Chapter 7 - The Storage UnitThe storage facility sat beyond the edge of the city.
Rows of identical metal doors stretched into the darkness.
The rain had returned.
Detective Hale arrived with two officers and a warrant.
Ava and Elena stayed in the car.
Rebecca remained with them.
Nobody spoke.
At the far end of the facility, Hale stopped in front of Unit 318.
The lock had already been cut.
He looked at his team.
Then opened the door.
A beam of light swept across stacked boxes.
Furniture.
Old documents.
A broken television.
Nothing obvious.
Then one officer spotted a metal cabinet.
Locked.
Hale forced it open.
Inside were files.
Hundreds.
School records.
Medical documents.
Photographs.
Names.
Ava watched from the car.
Then she saw Hale step back suddenly.
He had found something.
He held up a photograph.
Even from a distance, Ava knew.
Claire.
Sixteen years old.
Standing beside Daniel.
Alive.
And the date on the photograph was three days after her supposed disappearance.
Elena covered her mouth.
Rebecca whispered:
"He lied."
Hale looked deeper into the cabinet.
Another folder.
Claire Mercer.
Inside was a missing-person report.
But the report was strange.
The signature of the officer who filed it was the same signature appearing on a second document.
Ava's mother frowned.
"What is that?"
Rebecca leaned closer.
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
"That officer died eleven years ago."
The air seemed to disappear.
Hale carefully turned the page.
Then he found a note written in the margin.
Ask about the lake house.
Rebecca went pale.
"The lake house."
Elena looked at her.
"What is it?"
"Daniel had one."
"Where?"
"North of the city."
Ava remembered it.
She had been there once.
When she was little.
She remembered a long road.
Tall trees.
A locked basement.
And a woman crying somewhere upstairs.
She had assumed it was television.
Now she wasn't sure.
Hale asked:
"Did you ever go there with him?"
Ava nodded.
"Once."
"How old?"
"Maybe twelve."
"What do you remember?"
Ava closed her eyes.
"The basement."
Hale waited.
"There was a red door."
"Anything else?"
"A sound."
"What sound?"
"A machine."
"What kind?"
"I don't know."
Ava opened her eyes.
"But I remember one thing."
"What?"
"He told me never to open that door."
Hale looked at the officers.
"Do we have the address?"
One officer nodded.
Then his radio crackled.
"Detective?"
Hale answered.
"We have a situation."
"What?"
"The storage unit alarm has been triggered."
Hale looked around.
"How?"
"Someone just entered the facility."
Hale drew his weapon.
"Where?"
The radio crackled again.
"Unit 318."
Hale turned.
The storage unit door was open.
But nobody was there.
Then he noticed something on the floor.
A fresh footprint.
Still wet.
Leading deeper into the facility.
He followed it.
At the end of the hallway stood a man.
Dark jacket.
Baseball cap.
He looked directly at Hale.
Then smiled.
Ava saw him through the windshield.
Her blood ran cold.
She recognized him.
May you like
Victor.
But Victor was supposed to be dead.
