all of them today?”
He scanned my list, nodding. “Yeah. The bus station is twenty minutes from here. The OB storage facility is farther out but they don’t close until six. And the gyms will be quick. You check the women’s locker room, I check the men’s, and then we’re out. We’ll do the country club tomorrow when we have a reason to be there.”
“Let’s do it.”
I reclined my seat, shifting to stare out of the window. What were we going to find today? Was I ready to face whatever it was?
Twelve hours later, Royal and I pushed into his apartment loaded down with groceries and not much else.
What did our search of Raven River turn up? Nothing.
A couple of gyms didn’t have lockers numbered less than a hundred, so we walked right out. The bus station had a twenty-two locker but the key didn’t fit. Same result at the storage units and the remaining gyms. The only thing we accomplished that day was buying a prepaid phone.
“So, this phone is all we need to take down the dealer?”
Royal took the milk, bread, and eggs off my hands and carried it into the kitchen. I stretched out on the couch, resting my chin on the arm, and watching Royal over the countertop.
“I had Clay lift Vera’s phone during PE. He got the number for the dealer off and Monday I’ll ask for a mess of coke, E, weed, and whatever else I can think of for an insane amount of money. I’ll give him a week to get the stuff and pray we get lucky and he goes off campus. Mallory will let Hiro know who leaves and we’ll narrow it down.”
“We can’t be sure the dealer will be one of the people who leaves campus.”
“We can’t be sure of anything,” Royal said. “Right now we’ve got less than nothing and I’m hearing it from Rio. He wants results yesterday. Drugs are leaking into our territory. It makes it look like the Horsemen aren’t in control.”
“I’m with you on the having less than nothing. We hit all of those places today and the key didn’t open a single lock. Could we have missed something?” I asked.
“Maybe. There are other places we didn’t think of. We passed by a post office coming back from the store. I should’ve thought of it before. You’d be surprised how easy it is to set up a PO box that’s not connected to your name.”
I snapped my fingers. “A PO box, of course. Why didn’t I think of that either? It’ll be closed tomorrow, so we’ll have to go on Friday.”
“If it’s not a PO box, how likely is it that there’s something at your lake house?”
“Not very,” I admitted. “The feds did the whole search and seizure thing and I doubt they missed anything. What Eli is relying on is Dad’s knack for hiding things. He hid his tools and projects to keep me and Eli out of them. And our Christmas presents? Forget it. He’d bet me every year I could open them up early if I found where he hid them. I never did.
“There is a chance—a tiny one—that my parents hid something up there that the feds weren’t able to find. I promised Eli I’d check, so I will.”
“Projects?” Royal’s voice floated out of the kitchen. “What kind of projects did your dad do?”
“He messed around in his shed building stuff,” I said. “We lived off my dad’s trust fund, but Grandpa put restrictions on it. He couldn’t get it until he married or turned twenty-five. Until then, he was expected to go to university and graduate with a fancy degree. Dad went with mechanical and computer engineering.
“He loved it but after meeting Mom his junior year, marrying her two days after graduation, and getting his trust fund with two ‘I dos,’ he never bothered getting a job in it. He was happy building stuff for himself.” A smile spread on my lips. “He built Eli a mobile after he was born. It spun and lit up in all of these colors. Eli loved it. As much as you can tell if a baby loves something,” I added.
“Mechanical and computer engineering,” Royal said, picking out a part of my speech. “Difficult majors. Eli may be right, Em. Your parents weren’t empty-headed trust fund babies. They were smart enough to pull off one of the biggest cons under everyone’s noses. They’re smart enough to hide something from the feds.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “All