Fortune and Glory (Stephanie Plum #27)(70)

I scanned the area. There weren’t many places to hide a Buick. A small office with its own parking was attached to the first row of garage-size lockers. The office looked closed and unoccupied. Two large dumpsters had been placed off to the side of the office.

I drove behind the dumpsters and parked. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best I could do. The Buick would only be visible to someone depositing trash. We walked past one row of storage units and didn’t see any cars. A tan Honda sedan was parked in front of the first unit on the second row. I looked past the Honda and spotted the black Escalade and a white Taurus at the other end of the building. The door was down on the unit. Two men stood beside the Escalade.

“There’s a car coming,” Potts said.

We ducked down and wedged ourselves halfway under the Honda. A black Mercedes sedan rolled past us and parked by the other cars. Shine got out of the Mercedes. The door to the storage unit rolled up and Shine went in.

My sick stomach was back, and my heart thumped in my chest. I wondered if this happened to Indy. Probably not. He had a lot of Oh crap moments, but I couldn’t remember him looking nauseous. Probably because no one ever kidnapped his mother.

“I’m going to circle around this building so I can get close without the two men seeing me,” I said to Potts.

“Then what?” he asked.

“I don’t know. One step at a time.”

I honestly didn’t know what I would do. I had no idea what was going on inside the concrete bunker, and I didn’t want to make things worse for my mom if she was in there. If I made a move to rescue her and failed it would be horrible for both of us.

I turned to go, and the garage door opened at the end of the row. Potts and I crouched behind the Honda and watched everyone come out of the storage unit.

Shine stormed out first. He was waving his arms, and even from this distance, I could see that his face was red.

“Idiots!” he yelled at the two men behind him. “Fucking idiots. I can’t believe you screwed this up. This was a no-brainer. Get the old lady and bring her to the locker.”

“We knocked on the door like you told us,” one of the men said. “Polite. And we asked her if she was a grandma. And she said, yes.”

“She’s not the right grandma,” Shine said.

“We didn’t know that.”

“And then you brought her to the house in Pleasantville instead of the locker,” Shine said.

“She hit Andy with the frying pan and he had a big gash on his cheek. So, we stopped at the house for a Band-Aid. We figured there wouldn’t be any Band-Aids here.”

“Now she knows about the house,” Shine said.

“She wasn’t in the house,” the guy said. “She was in the trunk. I figure it doesn’t matter because we’re gonna kill her anyway.”

“We still need the old lady,” Shine said. “The right Grandma. She has the last clue. She has the numbers to get into the safe.”

Two more men walked out of the storage locker, bookending my mother. Her hands were bound. Her walk was steady and unassisted. She looked okay.

“Follow me to the safe house,” Shine said. “We’ll stick her there and use her to get the old lady.”

Shine got into the Mercedes. My mom was placed in the backseat of the Escalade with the two men. One of the men standing watch on the outside of the unit got behind the wheel. The fourth man shut the garage door and got into the Taurus.

“They’ve got your mom and they’re leaving,” Potts said.

“We need to get to the Buick.”

“Indy would take this car,” Potts said.

“This Honda?”

“The owner is in the storage unit behind us,” Potts said. “I can hear him rummaging around in there. And he left his car unlocked with the key fob in the cup holder.”

“That’s car theft.”

The three cars drove single file around the end of the building, with the Mercedes leading the way.

“They won’t know it’s us in this car,” Potts said. “And it’s here!”

He opened the door, got behind the wheel, and started the car. I ran around the car and jumped in.

“This is a nice car,” Potts said, rounding the end of the row. “The owner keeps it clean inside. It smells nice. After I got the job delivering pizza my car always smelled like pizza.”

“I’ve never seen your car.”

“I traded it for a PlayStation 4Pro.”

“You traded a car for a gaming console?”

“It wasn’t much of a car, and the 4 Pro is awesome.”

Shine turned right onto Philadelphia and the two cars followed him. We gave them a good lead before we exited the storage facility.

I called Lula. “It’s not necessary for you to look at the condo,” I said. “Go to Egg Harbor and wait for me to get back to you.”

“Did you find your mom?” she asked.

“Yes, but it’s complicated. I can’t talk now. Just wait in Egg Harbor.”

An occasional bungalow hugged the side of the road but mostly we were driving through scrubby pine intermingled with heavier forested areas. After two miles the Mercedes led the other two cars onto a gravel driveway and disappeared into the woods.

Potts pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine. I slid the window down and listened. Car doors slamming shut. Men talking. And then quiet.