The other man got out of his pickup with his clipboard. He walked across the courtyard at an unhurried pace, exchanged anod and a half-sentence with the van driver, and they both went to the unit’s roll-up door.
The man in Carhartt produced a key and opened the unit.
The roll-up went up four feet. They both ducked under it, spending ninety seconds inside. The van driver came out first, carrying a black plastic case the size of carry-on luggage.
The driver’s posture indicated that it was heavy.
He set it in the rear of the van and went back. The other man came out next with a second case, identical to the first. He took it to the van, and they both went back inside the storage unit.
The van driver came out with a third case. He put it inside the van, got in, and started the engine.
The Carhartt pulled the roll-up down. The driver locked the rear doors. They didn’t shake hands. They didn’t speak. The Carhartt went back to his pickup. The driver got into the van and started the engine.
“Three cases. All loaded,” I said.
The van pulled away from the curb at ten-fifty-three.
Collins had his engine running. “I have him. North exit. Pleasant Street. Pike.”
“We’re on you. Three back.”
“Copy.”
I started the engine and rolled out of the gravel verge thirty seconds behind her, with the van already past the courtyard’s north gate and turning onto Pleasant. Dane had his phone in his lap with the secure line open to Eamon and his eyes on the windshield.
“Collins is one car ahead of him at the light,” he said.
“I see him.”
The van took Pleasant to Arsenal and Arsenal to the Pike on-ramp going east. Collins let one vehicle slip between her and the van at the merge, dropped back two lengths, and held the gap.I came up behind a Sysco truck three lengths behind her and stayed there.
“Collins isn’t reporting a mirror sweep,” Dane said. And no lane changes. He’s not looking for a tail because he doesn’t expect one.”
“Or he’s been told the watcher cleared him.”
I stayed behind the Sysco truck and watched Collins.
She drove the way she did everything: quietly and precisely.
“West Newton exit coming up,” Dane said. “He’s signaling.”
I spoke into the comm. “Collins, exit.”
“I see it. Taking it.”
We passed through three traffic lights. The van made all three on green. Collins made the first two and caught the third on yellow. I caught the third on red and lost a count, then closed back to two lengths behind her by the time we hit the residential part of Auburndale.
“Wiley flagged a shell with an Auburndale address last week,” Dane said.
The van slowed at an intersection and signaled left. Collins let one car pass her and turned left behind the van, dropping back to give it air. I took the turn after the car between Collins and me had cleared.
It was Lasell Street, residential with older homes set back from the road. The van slowed.
“Collins, hold at the next cross street.”
He pulled to the curb at Cottage Place and killed his lights. I came up behind him and stopped half a block back.
The van pulled into a driveway four houses up on the right side. Twenty-eight Lasell.