Whatdidtrack was it was far enough that he was sure it was secure, that he could be certain no one was following him there, that no one would think to look there.
We pulled up to the building a while later, all of us climbing out to go to the office.
After signing Gav up for a unit, we grabbed some bags out of the trunk—empty save for the bag in my hand that had new deadlocks and a bolt cutter.
Gav’s new unit was on the second floor, not too far from Matt’s one.
We all walked down the halls lined with hideous orange doors.
“How do people get to those?” Blair asked, pointing up to the much smaller doors positioned above the lower garage doors.
“No idea,” I admitted as we did a turn about the place, making sure no one else was around before stopping at Matt’s unit.
Gav and Blair stood around me, blocking the cameras as I made short work of the deadbolt with the bolt cutters before tucking them away and pulling up the door.
“Jesus Christ,” I sighed when the light spilled inside, illuminating endless piles of crap.
“Well, at least there were some things that were true about Matthew,” Blair said, speaking to herself as she glanced inside a box jam-packed with baseball cards. From a cursory glance, they were all useless ones.
“Yes, I know,” I said as Gav shook his head. “Overconsumption and all that shit. Just start looking for electronics. Or paperwork with our names on it.”
With that, we all got to work, digging to the bottoms of boxes, then moving them aside to reach for the next.
“The fuck was he doing with so many VHS tapes?” Gav asked, sliding the cardboard sleeve up to make sure nothing was hidden inside. He had to be on his fiftieth tape.
“He was convinced that there was going to be a wave of people wanting VHS the way vinyl came back around.”
“Difference being that VHS tapes are literally degrading as we speak and there won’t be any film left on most of these in a decade,” Gav said, tossing a copy ofWeekend at Bernie’sinto the already overflowing box.
“Is it just me, or does that look like a path?” Blair asked after stacking another box on top of her ‘checked’ pile.
We all turned to find a narrow path toward the back corner. From the wrong angle, it was easy to miss. But when I moved over behind Blair, it was obvious it was absolutely a path.
I moved down it, finding a small TV dinner table set up with just one box on top—one of those long ones that you got from the grocery store that the eggs came in.
I flipped open the lid, moving aside a few oddly placed flannel shirts.
Then there they were.
Matt’s electronics.
His laptop even had the stickers for his favorite bands and restaurants on the front.
“I thought the police had his phone,” Blair said from my side.
I glanced over at Gav, both of us sharing a tense silent conversation.
He had a burner.
That he had hidden with his fucking laptop in the back of a storage unit.
It was not looking good for the hope that he hadn’t made this information available online somewhere.
“They do,” I said, grabbing the whole box and passing it to Gav. “Put this in the bag. Then we will do quick looks through everything else here before heading out. I want Zeno on that laptop and phone as soon as possible.”
With that, we all silently went to work.
We weren’t sure if any of the tablets, flash drives, or external drives were actually Matt’s but we stashed them all in the bag too, just to be safe.
