CHAPTER SEVEN — CAROL’S INVENTORY

Carol called Daniel at eleven that night.
She had never voluntarily dialed his number before.
He almost let it ring out.
“You have no idea what you’re interfering with,” she began.
“Then explain it.”
There was a long silence.
“My house has a side entrance,” she said finally.
“Come alone in ten minutes.”
Daniel called Ortiz instead.
The agent told him not to enter Carol’s property and offered to send someone to supervise a conversation outside.
At midnight Carol appeared at her front gate, irritated to discover Daniel standing with Ortiz and Sethi.
“I asked for one person,” she said.
“I’m not comfortable being alone in your garage,” Daniel replied.
Carol looked at the agents as if they had violated a neighborhood parking ordinance.
“You want the truth?” she demanded.


“Yes,” Ortiz said.
Carol opened her purse and unfolded a handwritten list.
There were twenty-seven entries, each with a date, a crate number, and a brief description.
She had copied every shipment that entered her garage since May.
“I didn’t steal these things,” she said.
“I stored them.”
“Who paid you?” Sethi asked.
“Gentle Return at first,” Carol answered.
“Then Mr. Grane brought a new contract.”
“How much?”
Carol named a monthly amount large enough to cover her property taxes and several medical bills.
Her husband had left debts when he died six years earlier.
She had refused offers to sell her house because she believed moving would mean losing the only neighborhood where people still knew her name.
The storage money had seemed like a private solution.
“Did you open the crates?” Ortiz asked.


“Not at first.”
“What changed?”
Carol pressed her fingers against the list.
“They delivered a child’s wooden rabbit.”
“I recognized the family name from a local fundraiser.”
“The fundraiser said the rabbit was missing and asked people not to buy copies.”
Carol opened that crate and found the rabbit wrapped in tissue beside a replacement tag.
She called Grane.
He told her the family had failed to pay its final balance and that the object would be sold to recover costs.
Carol protested that the rabbit had no commercial value without the family’s story.
Grane replied that the story was exactly what buyers were paying for.
“I wanted to give it back,” Carol said.
“Why didn’t you?” Daniel asked.
“He said I would be accused of taking every box that had passed through here.”
Ortiz looked at her steadily.
“What happened next?”
Carol had started keeping her own inventory, opening selected crates to record distinctive details.
Sometimes she moved small items into her house when she feared Grane would collect them.
She also accepted new shipments because she believed she could identify their owners later.
“You kept taking money,” Daniel said.
Carol flinched.
“Yes.”
“And you never called the families.”
“I was trying to learn which object belonged where.”
“Those families were calling the company every week,” Daniel said.
“You had addresses on the boxes.”
“Many were false,” she snapped.
“That is why I made the list.”
The argument rose until Ortiz held up a hand.
“Mrs. Mercer, do you have any property in your garage now?”
Carol nodded reluctantly.
“Seven crates and two loose boxes.”
“We can arrange to receive them safely.”
Carol hesitated.
“Grane has a key to the side entrance.”
Ortiz asked when he last visited.
“Yesterday afternoon,” Carol said.
“He told me the remaining stock would be collected before dawn.”
Sethi looked at Ortiz.
“We need to move.”
Carol stepped aside, revealing an unlocked gate leading to the garage.
Inside, the seven crates were gone.
Only strips of torn packing paper lay on the concrete.
An orange glove rested beside the drain.
Carol stared at the empty space.
“He came early,” she said.
Daniel realized the glove belonged to neither Carol nor Tessa.
Someone had been in the garage while they argued at the gate.