Magic Misled (Lizzie Grace #7) - Keri Arthur Page 0,19
I should be home by seven.”
“Excellent.”
I kissed him again, then grabbed my purse and climbed out. Once he’d driven off, I hobbled down the lane that ran down the side of our café to the parking area at the rear. As much as I wanted to know what had happened to my “other” family in the years since we’d fled, Belle needed time alone with her mom.
I jumped into the Suzi, reversed her out, and then headed over to the storage facility where we kept the majority of the books. It was situated a little outside Castle Rock, behind a busy industrial estate. We’d taken one of their “household” storage sections—the largest available—and layered it with so many different spells that even a gnat wasn’t getting through. We’d also had a secondary fire- and flood-proof room built inside our unit, just to be doubly safe. While floods generally weren’t a problem in this area, fires could be, and the storage facility sat on the edge of what amounted to a wilderness area along an old train line.
I shoved my card into the reader to open the gates and then drove to the end of the long building on the left. Our unit was the very last one. I parked in front of the roller door, then climbed out and glanced around. No one else was here, and there were no lights on in the office—which sat at the rear of the block, in between the two storage buildings, enabling them to see who was coming and going. I glanced at my watch; it was close to five thirty, so that wasn’t unexpected, and it wasn’t as if the office was manned full-time anyway.
But for some damn reason, instinct stirred. Something was wrong—though as usual, said instinct wasn’t supplying any information as to what.
I pocketed my keys and walked over to the office. No one answered my knock, and a quick peer through the windows revealed there was no one inside and nothing out of place.
I frowned and headed back to our storage unit. It was then I noticed the roller door’s lock had been jimmied, and the thick padlock the facility’s owner insisted we use as additional security was sitting on the concrete in front of the door rather than being locked in place.
My gaze dropped to the bottom of the door; the edge had been bent upwards in a couple of places.
Someone had tried to get inside.
I knelt and carefully ran my hand across the door’s bottom edge. Energy caressed my fingers, which meant the spells remained active, and that was a huge relief. They were undoubtedly the reason the would-be thieves hadn’t succeeded. Roller doors—even locked ones—were easy enough to get into if you knew how. I didn’t, but I’d certainly seen plenty of newspaper articles warning those in high-crime-rate areas about it.
I rose and took several steps back to study the roofline. There was no evidence the thieves had tried to get in from up top, so I turned and walked around to the rear of the unit. Again, there was nothing to suggest they’d tried to get in there, either, which was odd given there was only one camera watching the six-foot-wide strip of land between the razor-wire topped chain wire fence and the building. It would have been the easiest camera to disable, but from where I was standing, there was no evidence it had been tampered with in any way.
There was also no evidence that the would-be thieves had gained access into the storage yard through the fence—the razor wire might have meant they couldn’t have climbed it, but the right wire cutter would have gotten through the fence easily enough.
I walked back to the front of our unit and studied the forecourt area again. There were multiple cameras in this area, and at least two of them were trained on our unit—one of the reasons we’d chosen it. They would have captured the persons behind the attempted break-in, so why weren’t we notified?
I had no idea, but I very much intended to find out. I grabbed the phone out of my purse and quickly rang the after-hours number.
Harry, the owner and manager, answered on the third ring. “Castle Rock Ultimate Storage,” he said. “How may I help you?”
“Harry, it’s Lizzie Grace. I just arrived at my storage unit and discovered someone has tried to break in. Did you notice anything on the cameras over the last couple of nights?”