He got out of the car and I followed, my feet crunching on the gravel of the parking lot. The air smelled like a mix of fresh autumn, gasoline, and something vaguely rotten, like food gone bad.
“Which unit is it?” I asked, jogging to keep up with his long, swift strides.
He held up the paper taped to the key ring. It had a number written on it in marker. “Seventeen.”
This place was eerily still, with no sign of human life anywhere, and I was reminded of the houses I cleaned for a living—a space full of abandoned things, some of them belonging to people who were dead or moved away, people who would never pick them up. I’d dealt with storage units plenty of times, either cleaning them out as part of my work or dropping items off from an emptied house. They were quiet, dead places, but they had never given me the chill up my spine that I felt right now.
Damn this town. Even the storage units were creepy.
Bradley used his key to unlock unit number seventeen. He bent to yank up the rolling door, but it stuck at first. He gave it a few massive tugs, and then it lifted with an angry groan as his shoulders flexed. I could reluctantly admit that it was useful to have a little muscle on this errand.
The interior was dim, and the sunlight winked out as I crossed the threshold. Bradley was already inside, and his body posture was tense, his jaw tight as he looked around.
“See?” He pointed to some of the objects in the dim light. “Dad’s old stereo, which he paid a lot of money for. He doesn’t want Mom to have that. A box of china my grandma left him, which he thinks is worth money. An antique table they got as a wedding gift that Mom wants to have in her house. Dad doesn’t want it, but he’s hiding it from her. And—” He stopped speaking as he squinted at the writing on the side of a cardboard box.
“Fuck,” he said, and gave the box a kick with the toe of his shoe. It wasn’t a hard kick, but the box skidded across the dusty floor, the sound of it loud in the silence. “I’m going to see if any of these other units are unlocked. Maybe there’s something good to steal,” he barked, and walked out.
I approached the box, deciphering the faded writing.Wedding photos, it said.
It seemed that Bradley Pine and I had had similar childhoods, at least in some ways.
I heard aclangas Bradley worked out his anger by yanking on the door of the next unit. He would be occupied by his tantrum for a few minutes at least. I wished I could follow him and take out my fury at my parents by clanging on metal doors until I felt better, but I had work to do.
Gus had helpfully labeled two of the boxesFell PD, so I dragged those off the stack and opened them. There were yellowed files in here, and I squatted and walked my fingers through them, looking at the meticulous labels typed up by some long-ago secretary at the Fell PD.Anderson. Archer. Campbell. DeVries.Gus had taken a lot of files from his old job. It was surprising that he hadn’t gotten in trouble for it.
There was anotherclang, this one farther away, then another. Ifelt a chill down my back, as if someone had dripped ice water on my spine.
I froze and looked at the open door, which was a square of bright light. My heart sped up in my chest. Something wasn’t right.
“Bradley?” I called.
Anotherclang, and he swore. He wasn’t far. There was no one else here. There was no need to feel like I wanted to get up and get out of here. In my mind’s eye I pictured that door rolling closed, leaving me in the dark. The click of the padlock locking into place. The way the air in here would quickly get stale and hot…
The back of my neck felt tight. I had to focus on what I was doing here, focus on Ben. I looked back down at the box, walked my fingers through the folders until I got toEsmie.Ben’s file. I tugged it out of the box, feeling how light it was. There wasn’t much here.
Gus had stipulated that I could read the file, but I couldn’t take it with me. I’d agreed. I pulled the papers from the file folder, folded them, and shoved the square into the back pocket of my jeans. I tucked the empty folder back into the box.
Bradley had gone silent.
“Bradley?” I called again, and then everything happened at once.
“Hey!” Bradley shouted in a deep tone of surprise. “This one’s open.” There was the loud sound of a door being rolled up.
I put my hands on my knees to rise, then froze as something passed the edge of my vision. A pair of feet, clad in sneakers that had once been white but were now dirty and falling apart. They shuffled through the dust with a soft sound. I saw the frayed hem of old jeans, a young man’s slender legs as he came toward me.
My throat closed, my mouth filling with spit. I flinched back, scrambled to rise.
Dimly, I heard Bradley’s voice. “Whatisthat? What the—” And then he started retching.
I overbalanced. An icy hand gripped the back of my neck, thefingers digging hard into my flesh. I opened my mouth and tried to scream.
A voice spoke in my ear, a low, harsh rasp that vibrated through my skull and down my spine.
“Sister sent me,” it said.
And then there was nothing.
13
