Page 76 of Save Her Life

“You said eight-oh-two?” The guy looked over his shoulder, and when she and Brice confirmed, he didn’t waste a second clamping down on the padlock. It popped open.

“Thanks,” Sandra told him.

“Anything I can do to help.” He smiled at her and backed up.

Brice tugged out what remained of the padlock from the loop and turned to the man. “If you could leave us to it now, that would be great.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” He bobbed his head, as if self-satisfied, and walked back toward the golf cart they took to here with a breeze to his steps.

Sandra lifted the door on the unit and stepped back to look at the contents. The thing was packed tight with boxes and furniture. It wasn’t likely any of Patton’s things were tossed over the last thirty-three years, and she’d wager his entire apartment had been uprooted and moved here.

“This is going to take forever to wade through,” Brice griped.

“No time like the present.” She gloved up and dug in, disheartened there wasn’t something else she could be doing. But this was it until she received approval to talk to Patton. On the upside, they could find something in this mess to lead them to the gold or give them an idea where Olivia was being held.

“We should also call for backup to come and help process everything. There’s just so much here. If we do uncover evidence in the bank robbery, we’ll want that to remain intact.”

“I get that.”

Brice put his hands on his hips. “Where do you even suggest we start?”

“I’d say the boxes. They might contain papers or photographs that can give us a clue.”

Brice hauled out an end table and set it to the side. In the back of the unit there was a bookcase loaded with boxes, but it would take some work to reach it. “Help me clear a path,” he said.

For the next fifteen minutes they took out a kitchen table, a set of four matching chairs, a couch, a recliner, a mattress, and a boxspring. When they’d finished, the front of the unit looked like a garage sale.

“Moment of truth.” Brice snatched one of the boxes from the shelving unit and set it on the kitchen table and popped the flaps.

Sandra grabbed one for herself and set up next to him. Hers was full of DVDs. “Bust for me.”

“Nothing much for me either. Some bric-a-brac.” He lifted a sculpted wooden duck, then tossed it back into the box.

“We keep going until we’re done.” Even as she said this and grabbed another box, she was thinking of Olivia. If only there was some fast way of getting to her and bringing this nightmare to an end. But there weren’t any shortcuts. At least none she could see. And where the hell was Elwood with her clearance to speak with Patton?

“I think I might have something here,” Brice said, pulling her from her desperate thoughts.

She shuffled closer to him and saw that the box he had opened contained a lot of photographs. The prints were loose as if they’d been tossed inside without care. Brice shuffled through them, sharing several with her. There were shots of Natalie and a woman who looked strikingly like her and familiar. She was probably Natalie’s mother and Darrell’s ex. Sandra likely recognized her from early memories of the trial. There were also candid photos of Regina with a cigarette dangling from her mouth as she shucked corn, a beer bottle on a table next to her. A picture or two of a cranky-looking man who was possibly Darrell’s father.

Brice fished out a framed photo and smiled when he dusted it off. “Ah, here we go…”

The photo captured a teenage Darrell with a similar-aged Lonnie Jennings and Dennis Eaton. The trio were holding fishing poles.

“Sadly, though, this picture doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” Brice said. “Patton liked to fish and so did hisfriends. But even if we figured out where this picture was taken, why would Patton hide the gold there? It’s probably public land, and there would be nothing stopping Jennings and Eaton from searching the area.”

“They might have, if they thought of it. But this fishing hole might have been important to Patton and mean nothing to the other guys. If Patton did hide the gold somewhere in nature though, things change, landmarks, all that.”

“Suppose so.” Brice grabbed a small stack of prints and sorted through those.

They all showed a twentysomething Darrell with hiking poles and hiking boots in different poses. He was always smiling for the photographer. Whoever was behind the camera was someone he liked. Given his age, it could have been Natalie’s mother before their separation. “He clearly liked nature.”

“Seems so. Hiking particularly. But even if we narrowed things to DC, there are a lot of trails.”

Hiking…“Huh. I remember now. It was so inconsequential to me that I must have kicked this out, but Darrell was wearing hiking boots when he was arrested in Washington. But he was living in Dumfries at the time. So why go to Washington with his daughter unless…” She met Brice’s gaze, and they spoke at the same time. “He did plan to pick up the gold from his hiding spot. Probably before he left the state.”

“Uh-huh. But you realize this would suggest the gold is likely hidden somewhere in DC,” Brice said.

“Yes, and I’m going to guess somewhere in parkland or the woods.”

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