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“The rich bastard had no taste.” Maya scowled at a grey suit coat with red trim and cast it aside.
The wardrobe was bigger than the trailer home I lived in and my minimal, yet stylish, collection of clothing was housed in a cupboard that was smaller than Chui’s shoe rack. After being forced to wear clothes to suit my undercover job, I vowed to myself that when I did buy clothes, they would be something I truly wanted. It was a great plan, except I didn’t have much time for shopping, and I rarely found clothes worthy of buying.
As I drove my ax into the slab of timber on the side of the drawers, my thoughts slammed to Nikki Bolton. She’d had a massive wardrobe like this, and she was constantly shopping for more clothes or shoes or handbags. She could buy anything she wanted, yet none of them made her happy. She’d told me once that all she wanted was a quiet holiday on the beach where she could read a book and soak up the sunshine, and everyone would leave her alone.
I wondered if that’s where she was now, on a secluded tropical island, enjoying the quiet life that she longed for. Or was she honing her target practice, ready for our next encounter?
Clamping my jaw, I drove my ax into the giant slab of timber on the side of the drawers, and a massive chunk peeled away. I gripped the piece, and as I pulled it, my jaw dropped. “Hey, check this out.”
Behind the drawers was a secret compartment.
Whisper and Maya flanked me as I drove my hand into the rectangular gap.
“What’s in there?” Whisper asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t feel anything. Help me pull this apart.”
Chunks of timber flew everywhere as we attacked the center console with our tools, pulling away bits and tossing them away.
When all the drawers were removed, a mechanical system was exposed at the back.
“It’s one of those fancy concealed compartments,” I said. “There must have been some kind of trigger that raised this section to the top.”
Albert Bolton had a secret compartment like this in his massive office desk. Inside his, he’d concealed a Sig Sauer P365 handgun. I’d seen him surprise a man with that weapon once. The man Albert murdered had no idea the gun had magically appeared in Albert’s hand until the split second it was aimed in his face before Bolton pulled the trigger.
That was the first time I saw Bolton murder someone, and I had somehow kept my cool despite my fear of being killed next. After I’d helped Bolton’s psycho brother remove all evidence of that ruthless murder, I had gone to my room over their massive car garage and vomited so hard I cracked a rib.
“This has to be it.” Whisper grinned as she bashed a rusty steel bracket away with her hammer.
The metal twanged as it buckled, and the timber sheet it was attached to splintered in two. Working together, we grabbed the pine sheet, and as we pulled it away, a lunch box-sized, ruggedized case thudded to the floor.
I reached for it.
“Don’t touch it,” Maya said.
I jerked back.
Maya shook her head. “Knowing that bastard Chui, it could be booby-trapped.”
We all leaned over the box. It was made of toughened black plastic, yet the front corner near one of the two locks had buckled inward. These toughened Pelican cases were designed to withstand impact, so I assumed it was mangled in the explosion. A hole the size of a die had punched through the top. I shone my torch into the jagged gap, and it reflected off what looked like a screen.
“It could be a computer.”
“I’ll get the others.” Whisper sprinted for the door. “Hey! We found something,” she yelled as she raced up the hallway.
“If it was booby-trapped, don’t you think it would have detonated in the explosion?” I asked.
Maya scrunched her nose. “You never know.”
I nudged the case with my shoe, moving it away from the drawer debris. Cobra bounded into the room first, followed closely by Watts and Jeff.
“What’ve you got?” Captain Watts asked.
I pointed at the box. “A tough case. We found it inside a concealed compartment in the set of drawers that were here.”
Aria ran into the room.
“That must be what they were looking for,” Lacey said.
