Chapter 5: The Walk-In

I set the bucket down very slowly.

Then I walked back along the walkway, not fast.

Orsola was behind the desk doing a crossword.

"There's a car at the gas station," I said. "Pennsylvania plates."

She didn't look up.

"Lots of people drive through from Pennsylvania."

"In January?"

Now she looked up.

She went to the blinds and opened two slats with her finger.

Across the road, the man in the parka was inside the station, leaning on the counter.

He was showing the kid at the register something on his phone.

The kid shook his head.

The man showed him again.

The kid pointed up the hill.

"Well," Orsola said. "Hell."

"Where do I go?"

She was already moving.

Through the swinging door, through the cold kitchen, to a steel door at the back with a big chrome handle.

The walk-in.

She hauled it open. It wasn't running, and it didn't need to.

The air inside was as cold as the parking lot, and it smelled like old cardboard.

"In."

"For how long?"

"Until I knock three times. Don't come out for two."

"What if he searches the kitchen?"

"Then he meets my friend." She tipped her head toward the office, toward the shotgun. "In."

I went in.

She shut the door, and the dark came down all at once.

I stood between empty steel shelves with my arms around myself.

I could hear my own breathing.

Then a car door, faint, outside.

The bell on the office door.

A man's voice. Friendly. Philadelphia in every vowel.

"Afternoon. Sorry to bother you. You the owner?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm a licensed investigator. I'm looking for a woman who may be in some trouble. Her family's very worried."

"Lot of that going around."

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