Page 39 of Maverick

She nodded, swallowing. “Yeah.”

“Let’s do this systematically,” I said, letting my old detective instincts surface. “We’ll open each box one by one, see if there’s anything relevant, documents, receipts, letters, anything that could link your mom to that Grinder guy or the mob or the SOS MC folks.”

“Right.” She took an unstable breath. “Let’s start with those bins.” She pointed to a trio of plastic containers near the trunk.

We settled on the floor, side by side, and pried the lids off. The first bin was stuffed with old clothes, feather boas, sparkly tops, fishnet stockings, like some leftover relics of Diana’s freewheeling days. Lexi rolled her eyes and tossed them aside, clearly unimpressed.

The second bin was full of random knick-knacks, cheap jewelry, half-burned candles, a handful of photos from who-knows-when. I paused over a polaroid of a younger Diana, wearing a leather jacket and pouting at the camera. She wasin a parking lot filled with motorcycles, a man’s arm around her waist. Only half the man’s face was visible. A tall guy, moustache, beard, big grin. No patch or sign of affiliation that I could see. Possibly the father Lexi never met, but there was no obvious clue.

“You recognize him?” I asked, showing Lexi.

She squinted, a faint line forming between her brows. “I don’t think so. My mom had a different boyfriend every year, so it’s hard to keep track. She never told me his name if he was around, anyway. Just called him ‘baby’ or ‘darling.’”

I slipped the photo into my jacket pocket. “Might be worth checking out further.”

She nodded, a flash of sadness crossing her face. I suspected the idea that she might see a photo of her dad stirred complicated feelings. But she pressed on, rummaging through the rest of the bin. Some diaries with missing pages, a deck of tarot cards, a half-empty perfume bottle. Nothing that screamed incriminating. We set the bin aside.

The third bin held more of the same: random clothes, old lipsticks, a stack of cheap romance paperbacks. I couldn’t help but smirk at that. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. We found a battered notebook with half the pages torn out and a typed letter from a small claims court referencing overdue rent in some place in Nevada. No mention of the mob or blackmail or anything relevant to a target on Lexi’s head.

“Damn,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “So far, this is a bust.”

Lexi sat back on her heels, blowing out a breath that fluttered a strand of hair from her eyes. “We still have boxes. And that trunk.” She eyed the trunk warily.

“Let’s tackle it.”

We moved a few smaller boxes to get to the trunk. The boxes contained old Christmas decorations, some random children’s toys, which Lexi explained were hers from when she was a kid, though how her mom ended up with them was a mystery. I flipped through the final small box. More photos, mostly blurry, a few letters from men who wrote “I love you, Dirty Diana,” with no last name or real address.

Finally, we pried open the trunk. It creaked ominously, revealing piles of crocheted blankets and doilies. Lexi gave me a quizzical look, rummaging through them. Underneath, there were old receipts from a roadside diner in Colorado, a few postcards, some from Alaska, ironically enough. My heart twinged at the mention of Alaska, remembering my time there, but I pushed that aside.

“This is insane,” she murmured, frustration sharpening her tone. “I don’t see a single document that screams blackmail or mafia dealings. It’s just junk. My mom’s entire life was junk.”

I touched her shoulder gently. “Could be we haven’t found it yet. Could also be that your mom kept her secrets somewhere else. Or maybe she really didn’t have any. Could be the threat was about something else entirely.”

She sighed, slumping. “Or maybe she just lied to everyone, including me.”

We searched for another twenty minutes with no real luck. I snapped pictures of some older letters, just in case a random signature might mean something. But I doubted it. As we closed the trunk, Lexi flopped onto her butt, a wave of exhaustion washing over her features.

“Ugh, I’m so tired of sifting through my mother’s half-life,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to do this when she was alive. Now I have no choice.”

My heart constricted. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, wishing I had better news or a comforting truth. But I was never good at sugarcoating. “It might mean the mob’s after you for some other reason. Or someone else orchestrated it all to look like a mob hit.”

She nodded, eyes downcast. “So, we found nothing.” She let out a long breath, then mustered a weak smile. “Thanks for helping me dig. At least I know now.”

Lexi burst into tears, and I wrapped my arms around her, just holding her against my chest as she cried. After a few minutes, she settled down. Releasing her, I stood up and reached out. I tugged her gently by the arm, helping her stand.

“Let’s bag a few of the photos, the diaries, anything that might have even a scrap of info. I’ll keep them safe. We can comb through more thoroughly when we have time.”

She agreed, so we did that quickly, stuffing them into a bag. When we were done, we both stared at the messy room, boxes and bins scattered in disarray.

“So that’s it?” she asked quietly.

“For now,” I said. “We should probably get out of here soon. No telling if someone’s tailing us. We’ve already been here a few hours.”

She glanced at her phone. It was late. “You’re right. But… can I at least cook dinner first? I’m starving.”

I was about to protest, but something in the way she said it stopped me. She looked so worn, so desperate for a shred ofnormalcy. And honestly, so was I. We’d been eating diner food, gas station junk, and fast bites for days. The idea of a home-cooked meal made my stomach rumble.

“All right, princess,” I relented, a half-smile tugging at my lips. “Cook me something. But we gotta keep an eye out.”

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