Maybe she was thinking about this the wrong way.
Still, she made a list of the missing people to ask Santini about later—if he planned on talking to her again. Until they had the identity of the victim, or confirmation of how long the victim had been in the ground, all she was doing now was speculating.
She turned back to Lindy’s board and added the information she’d learned from William and Olivia about Lindy’s secret diary.
Where was it?
Max had always suspected that Lindy had kept another diary after her mother burned her first one, but after the argument Max and Lindy had about Lindy’s propensity to gather information—and then not use it to help anyone—Lindy hadn’t shared anything else with her.
And they’d had a huge fight over how to reveal the information about Brooks and Kimberly’s affair. Lindy had uncovered the affair in the first place, but after she told Max, Max had followed Brooks for weeks in order to see for herself. She didn’t know why she didn’t want to believe it—she and Brooks had never gotten along—but she wasn’t going to say a word unless she had proof.
Once she saw them, Max had wanted to document the affair and show the evidence to Aunt Joanne and Lindy’s father; Lindy had some devious plan to get back at her mother. In the end, Max had gone for bold: she’d announced the affair at a family dinner. Lindy had been angry with her for a long time after that, and in some ways Max couldn’t blame her. They’d had a fundamental disagreement about what to do with the scandalous information. Max believed the truth needed to be out there. Lindy wanted to manipulate her mother instead. Max won because she refused to keep the secret. She hated secrets. What good had ever come from them?
Max rubbed her temples, then swallowed two aspirin with half a bottle of water. She picked up the key she’d found in Kevin’s apartment. Why couldn’t he have made this easy and told her what it went to? Was he worried someone else would find it?
She pulled out the letter he’d written and read it again, looking for a clue, but nothing jumped out at her.
Kevin had put the letter in her first book, the story about Karen’s disappearance. Was that a clue? Max didn’t think so—but maybe.
Missing in Miami didn’t compare with the names of the six storage facilities in Menlo Park. Max looked at the list of storage units. She’d already called all of them. Five had a locker 110. None would tell her if it was rented to Kevin O’Neal. Two she manipulated into telling her that the registered owner wasn’t Kevin, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t used an assumed name.
It looked like she was going to have to try all five, but she didn’t have time today. She picked the closest to Kevin’s apartment and left.
It only took ten minutes to get there. It was small and dark. The guard let her into the main area when she flashed a smile and told him she forgot the door code.
Unfortunately, the key didn’t work on the door. These units all had their own lock, brought by the owner. She hadn’t thought to ask that question.
Max called the remaining four storage lockers. She asked each manager if they provided a lock and key, or if the renter was required to bring a lock. Only two provided locked doors—and one of those was all electric. The renters didn’t even have a key, they set their own PIN number.
Palm Storage and Lock. Palm … palm trees. Could have been a clue related to Miami, or just a coincidence, but Max didn’t care. It was also the farthest away. By the time she arrived, she only had ten minutes before they closed.
She walked into the office and rang the bell. A frizzy-haired woman in a bright muumuu came in from the back room. “We’re closing in ten minutes,” she said. “I can get you situated with a storage unit, but you can’t move your stuff until tomorrow.”
“Locker one-ten, please.”
“Go right in. But, like I said, ten minutes.”
It was a two-story facility with small, cinder block rooms. Still, it smelled stale with artificial air and the scent of old. Like some of these treasures had been locked in their rooms for decades. The building looked like it had been built before World War II, and for California that was ancient.
Kevin’s unit was stifling and musty. The temperature was cold enough to raise goose bumps on her arms, and she had no time to retrieve her blazer from her car. When she turned on the light she saw a desk stacked with files—the missing files from Kevin’s apartment. There were odds and ends of things—old skis, boots, textbooks. Why had he moved his files here? His apartment would be far more comfortable to work in.
She looked through the boxes, stunned with the volume of research Kevin had done. Maps, books, newspaper articles, and all the files on her family, the Talbots, and from his lawyer. More information than she could possibly digest tonight. More information than she could go through in a week.
Over the loudspeaker the manager said, “Palm Storage is closing in five minutes. Please lock up your unit and exit the building.”
Max frowned. Why couldn’t Kevin have picked a storage facility that had twenty-four-hour access?
She didn’t have time to go through everything. It would take several trips from the unit to the car to bring all the files. She grabbed a shoe box in the corner, dumped the shoes on the floor, and took the files that seemed the most relevant to Lindy Ames’s murder. She quickly opened the desk drawers. They were empty except for a letter and a leather journal.
The letter was addressed to her.
The speaker came on again. “Palm Storage is now closed. Please exit the building immediately.”
Max put the letter and leather book on the top of the files in the box. She left the room, locked it, and hurried out.
The woman glared at her. “I have a life, too, you know.”