Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

rocket-sled routine for two blocks, turned left, shot down two more blocks, whipped onto another side street, and shut down the car.
    “Well, that achieved target heart rate,” Susa said dryly. “Tired of being followed?”
    “Yeah.” His tone didn’t encourage comments.
    “Any particular reason?” Susa asked.
    “No.”
    “Ah.”
    Silence descended in the car.
    “What do you mean, ‘Ah’?” he asked finally.
    “Ah, as in, ah, of course, testosterone,” Susa said.
    Ian didn’t argue the point as he watched the deputies cruise through an intersection one block over. He knew it was petty of him to feel good about losing them, but there it was. He felt good.
    The deputies didn’t reappear. After a few minutes Ian started up the truck again and cut over to a road that would loop around to Corona del Mar.
    Lacey began giving instructions again. “Turn right at the next light.”
    Finally they came to an area where small businesses struggled to survive, motels became cheap apartments, and storage yards for the rich and overstocked thrived.
    “There,” Lacey said. “Universal Storage, on the left. Just pull up to the gate. I’ll enter the code.”
    Lacey got out, punched in her private code, and got back in before Ian drove through the electronic gate. Bright lights illuminated six rows of storage units, each row two units tall.
    “Shayla’s brother-in-law owns the place,” Lacey said. “We get a couple of units for free, unless he needs them. Then Lost Treasures Found gets crammed to the ceiling again.”
    Susa glanced around curiously and didn’t ask any questions.
    Ian grunted. So far Lacey had been willing to talk about everythingbut why she’d decided to take a late-night jaunt to a storage unit. “Why the big mystery?” he asked.
    “Number one-twenty” was all she said, pointing to the right. “Second row of buildings, first story. You can park right in front of the freight elevator.”
    No one else was around, which wasn’t surprising. Most people had better things to do late on a Friday night than check out the contents of their storage unit. Lacey winced at the thought of how many weekend nights she’d spent doing just that. She hadn’t realized how predictable—okay, boring —her social life had become until Ian appeared and put the moon and stars back in her nights.
    She wondered how long it would last. If he was mad at her now, she couldn’t imagine what he’d be like when he saw the contents of number 120.
    Ian looked around the designated parking area, rejected it, and went farther down the row to a point where the truck couldn’t be spotted from the street.
    Lacey walked up the row, looked at the wide storage door that opened like a garage door, and pulled out the key that would open the padlock. The closer she got to the paintings, the more she wondered if she was doing the right thing.
    And the more she was afraid she wasn’t.
    “If you chicken out after all this,” Ian said conversationally, “I’m going to pry that key out of your paint-stained little fingers and go in alone.”
    Her chin came up in a “You and who else, big boy” gesture that made him smile despite his irritation. He tugged at the lock of her hair that never stayed in place.
    She didn’t know whether to smile or smack his hand.
    Susa snickered.
    Lacey opened the padlock, stuck it in her coat pocket, and tugged up on the door. Most of the units had rolling doors that shrieked like Halloween. Hers didn’t. The sound of metal on metal made her teeth ache. That was why the door rose up with hardly a sound. She kept it as well oiled as a bodybuilder’s pecs. Saying a silent prayer that she was doing the right thing, she flipped on the light and stepped aside.
    It was a big unit. A quarter of it was packed with shelves and racks of items waiting to be needed at Lost Treasures Found. The rest wasGrandfather Quinn’s paintings and closed cupboards lining the far wall. The racks for the paintings were so closely packed that it was all a person could do to squeeze between the rows.
    Ignoring the shop goods, Susa looked at the unframed paintings that were stacked in racks along the walls and aisles, leaning against the racks, and wrapped in paper and piled on or under cheap tables. Then she made a startled sound and turned the nearest painting toward the light. A hillside waist-deep in golden grass, green eucalyptus with pale bark peeling in graceful ribbons, a wild sky alive with rain and