The drive began, and Ashley felt like she was in a dream. She would catch glances of Lance out of the corner of her eye, and all she could think about was how her knight had rescued her. It was ridiculous, she knew it, but the thought made her feel euphoric.
They ditched Craig's old Sentra in Charleston and picked up a nice rental. Despite Ashley's nervousness about that process, Lance was an upstanding citizen of the law so the process was quick and painless. She did make him swing by an outlet store along the beach so she could pick up a change of clothes. Everything important to her was in her purse, but her wardrobe had gone with Craig.
They listened to the radio, talked about their childhood, although Ashley avoided conversation about her family, and took turns driving as the miles flew by. They ended up stopping for the night outside of Richmond so they could hit the road early the next morning. Neither one of them had the energy left for much extra-curricular activity that night and she quickly fell asleep in his arms and woke up with him still holding the next morning.
His eyes sparkled as he looked into hers, spawning butterflies in her stomach. She sighed contentedly, "Will it always be this way?"
"Every day." He leaned over and kissed her forehead, and she burrowed her face against him. With her emotions still scattered across the spectrum, she was hiding tears she hoped he didn't see.
Ashley was overwhelmed with this new, incredible turn in her life, but there was a deep fear inside her that it would be stripped away, just like every other happy moment she could remember. She swallowed the fear, convincing herself this would be different, this was different. His lips found hers as the dawn seeped through the window shades, and his soft caresses washed away her trepidation. She clung to him, reveling in their love and letting it drown her anxiety and confusion.
Within the hour, they were on the road and would make Baltimore by mid-morning after a short stop at a road-side diner for breakfast. Ashley marveled that even the food seemed to taste better with Lance by her side. "So do you know which storage place we need to go too?"
"Yeah, that key is to A-1 Privacy Storage," he replied. "There's only one location inside the city, so we'll try there first. I just hope I can crack the gate code."
"Gate code?" she asked through a mouthful of pancakes, and Lance smirked at her, causing her cheeks to flush with embarrassment.
"Yes. Would be a shame to have that stop us."
"Never stopped me before," she said as she turned back to her pancakes.
Lance laughed out loud before responding, "What have I gotten myself into." He shook his head briefly, teasing her before smiling, showing off his gleaming white teeth. "Hal was a pretty simple guy, so it might not come down to that."
"You think he's simple enough to report the theft?"
"Possibly, and I'm sure they've got surveillance cameras up. Maybe not covering the whole lot though." He frowned, obviously in thought.
"You should let me go in just in case."
"No," he responded quickly, nearly cutting her off, but she shook her head at him.
"You can't argue this with me," Ashley said sternly. "My record's not so clean, but yours is. I can't let you risk that. This is just a grab and go in a deserted storage building."
He stared into her eyes for a few seconds before sighing in resignation, "Guess it wouldn't be your first time then, eh?"
"No, not my first time," she whispered, feeling ashamed about her life up to this point, but Lance was nodding. She pushed past her feelings and continued, "Do you know what I'll be looking for?"
Lance shrugged at that. "No, Hal was never that in depth about what he actually took. You sure you want to do this?"
"Positive," she said without hesitation.
Lance nodded again and smiled at her. "Last time, right?"
It was her turn to laugh now. "Absolutely."
They finished their breakfast and walked to the car, hand in hand. The closer they got to Baltimore, the quieter the drive became as nervous tension filled the air. Ashley may have been confident in the diner, but she had never really been deeply involved in the jobs. Mostly she had served as look-out, and Craig never actually allowed her to do anything more than that. She was positive she knew what to do after hearing so many stories, though.
She drove as Lance navigated. They were following a map he had picked up at a gas station, and as the sign for A-1 popped up, her heart started thudding in her chest. The black steel security fence seemed intimidating as they pulled into the parking lot.
"Well, time to test my theory," Lance sighed, opening Hal's wallet as she pulled up to the gate's keypad.
After reading the posted instruction sign she muttered, "It's just four digits."
"Okay, give this a go first." Lance read of a sequence of four numbers from Hal’s driver’s license, and she punched them in, turning back to Lance to shake her head when the device beeped angrily at her. He smirked, "That would have just been too easy, wouldn't it?"
He gave her four more numbers to try, and again, she received an angry beep.
Lance sighed. "Maybe we hoped for too much. How about…" She tried the last set of numbers he gave her but got another blaring beep. She bit her lip as Lance pulled out Hal's social security card, and she decided to try something else. Hal might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but someone who rented space here had to be the dullest.
She pressed 1 2 3 4.
The tone that answered her was a higher pitched, much happier note, and a whirring sound followed as the mechanism slowly opened the gate for them. Lance gave her a dumbfounded look, and she shrugged.
She pulled in slowly, seeing rows upon rows of garages and had to look to Lance for direction again. He pointed towards a bigger building in the back and said, "I think the five by five Hal talked about was the indoor storage. Let's head over there."
Her heart was beating faster, and the palms of her hands were starting to sweat as she pulled into a parking spot in front of the building. There was only one other car in the parking lot that she could see, and Ashley assumed it belonged to an employee. As she parked, she took a deep breath and hoped her courage wouldn’t fail her now.
"Are you still sure?" Lance asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Absolutely," she said, not sounding absolute at all. "Let me have his wallet in case I run into another keypad."
He handed it to her with the key pressed on top, trapped under his thumb. She slipped both into her pant pocket as she reached for the door, and Lance surprised her by grabbing her forearm, pulling her in for a quick kiss.
"If anything seems off, or if you're unsure, you back out right away. Okay?" he whispered, his eyes pleading. She nodded and kissed him on the nose.
"Of course," she said with a smile, and hopped out of the car before her nerves could stop her. She inhaled deeply as she reached the glass doors and felt a blast of the cold air hit her in the face as she pulled one open.
Once inside she was relieved to see that the employee counter was empty. There was a door ajar, and she could hear a TV or radio playing from beyond it, but no one was there to greet her. Her eyes quickly scanned the entry room and found where the surveillance camera was most likely hidden. There was one door with a keypad lock, and another door with the universal picture of stairs on it and a "B" below the picture.
"That can't be wrong," she muttered under her breath and took the door to the stairwell before anyone could greet her. She wiped the sweat from her palms, feeling more confident now that she had conquered the first obstacle. Her eyes continued to scan for surveillance cameras, but the stairwell was clear. She took her time with the steps, not wanting to raise her heart rate any more than it already was. She was so far from calm but needed to keep her cool in case she did run into someone.
When she reached the top of the stairs, there was only one door and one keypad. She cocked an eyebrow at it and uttered dramatically, "So we meet again!"
Despite the situation, Ashley actually smir
ked at herself. She began to press in her trusty combination, 1 2 3 4, and smirked again when she heard the locking mechanism release in the door.
"Brilliant." She stifled a laugh as she entered into the storage facility proper and looked down hallways full of rows and rows of storage rooms. The first thing she noticed was a keypad for every locked door. She sighed deeply and chewed on her bottom lip as she started off in search of room 110, keeping a wary eye out for surveillance cameras.
It seemed easy to get her bearings. Everything was labeled alphabetically so she picked one of the hallways to turn down. She walked in search of aisle B, but only the lower letters of the alphabet were on this side of the building. When she reached the far wall, she took a left down the long corridor and watched the storage room numbers rise as she walked past. 91. 92. 93. When she reached 100, she was in the center of the building where a hallway divided the storage rooms into two sections. She kept going in the same direction and stopped when she saw hallway U, storage room 191. She huffed in frustration. “Who designed this place?”
Ashley turned around to walk down the central corridor, passing more rows until she finally found isle B. She started down the aisles and didn’t stop until she was on the opposite end of the building from where she started.
"Figures," she muttered, rolling her eyes to herself, but she had finally found storage room 110.
She took a deep breath, not out of nervousness this time but anticipation, and frowned at the keypad. There was an extra padlock on the door as well. "Now, how do you work?"
She slipped the key in and turned the lock. The padlock released, but the keypad lock held the door secure. She shrugged, pressed 1 2 3 4, and got an angry beep. A red L.E.D light glared at her. She pulled out Hal's wallet, took a quick glance at his social security card, and pushed in the last four digits.
When the light flashed green and she heard the keypad release, she scoffed, "Dumb-ass." Dumbfounded by the stupidity, she couldn’t help but shake her head as she slowly opened the door to peer into the small room.
There was an old writing desk with two drawers and a chair pushed neatly underneath. Four large, cardboard boxes sat to the side of the desk, stacked neatly against the wall. That was it. There was nothing else in the room.
Ashley went to the desk first, immediately going for the drawers but found only notepads and pencils in one, and the second one empty. She reached for the top box, pulling it to the desk so she could look inside. Luckily, it wasn't heavy. She opened the top to peer in and saw only clothes. She moved the top layers around, revealing more clothes beneath. Frowning, she moved on to the second box, and then the third.
Clothes, clothes, and more clothes.
She huffed as she bent to the fourth box and was pulling at the flaps when a hand grabbed the side of her head, slamming her hard against the desk. Ashley reeled, slumping to the floor as stars flashed behind her eyelids. Her thoughts whirled. Dimly, she realized she was being attacked, and a large shadow fell over her before she had a chance to scream.
Chapter 11 – Accomplice