Page 26 of The Woman in the Garage

I couldn’t stare at the damn paperwork for another moment.

I’d gotten good at spreadsheets quickly. The problem was, none of it was making any sense.

I had lists upon lists.

Small cars that cost hundreds and hundreds for oil changes or the replacing of a fuse. Then large vehicles that cost a third of that price for the same work. And vice versa.

But they were done by all different mechanics. And, as if that wasn’t confusing enough, there were also tons of instances where they seemed to charge the right amounts for whatever work had been done.

The best conclusion I could come to was that they were giving breaks to friends and family. Then, I don’t know, overcharging regular clients to make up the difference, so the bottom line still appeared to be what it should be.

The thing was, I had no proof. I couldn’t exactly confront the guys about it with what I had right then. They would all just get testy like Ren had and toss me some excuse about how there was other work done to excuse the overcharges.

I’d even scrolled through the reviews online, checking to see if there was anyone complaining about being overcharged.

Sure, there were a handful of bad reviews—like any business got—but not enough that I felt like people were onto some kind of scam being perpetrated.

“Enough of that,” I grumbled, gathering my incriminating paperwork and tossing it all into my purse.

I hated to admit it, but I wouldn’t put it past the guys to search my office when I wasn’t around. The last thing I wanted was for someone who was behaving badly to know I was onto them.

I didn’t want to believe any of them would actually try to hurt me, but they were still a bit of a mystery to me. I didn’t want to take any chances.

“Taking off early?” David asked as I moved out into the garage. Three cars were still on lifts. Several others were being worked on on the ground.

We were busy.

That was good.

The way things were looking, we were just barely making enough—after bills and paychecks were handled—to pay the Grassi Family what I owed them. And that was with me taking just the salary of one of our lowest-paid mechanics. Hardly made me feel boss-like. But I was just going to have to put some of my house projects on hold for a while.

“I’m just going to bring some of this junk to my uncle’s storage locker,” I told him, jostling the two boxes I was carrying.

I hadn’t been lying to Santo; dumpster rentals were insanely expensive. It was actually cheaper to just start shoving all the junk that I wouldn’t be able to sell or give away in the storage locker until I saved up enough for a dumpster.

I had some stuff in my trunk from the house to shove in there. But there were things that I’d gathered from around theoffice and the waiting room that I needed to sock away for a while too.

“I’ll be back later,” I added. “You good here?”

To that, David waved a hand.

Taking that for agreement, I left out of the garage doors, shoving the boxes in my passenger seat, and heading in the direction of one of the several storage facilities in the area.

It wasn’t the easy little errand I’d been expecting when I was faced with a locked gate that required a code I didn’t have.

So I needed to park, talk to the brand-new girl at the desk who had no idea how to give me access, so a manager had to be called.

Until, almost forty-five minutes later, I had a new code and my name on the paperwork, and I was driving through the open gate.

The place was like a labyrinth of white buildings full of orange doors. I felt like I drove around forever until I found the right building. Then I walked around even longer until I realized—with no small amount of embarrassment—that my uncle’s unit was one of the onesinsidethe building.

“Oh, this isn’t creepy at all,” I grumbled to myself as I stepped inside, the door making a cracking noise behind me as it slammed closed.

Ahead of me was another maze with a long central hallway and several others that spliced off from the main one.

Likely in some attempt to conserve energy and keep costs down, the overhead lights worked on a motion sensor. So the only lights in the entire area were the ones directly above me.

I didn’t move for a couple of minutes.

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