The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 8, pt. 2

“It’s just a scratch!”

“You were shot! On your first day in the field!” Quinn sounded more upset than she was, Jo thought. But then, she was probably still in shock. She had the rest of the day off, and the next several as well. Everyone in the office had been shaken up by the story of what had happened.

He was right, she’d been shot; but she was also right. It was literally just a scratch. There had been some blood, but the gun had been a small caliber weapon, and the round had grazed her neck, barely even drawing blood. The doctor who’d treated her after they got back to HQ had told her in no uncertain terms just how lucky she’d been, and she believed it. Small caliber or not, if it had passed just a few inches to the left, she’d be dead.

“Stop fussing,” she growled. He’d dropped in after he was done work; she wasn’t surprised he’d found out. She hadn’t said anything, but word would spread fast after an event like this one.

“Hey, c’mon, this is serious. And not just because of the wound. What did you find that was worth killing someone for?”

“Nobody killed anybody. Not yet, anyway,” she said with a twist of her lips. She sighed. “Okay, fine. It was a box, like a safe deposit box or something. It was all metal; brass, or bronze, maybe. Probably brass. It was old, it’s hard to tell.”

“It was old, and just laying around in a building that’s been in use since the town’s founding? I used to shop in that drug store with my parents when I was a kid. Damn,” he said, surprised.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly out in plain sight. It was in the basement, in some sort of cubby-hole up by the ceiling. It was almost impossible to spot.”

“Huh. And what was in it?”

“Papers. Old documents, really well preserved.”

“That’s it?” His face betrayed disappointment, and a touch of consternation. “A box of old records almost gets you killed. I hope.”

“Er … you hope?”

“Yes. I hope it’s almost. Someone’s out there who’s willing to kill for something in that building, and they probably think you have what they’re looking for. Who knows, maybe you do have what they’re looking for. Let’s hope they don’t try again.”

She shivered to hear the thought spoken out loud, though she’d thought it herself a few times in the hours since she got home. “Thanks, Que-ball. That’s a great picture to put in my head.”

“At your service, as always,” he said with a slight smile, though worry still shone in his eyes.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at the documents yet. I’ve been too busy fending off you and Gran,” she said. Gran had reacted even worse than Quinn, though in a decidedly different way. It had started out a good day for him; he was completely lucid and his memory was relatively sound. He’d gone gray when he heard she’d been shot, and not even seeing how superficial the wound was had helped. He’d withdrawn, shaking, then alternated between holing up in his room and trying to dote on her. It was sweet, but exasperating, and frustrating; her being shot had struck a chord, but she didn’t know why. A bad feeling began to creep over her.

“You mean you have them here?” Quinn’s eyebrows crept up toward his hairline.

“Just copies. They’ve got the originals locked up. They’ve got people going over them for the official analysis of course, but since I was shot in the effort to get them, they let me have them to look over while I’m off.”​

The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 8, pt. 1

They froze, waiting in the dark, eyes closed. Jo wasn’t sure what she expected to happen; some assailant to leap out of the shadows and strike, maybe. Instead, her blood froze at the sound of the floorboards creaking, long and slow. It seemed to go on forever, to set her nerves on edge.

Mike picked up the box and started moving slowly toward her. “C’mon, we’re getting out of here. We can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen.”

Jo gulped but nodded, whispered “Okay,” though she wasn’t sure she was entirely okay with it. He did have a point though. Waiting would only get them so far, and if there was someone there, gave them the advantage.

Mike took the stairs first, moving as slow as he could, feet landing on the steps right along the wall where the wearing of the concrete was minimal. Jo followed behind, scanning the doorway ahead of them anxiously. Once they’d gained the doorway, they kept low and looked around, expecting a hail of weapons fire at any moment.

Another creak sounded from what Jo could’ve sworn was the second floor, though the acoustics in the building made it hard to be sure. It was shorter and sounded much more like a footstep. Mike cursed under his breath. “Upstairs,” he said. “Let’s go. Now!” Without waiting for a response, he took off at a run, Jo close behind.

Three sets of pounding footsteps; that’s what Jo counted. Mikes, hers—and someone behind them. A detached part of her mind noted that that was all she heard, no extra labored breathing, no weapons, no shouts, no fourth or fifth sets of footsteps. Then they were at the door, and the first gunshot rang out. She felt something whiz by faster than she could process, felt a tiny sting on her neck.

Her hand reflexively clamped to it, but she kept running. Mike was breathing like a winded horse, bu was muttering under his breath; she hoped he was calling a ride to get them out of this. She took her hand away and looked. It came away red, but it was only a trace; the round had scratched her, no more. Her knees threatened to go weak in relief. She kept them moving instead, pounding down the street.

She dared a look back after they’d run almost to the next property; a solitary figure stood, weapon in hand, but lowered, watching after them. He looked possibly male, was covered in long, dark, flowing clothing that told her very little about the figure within. She snapped her eyes back to the sidewalk ahead.

“Got a way out of this one?”

“C-called … a cab,” Mike said, slowing slightly. “Gotta get this back to HQ. Who the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, barely saw him.” She slowed to match his pace. “He didn’t follow us out of the building, just watched us go.”

“He must know we took something out.”

“You think he was after this?”

“He was after something, and probably doesn’t know what we have.”

A few minutes later, they were safe in a cab and headed back to the office. Another cab followed their route some distance back, unseen by either of them.​

The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 7, pt. 5

They waited, the silence of the basement pressing in like a pressure wave. Jo tried to imagine she was on a climb, an overhang, with just her hands between her and a long, fatal fall. That kind of pressure, she could handle. Waiting, scared in the dark, not knowing what was coming, if anything—that was harder.

The smallest sound reached them from upstairs, and Jo stiffened. In a building as old as this, it could have been floor boards settling as easily as a footstep. After several moments she let out a slow breath; there was no followup sound.

They waited a few minutes more; her eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloom. She could just make out Mike’s outline, black against the deep, dark gray of the room. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, no doubt as impatient as she was to be out of this situation.

She finally started edging toward the staircase, willing herself to make no sound. The scrapes and shuffles of her shoes on the floor made her cringe, but she kept going, moving slower; still nothing from upstairs.

The door at the top of the stairs stood open, just as it had stood when they originally found it. It outlined a patch of lighter gray; she couldn’t make out anything at the top. She stood by the foot of the stairs and they waited a bit more.

Ten minutes must have passed by the time Mike dared the faintest whisper. “I don’t think there’s anyone there.”

“Get the box,” she replied.

“We can’!”

“If we leave it, we risk losing it entirely.”

He was silent for a moment, silhouette unmoving against the gray. “Alright, fine.” He very, very slowly knelt down next to the box; she could see him fumbling around, unable to see it in the dark. She held her breath; his coat sleeve caught on the box and dragged it a moment, making a noise that she’d barely have heard under normal circumstances, but sounded like the collision of two planets to her here and now.

“Crap,” he whispered.

The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 7, pt. 4

When they got upstairs, Mike frowned and looked at the front entrance. “Hey, did you leave the door open when we got here?”

“No … I’m pretty sure I closed it.” It was open now, and creaking in the breeze. The sound of the rain was soft but clearly audible from where they stood.

They looked around, but there was nobody else visible. “I’m sure I closed it!”

“I know, I remember you closing it too,” he said. “Hello? Anyone there?”

The only reply was a creaking of the floor upstairs. They glanced at each other. “I don’t like this,” Jo said, voice low.

“Keep your cool,” Mike said, voice tinged with concern. “It could be anything.”

Jo had some private doubts about that; stepping lightly, she crossed the floor to the front door and put her finger to her lips, then pointed back toward the basement. Mike nodded in surprise. She couldn’t read his expression in the gloomy lighting, but he turned and headed back the way they’d come. She waited until he’d had enough time to descend, then pushed the door closed firmly before following him as quickly and quietly as possible.

“This is ridiculous,” he whispered as she reached the top of the stairs. He hadn’t gone down.

“I have a bad feeling. A really bad feeling,” she said. It was more than just a gut feeling; she was starting to feel a little like she had when she’d seen those odd people the last Friday. The head-rush feeling was different though. Much less intense. Maybe I’m imagining it, she told herself.

“If your bad feeling is right, we’ve just shut ourselves in with whoever it is,” Mike growled, sounding like he had his own bad feeling.

The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 7, pt. 3

The object was indeed a box; a metal one, long and wide but very shallow, corroded green with age and with an ornate lock on the front. It was heavily built, and the lock was of a very old design. Jo’s enthusiasm for the past didn’t extend to expertise in ancient locks or boxes, but she thought it wouldn’t have looked out of place around the time of the building’s origin.

Mike held his light for her; she lifted the box and inspected it carefully. The corrosion wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Certainly better than she might’ve guessed given the dampness of the environment and the apparent age of the box. “Think this thing could’ve been here since the police used this place?”

“Don’t know. It’s possible. I don’t know how you spotted that hole. I’d have walked past it a thousand times and never seen it.”

“Just looking for handholds,” she said, eyes on the lock.

“What?”

“I climb. Gives me the habit of looking for places to hang on.”

“Huh. Handy,” he said, unconscious of the pun. She stifled a groan and rolled her eyes anyway. The lock stubbornly refused to offer up its secrets to her, and a quick test proved that either the lock was engaged or the corrosion was bad enough to stick the box closed.

“It’s jammed, we’re not going to get this thing open here, I don’t think. Let’s take it back with us.”

“Can’t. We don’t own it yet. We’ll report on it, then open it on the property and investigate what’s inside.”

She sighed, frustrated. “Okay. We should bring some stools with us next time. There are a lot more of these little cubby-holes, and who knows what we’ll find in those?”

Mike nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He sat the mysterious box in a dry corner.​

The Price of Entanglement - Chapter 7, pt. 2

The beams of their lights probed the darkness down the stairs. The steps were solid concrete, and the hand rail was still firmly attached to the wall. Mike stood at the top, Jo just behind him; they methodically ran their light over the walls, Mike working on those further away with his more directional light, Jo using her phone to light up the closer walls.

It didn’t look terribly promising, Jo thought. The basement did have the look of ancient construction, but there were plain signs of upkeep over the years. Some sections of concrete were clearly much newer than the rest of the walls, which were made of brick.

They moved slowly down the stairs. After almost two centuries, the concrete steps, a relic of the original building, had worn down significantly toward the center. She had to be a little careful to avoid losing her balance and falling.

The basement showed clear signs of having served as storage for the drug store, and likely the previous tenants before them as well. Broken cardboard shipping boxes littered the dark space, stray packing peanuts lay on the ground or floated in small puddles where the damp had collected, and the floor surface itself was dirty and scuffed visibly despite the months of dust that had accumulated.

“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper,” Mike said dryly, inspecting several of the puddles more closely, undoubtedly recording the whole inspection, as Jo herself as. He frowned. “Does this look like condensation to you? I’d say it looks more like a leak in the plumbing somewhere.”

She looked at the puddle, but there was nothing special about it; there were pipes near it though, and they were streaked with rust. She followed them upward with her eyes, up the wall to where it met the ceiling. Her hand twitched a bit, and she realized she was tracing a climbing route up the wall; another moment and she realized she’d traced a route to a destination she hadn’t even consciously noticed at first.

There were a regular series of indentations in the walls, very narrow, but large enough to maybe get a hand in. They were almost flush with the ceiling, and looked like darker patches of shadow. She moved closer, letting the ambient glow of her phone illuminate one of them better. Mike followed her gaze.

“Huh. Good eye, Jo.”

“Thanks,” she said absently; the recess looked deep, and there was something inside. “I’m going to climb up and see if I can pull that out,” she said.

“You could wait until we get more equipment down here, or at least better lights,” he replied, but she was already testing several handholds in the bricks higher up on the wall. In short order she was clinging to the recessed section she’d seen the object in, her feet swinging almost a meter off the floor. She braced her feet tight against the brick wall below and held on with one arm, reaching inside with the other.

She got hold of the object, which was largish and heavy; it felt like a box, maybe of metal. “Mike, come grab this, I won’t be able to carry it down, I’ll have to pass it to you.”

He stood ready to catch it as she pulled it from its resting place, then caught it as it fell. Jo climbed back down and took a look at what she’d retrieved.​