“Not really, but I think she was a friend of my parents. She said this place has been here at least twenty years, so I guess it really is possible my parents rented a storage unit here.”
“Let’s go find out, mouse.” Vigo started for the office, twirling his bat.
I wasn’t naive enough to hope the storage unit was still rented under my parents’ names. I knew what happened to storage units when the bill wasn’t paid, knew the owners of the facility sold off the stuff inside.
But I had so few connections to my parents and their investigation into Imperium Fratrum. I was willing to follow every trail that led back to them, dig for any piece of information I could find, even if the chance of finding something was infinitesimally small.
We followed the arrow on the office sign and stepped into a small room at the front of the building with a single window overlooking the parking lot.
Not exactly an inspired view.
A middle-aged man with curly gray hair and glasses sat behind a desk, reading a book whose title I couldn’t make out and listening to classic rock on, get this, an actual radio.
Not a music app on his computer or phone, a real-life radio with an antenna and everything.
He looked up when we approached, then did a double take before setting the book aside.
“Hello,” I said.
I’d expected a drawn-out explanation: my parents’ death, the key, the possibility that they’d left something behind over ten years earlier.
Instead he got to his feet and looked at me with something like recognition.
“You found the key.”
25
CASSIE
The storage unitwas at the back of the facility, an empty field leading to the woods behind it.
We walked between the rows of rectangular buildings that housed the storage units, and I caught glimpses of Miriam Prescott in the empty lot next door, walking in her heels, a large suited men who might have been her driver following behind her as she spoke to a guy in jeans and a flannel shirt.
“I’ve had to move everything around a few times.” Daniel Feldman was clearly nervous. He eyed Vigo — swinging his bat — warily as he led us past rows of steel roll-up doors. “I was careful, tried to make sure I didn’t lose anything along the way.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, my parents haven’t been around to pay the bill. Why would you keep their stuff all this time?”
I was still reeling. I didn’t have the whole story, but Daniel Feldman had known who I was from the beginning because he’d known my parents.
“First of all,” he said, stopping at one of the roll-up doors, “they paid years in advance. By now, you probably know why.”
If you’ve found this, something has gone wrong.
“Second?” Jagger asked.
Daniel peered up at him from behind his glasses. “Pardon me?”
“You said ‘first of all,’” Jagger said. “There has to be at least asecond of all.”
“Right.” Daniel turned his attention on me. “Second, your parents did important work, and they weren’t alone.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Let’s just say you don’t get as far as they did without information.” He hesitated, looked around like he half expected someone to be watching, then continued. “They weren’t the only ones who thought something was wrong, okay? Something big. There were a lot of people with pieces of the puzzle. They all wanted — want — to see someone held accountable.”
This was new. All this time I’d seen my parents as alone, risking everything, fighting for information without help.
But Daniel Feldman was right: my parents had gotten close enough to scare someone — someone powerful — and that meant someone had talked.
