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on the front that was about two feet by three feet. I wasn’t sure how deep they were, but by the looks of the size of the room, I guessed they went back at least six feet.
    My first thought wasn’t a good one. We were underground, technically, and the locker looked to be large enough to hold a body. It had been months though, unless he had sealed it extremely well, we would have smelled the decay.
    The thought made my stomach churn and for a moment I thought I was going to vomit. I steadied myself against the wall with my left hand.
    “You said Crawford didn’t have one? Ne pas avoir… ”
    “ Oui. Mais personne ne loue que. ” He pointed at unit number seven.
    “Nobody?” I didn’t know if I had understood him.
    He shook his head.
    Of course it was number seven. One of Crawford’s numbers present throughout the Book of Revelation.
    “So where’s the key? La clé? ”
    He took out a key from his pocket, slipped it into the padlock and tried to turn it. Nothing happened.
    “Shit, he must have changed it.”
    I reached into my coat pocket and took out a small zippered leather pouch. Once it was open I selected a tension wrench and my favourite pick then set them on the ground beside the lockers. My hands were shaking. Even on a good day, picking locks was not my strength. Of course, it all depended on the type of lock and the circumstances.
    And if anyone was watching, I had a tendency to get a little performance anxiety. You whip out a lock pick set and people assume it’s going to be like it is in the movies: insert picks, move picks, open lock. I was certain there were people who could do it that fast I just wasn’t one of them.
    I’d had a fair bit of practice though in the last few months. Regardless of the legality of it, I had been spending the nights I was in Lyon breaking into and searching through abandoned buildings. I’d had a couple of close calls with night watchmen and security alarms, but hadn’t gotten myself into trouble. Although the word ‘yet’ always came to mind whenever I considered what I had been doing.
    I slipped the tension wrench in, applied a little bit of torque and began raking at the pins within the padlock. I had a tendency to hold my breath while working on something small and tedious and it left me catching my breath every so often when my brain finally interrupted my work to tell me to breathe.
    I have no idea how long it took me, my mind was focused only on the task at hand. When the final pin set into place the cylinder spun and the lock released and I was struck with fear. I had no idea what was behind that door, no idea if it even had been Crawford who changed the locks on it. My mind was full of possibilities and the shaking of my hands became worse.
    There was only one way to find out. I took the padlock off of the door and opened the unit. A large metal container sat in front of me, the watertight kind you’d see on a boat. It was wrapped in plastic wrap and tape, sealed tightly.
    I dropped to my knees and the vomiting feeling I had held back earlier returned with a vengeance I was powerless to resist. My heart felt heavy in my chest as I dialed the police.

Chapter Eight
    J acques fought against his restraints. The ropes were even tighter than before; they dug into his flesh whether he struggled or not. The ropes between his wrists and ankles were tied together, holding him in a bent-over seated position. His back was getting sore. Moving at all had been almost impossible since they’d come to this new place. He would roll onto his side to sleep and found that the new position relieved some of the pressure, but with it came a feeling of even greater helplessness. If the man returned while Jacques was lying down there would be no way to stop an attack.
    Jacques bit down on the fabric that had been tightly tied between his teeth and wriggled some more; the ropes didn’t budge. Wherever they were now, the man was worried. Jacques could tell how uneasy he was. He