after shoving the papers into my waistband—quickly scaled the fence.
I was literally two meters down the sidewalk when headlights turned into the street. Sliding back into the dark between the streetlights, I watched as the security guard turned into the drive and stopped in front of the gate.
No dog this time. Different guard.
I waited only until he was inside before making my way to the far end of the street and my own vehicle. Sweat was a sticky paste along my spine, had broken out along my forehead, but I didn’t dare rip off the mask and pull off the hoodie until I was well away from the area, with no signs of pursuit.
The papers I’d thrown onto the passenger seat taunted me, but I didn’t try to look at them at the few traffic lights where I had to stop. I wanted the time and light to examine them properly.
The drive to the motel seemed to take forever.
I spotted no lights in the suite occupied by Shumi’s family, and hopefully, Ajay wouldn’t have looked for my car when he returned to the motel. If he had, I’d just say I’d gone to see Diya.
Once inside my room, I stripped down to my briefs and let the air cool down my overheated skin. At least I’d had the good sense to leave a couple of soft drinks in the small fridge, and now opened a cold Coke as I sat down on the bed to go over the papers I’d stolen.
The first overdue invoice was for a small bill from a plumber who seemed to have come in to fix an issue with the employee toilet in their flagship Rotorua store.
I set it aside.
Big businesses often pulled this shit, keeping up their bottom line while drawing out payments to smaller players, well aware of who held the power in the situation. What was the plumber going to do? Not do business with what was probably a major clientthatdidalways come through on the bills even if they took their time?
The next two invoices were similar. I was starting to think I’d wasted the entire night when I realized the amount of zeroes on the bill now in my hand. I whistled through my teeth as I read it through. It was an invoice for the rental on the Rotorua warehouse.
