I stopped next to the front fender of the truck. Why was I here? This entire thing was stupid. I closed my eyes, and tried to understand why I was so anxious. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t seem to calm down. I was afraid. I took a step up onto the curb and immediately wanted to just get in the truck and drive away. Why was I doing this? It wasn’t worth it. It wouldn’t matter.
“Screw it,” I said aloud, and started for the driver’s door. I pulled the handle and heard a hollow metal door release. I looked up at the brick building and saw the weathered metal fire-door open.
A stunning girl with short, dark hair stepped onto the sidewalk and slipped on a denim jacket. She looked amazing in her tight black dress with a plunging neckline, black nylons and high-heels.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” Alison’s voice carried a touch of anxiety. I stepped closer to her, and her eyes dropped to her cleavage. She spotted a tag attached to the left strap of the dress and quickly tucked it out of sight. I couldn’t understand why I was so afraid of going through with it. She was just as nervous as I was.
“You look…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Her slight smile drew me closer. I wasn’t sure who moved first, but we shared a gentle kiss that left me off balance.
“Yo, Connor.” I tripped, stumbling out into the light of the parking lot. Alison tipped her head and waved her hand in front of my eyes. “You still in there?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I really needed to get my head on straight. Revisiting my first date with Alison was not what I should have been thinking about.
“That’s debatable.” Alison scowled. The night had changed little since we set foot in the building, only the rain had receded to a light drizzle. I was not going to tell Alison that I was thinking about her, she would use it against Veronica. Annoyed, she turned and started for the out building clear across the lot and down a small gravel driveway.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where’s your head at?” Alison asked over her shoulder. We were almost outside the reach of the lights from the warehouse.
“Trouble and Veronica.”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah, I met with Leighton and Nate this afternoon.”
“Really?” Her steps faltered. “How’d that go?”
“Leighton is dead.” She gave me a worried look. “Nate was a bit more cooperative though.”
“Cooperative? You used her as bait, didn’t you?”
“Maybe, but Nate confirmed that someone is targeting us. Even he had heard about the disappearances.” Her pace slowed to walk beside me.
“Oh?” Alison gave me a sideways glance. “That’s not good.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” My boots left the pavement and began crunching across gravel approaching the building. It was another metal-sided structure maybe twenty feet in height and forty or fifty feet across.
“Where do I begin?” She straightened her jacket.
“Funny.”
“Well, at least you got something.” Alison switched on her flashlight when we stepped into the shadow of the building.
“Sort of.” I sighed. “He made his usual excuses, but we did get something.” She swept the light across the building. “He said the Italians at Striga might know about the ammo. The place was originally Nightlife.”
“The same?”
“Yeah, it’s the same. They invested in it last year, and are probably operating out of the club.”
“The Italians, we’ll need something to trade.”
“Can you get something?”
“When are you going?” She paused to look at me.
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
“Great.” She turned and started walking again. The thought hit me. I just invited Alison into a very private memory with Veronica. We would need back-up, but something told me Veronica wouldn’t see it the same way. “Tell me some good news.”
“Excuse me?”
“You went to see the Marquette family,” I paused. “Didn’t you?” Alison had offered to pick up the paycheck for the security analysis. I knew she stopped on her way back from Sarah’s. I severely doubted she forgot to get paid for one of our more irritating clients.
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
“They weren’t happy that we charged so much, but when I explained how much we went through and what we had to do they were more than accommodating.”
“Alison.” The last thing we needed was to get a reputation for overcharging people for our services. It was a fast track to bankruptcy.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Seriously, they were happy to pay once I gave them the report. They even gave us extra just for making sure.” I rolled my eyes. The girl could make a living as a used car sales rep if she wanted.
“How much?”
“Fifty-seven hundred,” Alison offered quietly. She got almost six grand out of the client in one check? While we didn’t have a going rate, we did work on the books as ‘Security Consultants’ and the pay varied. The client was just a pain in the neck in general but six grand?
“Six grand?”
“I showed them the bill, but they didn’t even want to pay us. So I had a chat with them. She insisted on giving us a bonus for our efforts. I didn’t even say anything of the sort.” I stepped up to the building looking for a door. “This way.” She took the lead, crunching on a gravel driveway.
“You’re joking right?” It was not out of question for a case total, but when a client comes to you after their store is robbed it feels wrong to hit them with such a hefty bill.
“Are you telling me we didn’t earn it?” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought.” She shook out her bracelets.
“We’re caught in something Alison, and to be honest, it scares me to death.” Alison stopped and looked at me. “The last thing I can deal with right now is someone complaining that we ripped them off.”
“Yeah, well.” She tugged open the side door of the building. “I’ll take point.” She pulled out her tablet while I switched on the camcorder and began recording. “Same environmental conditions.” She began running the meter over the box just inside the door watching the rising numbers.
“Cordage Park out-building ten fifty-six.” I added to the narration of the tape, tripping over a box while I tried to follow her using the camera as my eyes. “Where am I?” Pawing over my coat with my free hand, I pulled out my penlight. Massive stacks of opened and un-opened boxes towered well overhead, surrounding us. Some machinery was barricaded behind a chain-link panel beyond the boxes. A couple of forklifts were parked in the center of the first section while a third was missing tires.
“You’re too soft, Connor. If someone hires us to do a job, it shouldn’t matter what the story is. If we’re hired and we do the job, then we get paid. You shouldn’t feel guilty.” Alison stepped back into frame from behind a stack of boxes.
“Push comes to shove, I do my job, you know that. Nothing’s changed.” She stopped and waved a meter back through an area.
“Oh, this is going to be complicated if we need cameras in here too.” She took out her camera and fired off a couple of shots. “You’re getting reckless.”
“How?”
“You met with arms dealers for her.” Alison shot back.
“Why does that concern you? It’s not the first time either of us has done something like that.”
“Because- oh, I love the organization here.” She worked her way around another pile of discarded cardboard. She held up her camera and fired off a couple more shots before she turned back to me. “Because if you don’t get your head out of the clouds with her, this is going to bite us big time.”
“Oh, give me a break. Why am I having…?”
“Cool it. I thought I heard something.” It was her way of saying she was having the last word on the topic. She checked her pockets until she pulled out her Taser. I grumbled to myself, and pulled out the thermal scanner, switching on the laser sight. “Is there anyone in here with us?” Something in the distance fell down with a metal clank, making us jump.
“Hello?” A shadow moved along the back wall, and something else fell to the floor with a crack. I carefully watched the back-lit display showing the temperature was varying by a couple of degrees. “This is security, come out here now!” The darkened shadow passed in front of the laser sight, and I watched the temperature climb up into the mid-eighties.
“Uh, Alison?” I started backing away from the shadow. Something didn’t feel right. “Um.” I took another step back, and a sort of noise reverberated from the metal walls.
“Who’s there?” Another noise rose from somewhere to our left in the back. A second shadow appeared, looming closer. I backed away, knocking over a stack of boxes. Alison jumped, and the first shadow approached her.
“That’s not…” Alison took a step closer to me. The camcorder finally focused on the closest shadow, and Alison pointed her light at it to reveal a large Rottweiler growling at us. “Time to go!” I grabbed her arm and yanked her back toward the entrance. The dogs charged. The first one snapped at Alison’s ankle just as I slammed the door. “Brilliant.” I slid down the side of the building to sit on the gravel next to Alison. “You alright?”
“Sort of.” She held out her hand to show a long cut on the back. Thumping my head back on the metal, the dogs continued growling and snarling at the door.
“Connor!” Brandon called over the radios making me roll my eyes.
“Yeah?” I stared at Alison releasing the button. “We need to step up our game if we don’t want to end up dead.”
“I get that.”
“I think we have something.” In the distance, the warehouse was a strange mass of brick and steel. Even from here I could see camera flashes in the windows.
“Yeah?”
“We’re in the second floor storage area near the freight elevator. We’ve tracked a reading and temp drop from the storage area out to the catwalk and back several times.”
“Okay?” It sounded rather interesting by ghost hunting standards, but for us it wasn’t exactly something we needed to know.
“Connor, we got something almost immediately on the recorder.” Brandon added with an optimistic tone.
“You need something?” I watched Alison smear the thin line of blood on her hand with her thumb. Professional consultants are used to a wide array of investigations, but when you have amateurs in the field, you need to keep attitudes in check because the client is writing yours.
“Yeah, can you bring up the audio amplifier? I think I know the best place for the parabolic microphone too.”
“Right.” I picked up my penlight and took her hand to help her up. “Maybe they’ll find something interesting.”
“Hope not.” Alison brushed off. “Thanks.”
Running over the thoughts and memories silently, we made our way back across the gravel to the parking lot where Alison’s gray rover and Brandon’s truck were parked facing the large building. Opening the tailgate of the rover, I grabbed the required case and followed Alison into the building. We made our way across the open space bound for the far wall through the bleak darkness. Next to an old freight elevator with a wooden gate, we found the stairs to the second floor storage area. The old iron stairs reverberated with each step, feeling shaky and hollow. Winding our way around to the top, we met up with Veronica and Brandon. The second floor storage area extended along the eastern wall, where the stairs and elevator were secured to the thick wooden floor with old boiler-plate steel riveted to the floorboards.
“This way?” I asked Brandon.
“Yeah, you’ve got to see this.” He turned and started away.
“Um, Alison is coming as back-up tomorrow.” I held my breath. Veronica glared at me, and walked away without a word. I gave Alison a look but she was trying to hold back a smirk. We followed the two into a small storage room that was once an office. The windows looked out over the river and the main warehouse on our left with an exit onto the old catwalk.
“Right here,” Brandon announced, pointing at the slim device in his hand with a flashlight. Alison and Veronica tried to keep their distance from one another in the confined space, while Veronica continued recording.
“Have you got anything?” Alison asked.
“We’ve also got a temperature difference.” Brandon took the small silver device off his belt. “Watch this.” Brandon held out the device near the windows. The display showed a drop of more than twenty degrees.
“Could it be a power surge?” Veronica asked, keeping the camera between us.
“That’s really interesting.” I feigned interest. “Where did you need the mic?” I opened the case to take out the parabolic microphone, attaching it to a recorder and tripod. Brandon held a recorder near the egress to the catwalk.
“Over this way.”
“Uh.” Veronica made an irritated sound. Brandon waved the meter around, trying to find the abnormal readings again.
“Oh, here, watch this.” Brandon found the bizarre readings again by the catwalk, and followed the increasing lights with us close behind.
“Brandon, where do you want this?” I asked, less than a step behind, still carrying the microphone.
“Yeah, uh…over here.” He followed the readings across the catwalk, winding around over the office and storage areas. Crossing the center catwalk span back toward the office, the readings began to dissipate. Brandon staggered to the side, and fell through the railing with a loud crack.
“Brandon!” I lunged forward, missing him. He fell onto the concrete floor below in a crumpled heap.
“Brandon!” Alison and Veronica echoed my reaction. Another loud crack shook the catwalk. While professional investigators are tasked with infinitely more dangerous cases, amateurs are never really any safer.
“Connor!” Veronica reached out for me when the entire span began to shake.
“Get back!” I shoved her back as the wood moaned underfoot. I knelt on the edge of walkway. The fear in their eyes made me reissue the command. “Go!” Veronica turned with Alison, and ran for solid ground. Turning away from the girls, I saw a figure outside the distant windows and felt the boards under-foot give way.