Page 20 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

“Even better.” Zeyla waved her phone. “It’s all electronic access.”

By the time he was out the door and around the hood of the car, she had a green light on the panel beside the door. Ramon crouched in the center of the door and rolled it up to the ceiling. “Nothing to see here. Just your average, everyday breaking and entering in broad daylight.”

“Unfortunately,” Zeyla said, “the complex is currently having security system issues. So if anyone reports a crime, there will be no footage of whoever came in and maybe or maybe not stole something.”

“I guess that helps.” But he still didn’t like the fact they were currently committing a crime based on curiosity and not much else. At least he wasn’t someone in law enforcement who would require probable cause and a warrant before finding out if Mrs. Harrison was really up to something. He’d never liked going before judges and begging for a sign-off.

“Whoa.” Zeyla stepped into the storage unit, whistling. He followed her over to a chest freezer in the corner, the only thing in this unit. “What was I saying earlier, about having serial killer vibes?”

“How about we don’t leave prints at what is potentially a crime scene?” Ramon had grabbed plastic gloves out of the car and put them on now.

She looked at him. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Ramon lifted his brows, then pulled up the freezer lid. “Whoais about right.”

Zeyla peered over his shoulder. Inside the freezer, a man lay curled up with a young woman slumped on top of him. Both of them were frozen solid. The man had a wound on the side of his head that might have been from being struck with a heavy object. He couldn’t see any wounds on the woman. Both of them wore summer clothes—shorts and a T-shirt for the guy, while the girl wore shorts and a tank top. Neither had shoes on.

“Do you have one of your untraceable phones?” Ramon asked her.

Zeyla pulled a cell phone from her pocket.

“We’re going to call 911 and leave the phone here.”

She tapped a few buttons on the cell, probably deleting her contacts and her message history. “It’s clean.”

“Get in the car.” Ramon shut the lid of the chest freezer on who he presumed was Mr. Harrison and the best friend, whatever her name was. It hadn’t been Chelsea Harrison because the girl didn’t have blonde hair.

He wiped any fingerprints from the phone and dialed 911.

Leaving the phone with the call connected on the top of the chest freezer, Ramon headed to the car. He didn’t roll the garage door down. The police needed no barrier between them and finding these two bodies, even if they’d find his prints on the door at some point.

He peeled out of the complex using the back entrance and sped away. They had to put as much distance as possible between them and the crime scene before the police showed up.

“She murdered them, didn’t she?” Zeyla ran her hands over her knees, her fingers tense.

“I figure they didn’t give her the answer she was looking for.”

She said, “Or Mrs. Harrison found Mr. Harrison with her daughter’s best friend.”

“Either way, she knows something about how they died.” He gripped the wheel and turned the next corner. “But we still don’t know if she has any connection to this guy you’re trying to find.”

Zeyla looked at him, but he didn’t let on that he saw it. He didn’t need her reasoning to make sense. As she had said, she was entitled to feel the way she felt, and it didn’t necessarily have to be logical. He was glad she’d told him because at least now he knew why they were really here in Spokane.

“The question is, are you still only after DNA, or are you interested in finding a man who targets young women and makes them disappear?”

“You want to take him down?”

Ramon glanced over. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“And if he is Kenna’s father, then we’ll have done her a favor.”

CHAPTER

TEN

Ramon spottedan anomaly in his rearview halfway back to their respective hotels. He’d been calculating how long it would take the police to look up Mrs. Harrison and pay her a visit. As the registered lessee of that storage unit, it wouldn’t take much time for them to show up at her house and ask why her husband and missing daughter’s best friend were stuffed in a freezer.

“Head’s up.” He gripped the wheel with both hands but didn’t change lanes. Sudden movements would make it far too obvious to the person following them that he’d realized they were back there. “We’re being followed.”