13Chapter 2 - Left But Not Forgotten
Lisbon watched the moving van pull away with all-no. most-of her worldly possessions. She knew she'd have to arrive in Cannon River, Washington ahead of the truck. There were no friends, not even acquaintances who could meet it for her to open up the house (She had a house! She actually owned a house now!) and tell the movers where to put the boxes and few pieces of furniture.
But there was something she had to do first. She'd catch up with the truck later.
Lisbon glanced over her shoulder at the jumble of boxes, oddly-shaped, difficult-to-pack, and fragile possessions that couldn't go in a moving van but had to travel in her SUV. It was almost hidden, but she remembered exactly where that small box was. Her fingers sought the two keys she'd added to her keyring, double-, no quadruple-checking that she had remembered to keep them out. It was the key to a storage locker plus a padlock key. Jane gave them to her years ago when he'd given her a spare key to his extended stay hotel room for emergencies. In fact, it was about then he listed me as next of kin, authorized to act on his behalf in medical emergencies. Too bad he never 'authorized' me to help with the Red John emergencies. She sighed and resolutely shoved away that thought.
Backing out of the parking space, Lisbon again glimpsed the small, almost-hidden box. She felt better than she had when she'd rescued his suits and books and odds and ends yesterday afternoon. The corners of her mouth pulled up in a slight smile.
I do have a little more left from him, of him. There's the original origami frog. And the letter from Lee Skelling, thanks for the money he and Cho sent his way from that bastard Carnelian CEO. I went back and got the baseball, too. That baseball cost me an afternoon of hassle in hand-holding and prodding Jane to get the damn MRI he needed. At least he shut up-sort of-when it turned out he did have a concussion. I saved Alexandra Yee's thank you note for the $300,000. The transplant saved her mom's life. Secretive as he is, we'd never have known except for that letter. Grace opened it when I was at a seminar. The guys had a field day chewing over that. Not with Jane around, of course, or he'd have found some way to deny it and make them pay for assuming something good, and sweet, and soft-hearted about him. There's the queen of hearts from the card trick he pulled on me. -I wonder, did he choose that card? And whose heart was she queen of? Did Jane ever do anything randomly, without thinking?
She took a breath and refocused on her driving. Better not go there. Then there are the newspaper clippings. Jane's theft of the stolen painting from that embassy. It took me three letters and an hour of begging to get Jane out of that one. How fitting that so much of this stuff is stuff he got in trouble for. She gave a sudden, sharp bark of a laugh. How ridiculous! Jane would get in trouble for using the law to force the Carnelian CEO to give Skelling what he owed him, while the whole damn bureau was shot through and through with corruption. It's enough to make me see things Jane's way... Almost.
She scanned the road for the storage locker sign, found it and pulled in. She went into the office. She'd never been here before.
"I need to change the billing address for a storage locker. " Jane had it on auto-pay but she knew the FBI had frozen his assets when they declared him a fugitive. It was just a 5' x 5' locker and she would pay it for him. At least for now. It took just a moment to make the change and she was outside again, anxious to get going, to catch up with her stuff.
She took a step toward her SUV, sighed, and paused. Okay. Don't know when I'll be back in Sacramento. And I really should be sure this is what I think it is. She took out the key, determined the locker number, and made her way there. It was a temperature- and humidity-controlled locker near the front office. She unlocked the two locks-one from the facility and Jane's padlock-and pulled up the roll-up door. Sunlight was more than enough to check out the contents of the small locker. Everything was neatly labeled and packed, obviously the work of a commercial moving service. She scanned a few labels. Photo albums. Framed photographs. Dolls. Child's artwork... She abruptly rolled down the door and clicked the padlock closed, leaning against the cool corrugated metal. Yeah, Definitely have to keep paying the rent on this.
She shook herself a little, walked back to her SUV and drove off in pursuit of her moving van. She was moving on. Almost.
