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There wasn’t any office to check in with at the storage facility.

We found unit number fifty-nine in the third row of buildings and parked in front of it.

There was a keyed padlock on the door, and after Jon retrieved the bolt cutter he’d brought along, he made fast work of the lock.

He flipped the hasp off the loop and pushed the door open.

A quick glance at the ceiling told me there was no light inside and Jon must have figured it out at the same time because he came up with a small pocket-sized flashlight while I used the one on my phone.

For a few seconds, our beams crisscrossed the interior of the unit, making it look like the star-studded red carpet at the launch of a big movie.

Then mine settled on a large duffel bag propped up against the wall.

I started to reach for it when Jon halted me with a hand on my shoulder.

He handed me a pair of nitrile gloves.

“I need to treat this like an evidence scene,”

he said, “even if I don’t think there’s anything here that will be used in that way.

If by chance something probative does turn up and your fingerprints are all over it, I’ll have a hard time explaining it.”

I put the gloves on and went straight for the duffel bag.

It was heavy, and when I unzipped it, I saw that it contained shovels, trowels, a pick, and a sieve that I assumed Oliver used to sift dirt.

Or maybe to pan for gold.

I considered pinching it, thinking it would make a good accessory for Henry, but then thought better of it.

Newt was fascinated by the smells inside.

He had his head practically buried in the bag. So much for the preservation of evidence. Surprisingly, Jon didn’t object.

“I don’t see any article or maps or anything like that in here,”

I said.

“According to Oliver’s friend, he had a lot of that kind of stuff in the duffel he had under his bed.”

I looked around at the other items in the unit.

“Do you see another duffel anywhere?”

Jon moved a couple of boxes aside and then said, “Nope.”

“We’ll have to go through all these boxes,”

I said, grabbing the one closest to me.

It was sealed shut with some packing tape, so I stuck my hand in my pocket and took out my key ring, which has a small Swiss Army knife attached to it.

It was something I used a lot when opening packages and boxes that came to my store.

“I’m not sure I understand how some treasure maps, even if they’re real, would have anything to do with what happened to Oliver,”

Jon said as he watched me slice open my box.

“I’m not sure either, but something about it feels right.

Given Oliver’s apparent fascination with treasure hunting, doesn’t it seem possible that he was onto some treasure that was sunken rather than buried? Maybe it had something to do with where he was when he was killed.

Or even why he was killed.”

“If he was onto something related to the recent trip, isn’t it more likely that he’d have had it at home or with him on the trip rather than tucked away in a storage unit?”

“Maybe,”

I said, shoving the first box, which was filled with old bank statements and tax-related stuff, aside.

I grabbed a second one, the top of which was simply folded closed rather than taped.

“Or maybe he wanted it to be somewhere safe and secure where no other eyes could see it.”

I undid the flaps atop the second box.

“And bingo!”

I said, flashing a broad smile at Jon.

On top of the box’s contents was a book about sunken treasures in the United States.

I took it out and flipped through the pages to see if anything had been tucked inside.

There was nothing there and I set it aside and moved on to the next item, a manila folder filled with printouts from various web pages detailing ships that had disappeared with treasure on board.

Most of them appeared to be outside of the US, but another folder beneath it, stuffed with similar printouts, was about more local shipwrecks.

“Can I take this box of stuff with me?”

I asked Jon.

He debated the question, his face contorting as he did so.

It was comical to watch but I bit back my smile.

“I’ll let you have it under one condition,”

he said finally.

Newt cocked his head sideways, staring at Jon as if he, too, were waiting for whatever edict was about to be handed down.

“We go through it together here and now to make sure there isn’t anything worrisome in there.”

I stared at him, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“That’s it?”

I said after a pause, surprised.

“Yeah.

Why? What were you expecting me to say?”

“I don’t know,”

I said with a shrug.

“I just thought there’d be more hoops to jump through.

In fact, I was already debating how to get around them.”

Jon frowned.

“I thought we were a team.”

“Oh, we are.

As long as you do things my way.”

I winked at him and then gestured toward the box.

“Shall we?”

We did a quick triage skim through the treasure box, and while some of the articles looked interesting, none of them leapt out at me as being relevant.

There weren’t any I could see that dealt with Death’s Door or any of the surrounding areas, and most of the articles were about rumored treasures that were well known.

I felt sure that if Oliver had been looking for treasure in the area, it would have been something more obscure.

I set the box aside outside the unit.

“If you see anything you think might be related to Oliver’s death, no matter how remote the connection might be, tell me before you do anything with it,”

Jon instructed as we went to work on the remaining boxes.

I nodded, pleased that he was allowing me to help at all.

There were fourteen boxes total, and by some unspoken agreement, we each took a side of the unit and tackled the boxes closest to us.

Most of the ones I opened contained personal paperwork, job-related stuff, and old bills.

Then I hit on a box that had envelopes filled with pictures.

A quick examination of three of the envelopes’ contents revealed black-and-white photos with yellowed borders of people I assumed were Oliver’s family members.

I was about to set the box aside as uninteresting for our purposes when I peeked into a fourth envelope and saw color pictures that had obviously been taken by someone in a kayak.

I recognized several of them as scenic shots of the waters and islands in Death’s Door. I glanced over at Jon and saw that he was busy going through a box of CDs. I stuck the envelope in the waist of my pants at my back and tugged the bottom of my shirt over it. I happened to glance at Newt and saw him watching me curiously. I sent him a mental message: Don’t judge.

He sighed and then bent around and started licking his balls.

I glanced through the remaining envelopes, but there were no more scenic photos, just pictures of people, many of them older pics in black and white.

As I closed the box, a question came to me.

“Jon, did you have a chance to check Will’s and Oliver’s phone records?”

“I did.

No calls to any anyone associated with Plymouth, Wisconsin, for either one.”

“I was also wondering if either of them might have had any pictures on their phones that might prove helpful.

I don’t suppose those are retrievable through the account like phone calls and texts are?”

“No, unless they were set up for automatic upload to a cloud.

But that could take some time to figure out and even more time to retrieve.”

“I’m going to call Devon and get his take on it.

I’ll put him on speaker so you can hear.”

I called the store, and fortunately, Devon answered.

“Hey, Devon, Chief Flanders and I were wondering if there’s a way to retrieve photos that the victims might have taken with their phones.

The phones themselves are lost, probably at the bottom of Lake Michigan, but we were wondering if the pictures could have been saved elsewhere.”

“Sure,”

Devon said.

“If the pictures were uploaded to a cloud automatically, I might be able to access them through a computer.

But I’d need to know the person’s account info, you know, usernames and passwords, plus what service was being used to access the cloud.

And if they have an account with two-factor authentication turned on, I’d need access to their phone to get the six-digit code.

No guarantees, but if you can get me either of the victims’ computers, I can give it a try.”

If I could have kissed Devon, I would have.

He had given the perfect answer without any prompting from me.

“Yes,”

I said, shooting a slightly smug look toward Jon.

“I’ve asked Chief Flanders if we can have Oliver’s laptop to let you take a look at it, but he hasn’t given me an answer.”

Jon rolled his eyes, but a hint of a smile curled the corners of his mouth.

“Let me see if I can convince him,” I said.

“He seems to like you a lot,”

Devon said.

“Maybe if you offered him sexual favors, he’d be more inclined.”

My eyes widened as I realized that I’d neglected to tell Devon that this call was on speaker.

I spat out, “Thanks, Dev.

Gotta go!”

and disconnected as fast as I could.

I was afraid to look over at Jon but something in me couldn’t resist.

He was staring at me with this huge smug, know-it-all grin that made me blush.

He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the unit’s wall, head cocked to one side.

Then he said, “Let the negotiations begin.”