As Wyatt drove, he knew that it was too early for him to start speculating on Moore’s disappearance. Before he’d left the café in Flushing, he’d tried again without success to reach Moore’s aunt and uncle in Toronto.

He also checked for any responses from his police sources. Nothing.

He still had a lot to do, he thought, as he wheeled up to Island City Locked Storage.

The facility was enclosed with twisted, rust-stained corrugated metal fencing. It sat across from a shuttered, Second World War-era factory, an auto body shop, and a gas station, giving the air a heavy smell of grease and exhaust. The office was made of cinder blocks painted pale yellow, like the bays of the units that reached back for several acres.

The reception area—if you could call a couple of hard-back chairs and a plastic potted plant a reception area—had 1970s paneling with faded posters, boasting monthly deals on the best self-storage units in all of Queens.

Wyatt found three men at the counter.

“Hi, Ray Wyatt with True Signal News. Here to see Leo Barzi.”

A man in his 20s—with a beard, copper-colored hair pulled into a ponytail, and a blossom of ringlets at the top—was leaning on the counter. He turned to Wyatt, giving him a better view of his black T-shirt, bearing a skull and cross bones.

“That’s me,” Barzi said. Then, to a man behind the counter, he said, “Webb, I need 66.”

An older, white-haired man plucked keys from a locked wall unit.

“Let’s go,” Barzi said.

They got into a pickup truck. Barzi got behind the wheel, and turned the ignition.

“Thanks for agreeing to this,” Wyatt said.

They passed through an area with three pickup trucks—rentals for movers—with Island City Locked Storage logos painted on the side.

“Anything to help, you know. Kevin’s cool with me showing you.”

They drove up to a locked steel gate. Barzi entered a code at the keypad on the entry post on the driver’s side. There was an electric hum, and the gate opened.

“Okay with you if I start the interview now, put everything on the record, use my recorder and take notes?”

“Sure. Whatever. Go for it.”

Barzi eased the truck into the yard with its rows of locked storage units.

“Is this the pickup they used?”

“It is.”

Wyatt looked around, reflecting that he was sitting in the very spot where Sam Moore had sat.

“Vermont cops seized it,” Barzi said, “and kept it for a while. They combed through everything. When they gave it back, it was smeared with fingerprint stuff, which was hard to clean.”

Wyatt saw the dash-mounted camera.

“What about that? They get anything from it?”

“Yeah, the creep that scared her. But we never saw it. The cops kept it.”