CHAPTER EIGHT – THE WAREHOUSE
On Thursday, Gloria called Nina with an address for the preview sale.
The place was a former flooring warehouse near the industrial edge of the city.
Its advertisement described a limited collection of vintage furniture from professionally cleared estates.
Nina wanted to go immediately.
Daniel insisted they tell Ortiz first.
The detective asked them not to confront anybody or remove anything.
She could not forbid them from attending a public commercial preview, but she wanted to coordinate any documentation with residents who claimed ownership.
At the warehouse, Nina wore an ordinary blue coat and carried the same tote bag she used for groceries.
Daniel followed her through the front door beneath a sign advertising final prices.
The building smelled of varnish, damp cardboard, and old fabric.
Rows of furniture stretched between temporary partitions.
A young clerk sat at a folding table with a card reader.
“Are you looking for anything specific?” he asked.
“A small oak desk,” Nina said.
“We have three in the back.”
They walked through a maze of cabinets and chairs while Daniel tried not to look startled by every familiar detail.
Near the rear wall stood a pair of green armchairs from Maple Court’s lounge.
Their wooden legs still bore the red tape Tomas had applied during a repair project months earlier.
A price tag on one chair read four hundred and twenty dollars.
A blue blanket lay over the chair’s back, hiding the yellow disposal sticker beneath it.
Daniel took a photograph from several feet away.
Nina found the carved oak table she had lent to the community room.
She ran her fingers over the crooked scratch near its left leg.
“That’s mine,” she whispered.
The clerk approached and asked whether she wanted to reserve it.
Nina looked at the price tag.
“You want nine hundred dollars for this?”
“It’s a beautiful piece,” he replied.
“It was in my apartment building yesterday.”
The clerk blinked.
“We buy from licensed liquidators.”
“Then you should ask your supplier why he sold you somebody else’s table.”
Daniel touched Nina’s elbow.
“Let’s step outside.”
The clerk said he would call the owner.
Nina refused to leave until she had photographed the tag and the table’s identifying marks.
Daniel watched the clerk disappear into the office.
Two men stepped out through a side doorway.
One wore a ClearHaven cap.
The other carried a clipboard and spoke into his phone.
“We’re being photographed,” he said.
Daniel and Nina walked calmly toward the exit.
They had done nothing wrong by attending the preview, but remaining inside to argue would help nobody.
Outside, Nina’s hands shook so badly she dropped her keys twice.
“I thought the table was gone forever,” she said.
“It may still be recoverable,” Daniel answered.
“But we need to do this properly.”
They sent their photographs to Ortiz.
Within an hour, an investigator contacted the warehouse owner, who claimed she had purchased the goods from a licensed estate liquidator.
She agreed to hold disputed items while their provenance was checked.
Vale’s company had supplied most of them under the name Cedar Row Salvage.
It was a real registered business, but its advertised business address was an empty office suite.
The furniture had not traveled to a destruction facility after all.
It had been loaded onto a truck that delivered it to the resale warehouse the next morning.
Daniel sat with Nina in his car while she called Rafael.
When she told him they had found his desk, he began laughing and crying at once.
“I knew the burn mark would still be there,” he said.
Nina looked across the parking lot at the warehouse doors.
“We found the table too,” she told him.
“Now we have to make sure nobody sells it before you get here.”
