He opened another crate and found more tea. He dug down as far as his arm would reach, but he found sealed plastic bags of tea all the way to the bottom. When he withdrew his arm, his wet skin smelled of cinnamon and cherry. The same was true of the next crate. And the next.

“Man likes his tea,” Jess said. Then she eyed the depth of the crates. “Hang on. Hand me those bolt cutters.”

The uniformed officer handed the bolt cutters to the lieutenant, and Jess shoved them inside the nearest crate as deep as they would go. She marked the point on the handle of the cutters with her thumb and then pulled out the bolt cutters and measured the length of the crate on the outside.

“There’s a six-inch difference. The crates have a false floor.”

Frost overturned the crate and dumped the tea on the floor. Using the blade end of the bolt cutters, he made a sharp downward thrust to the base of the crate, splitting through the wood. He repeated the motion until he’d made a jagged hole in the floor of the crate, and then he reached through the hole. He found dozens of vacuum-sealed bags under his fingers, and he pulled one out.

Six plastic bottles were locked inside the sterile bag.

“Oxycodone,” Jess said, reading the labels. “Newman is smuggling prescription pain pills.”

Frost looked around at the storage unit, as if it held more answers. He didn’t think this place was just about pills. “Did Newman load or unload anything when he came here?” he asked Frankie.

“Not that I saw. He went inside, stayed for fifteen minutes or so, and then came out.”

“So what was he doing here?” Frost asked.

No one in the room answered. Frost went to the desk at the back of the storage unit and sat down in the chair in front of it. He stared into the mirror reflecting his face. That was odd, too. A mirror. He wondered why Darren Newman felt the need to look at his reflection.

Then he thought, He wants to see if anyone comes inside behind him.

Frost studied the desktop, which had almost nothing on it, other than a bright lamp, a letter opener, and a magnifying glass. He opened the drawers and found billing orders and invoices. All of it was for tea. It still told him nothing about Lucy.

“What was Newman doing here?” he asked aloud again.

He opened the deepest drawer of the desk, which contained a series of vertical files. He scooped the entire set of files out with his hand and stared at the bottom of the desk drawer.

“Fool me once,” he said.