Between The Lines

8.

Marvín's Auto Body & Glass Shop was old and rusted, and looked like it was about to fall apart any second. It was around seven o'clock by the time we got there. There were a bunch of car parts and cars undone piled into the small lot. A few newer-looking ones might've belonged to employees. The place catered to Fords, Chevrolets, Toyotas, and a few other types of cars I couldn't identify without the logos on them.

"The storage unit's back here." He was much better now, not walking as stiffly, and his voice was completely back. Eli led the way around the shop, walking by a gruff man who looked like he was the owner. A couple of other men seemed to be picking up scraps of metal around the main shop, trying to tidy up the place. They had a long way to go.

Behind the body shop was a big empty lot surrounded by a little junkyard. Virtually every make and model seemed to end up there, slowly falling to pieces, or having those pieces harvested. There were a few boys picking around through the piles or inspecting the carcasses of rusted-through cars. One was making his way to the shop with a tire, still mostly inflated. Another was tinkering under the hood of an old Chevy.

Eli glanced at them. "He used to work for me," he said, nodding in their general direction.

I had no idea who he was referring to since there were five teenage boys, and it hadn't seemed important to me at the time. "Cool."

We were nearing the last car in front of the khaki storage unit when something big and black and loud jumped out at me.

I screamed and stumbled back as the big pit-bull barked at me, going as far as the thick leather leash would allow. All of the five boys looked in our direction, though they just watched in confusion as the dog barked up at thin air.

"You know it can't bite you," said Eli, appearing quite amused.

I glared at him, moving away from the dog. "You knew it was there."

"It was asleep when I came by." He tried to hide his smile as the dog quieted down, annoyed that it wasn't going to have me for breakfast.

I followed Eli into the giant storage unit. It was here that all the newer stuff was kept, tagged with information and other such things. "So, what are we looking for?"

"A few windshields are back here. See those logs over there? Check to see how many windshields are supposed to be in here. Maybe the owner marked what was missing. I can probably find the make and model of the car it's supposed to be on."

"That would've been a great plan if I was actually capable of touching the logs." I nodded further into the storage unit. "And how did you plan to look through things if you can't move them?"

Eli closed his eyes and sighed. "Right.... How do we do this, then? On my way out I tried to find tread marks or footprints, but they were all messed up by the owner."

"Maybe the owner made a note of it or something in his office. We should look there like I did at the police station." I led the way through the stored car parts and out of the storage unit. One of the boys was heading towards the storage unit with a weird look on his olive face, but I wasn't too worried about it. Eli, however, just stopped and watched him. "What's wrong?"

He frowned. "Is he looking at us?"

I followed his gaze. "He could just be looking at the storage unit, since he's coming over here. Let's get to the office-we're wasting time." Eli started following me. We were walking towards the boy, obviously going to go around him.