Pulling over into a space between two metal dumpsters, Bevis checked the address; the storage unit was somewhere around, but the exact location meant she needed to leave the vehicle to find it. Pulling up her phone, she typed in the address and waited while it worked on finding her directions. Looking up and down the alley, she took in her environment; many cardboard boxes of varying sizes were at the alleyway's entrance. It could be someone's home, or they could have been disposed of and yet to be collected. The alley was primarily empty until the other end, where an overflowing metal rectangular trashcan could be seen; trash lay in it, overflowed down the sides and puddled in a stinky circle around it. Bevis' phone dinged, alerting her to the path she needed to take. Glancing down at her phone, Bevis sighed; time to move.
Pulling her backpack over her shoulder, she exited the car, locking it and pocketing the keys. Moving toward the alley entrance, she paused, frowning at the phone and glancing to her left; she was supposed to go into a passageway which, according to the phone, was in this wall. Turning toward the wall, Bevis stared at it but couldn't see any door or window in the solid brick.
"Am I supposed to walk through walls?" she whispered, moving toward it and looking at the GPS. Apparently, she was right on track, but it couldn't be. She placed her hand on the wall and frowned, "What is this?" Clenching her fingers around a brick, she felt something shift, and a small opening appeared, "huh, guess I'm going through."
To get through the slender space, she had to take her backpack off her shoulders and carry it in her hand; on the other side, she had taken two steps toward the direction she was to go when the closing of the doorway in the wall coincided with the sound of a bullet being loaded into a chamber of a gun. Bevis had no idea how she knew this, but she was sure of the sound and froze before lifting her backpack onto her shoulders again.
"If you're going to shoot me, please miss," she said softly into the dreary space, "I'm following an address left to me by my father's company for their storage unit. If there is a password, I don't know it."
A man in black fatigues stepped out of the gloom, pointing a gun in her general direction, "What is the number in the text?"
Bevis paused before inhaling, "The text," she whispered, "give me a moment."
Pulling up the text, she read the numbers from it; looking at the man questioningly, he conferred with someone on the other end of whatever contraption was in his ear and nodded before lowering his weapon.
"This way," he said, glancing over his shoulder as he moved down a passageway that suddenly appeared in a blaze of light, "you are permitted to enter."
"Thanks," Bevis said, slowly following the man down the passageway, taking in everything around her, "what is this place."
"It is whatever you need it to be," the man said, "for you, it's a storage area of your parent's things."
"I never said it was for my parents," Bevis said, becoming suddenly guarded, "how did you know?"
"You words as you entered," the man said, stopping in front of a large wooden double door, "your father's company and their possessions. Meaning your parents."
"Fair enough," Bevis nodded, "is this the place?"
He nodded before stepping back and motioning for her to open the door. Bevis slowly moved toward the wooden doors; they were made of a solid panel of wood, with a strange indentation where the handle should have been; moving closer and bending slightly to make out what kind of indentation Bevis realised it was a faint outline of a hand. Raising her matching hand and carefully placing it in the indentation, she waited. Looking around to see if there was anything else she should be taking notice of or needed to do to gain entry. Suddenly the latch clacked loudly in the small space. Glancing over her shoulder, Bevis sighed and took in the man's satisfied look.
"I may be a while," she said as the door swung ajar, "is there any way I can get hold of you when I wish to leave?"
"I'll be here," the man said, bracing his feet apart and placing his hands behind his back, reminding Bevis of a military at ease she had seen on TV and the movies so often, "take your time."
Nodding, she pushed the door wider and stepped inside, looking around as she slowly closed the door behind her. The door clicked shut loudly in the silence, and lights automatically blazed above her head.
"I'm never going to get used to being blinded," she muttered, raising her hand to shield her eyes while looking around the surprisingly large space.
Trunks, crates, boxes and display cabinets filled with items Bevis had never seen before. Slowly, she wandered through the space taking in the enormity of her parent's possessions. Had they truly accumulated all of this in their time together? Something about the boxes seemed strange; moving back to the entrance, Bevis paused, turning toward the room and slowly taking in each item, gasping as she made the connection. It was the pattern ... crouching, Bevis took in the boxes' design. Some were new, some were not ... what was it she was missing? Levelling her phone and pointing the camera app in the box's direction, she took a picture, frowning as she traced the pattern with her finger on the screen.
"Alive," she whispered, swallowing hard; she blinked quickly, trying to keep the threatening emotions at bay, "they're alive." She shook her head at her stupidity, "I would have known years ago if I'd come here. If they're alive, where are they?" Taking in the room again, Bevis felt her intuition rise to the foreground, "Something here has to tell me ... but what?"
Closing her eyes, she let memories of her childhood rise and float through her mind; something struck her as strange or perhaps she had never noticed it before. Most of her activities were with her father; her mother tried to direct her in the opposite direction, but why? What was it that her mother didn't want her to know, see or ... learn? What was she trying to hide? Allowing memories of her father, their conversations, and their activities to float randomly through her mind, she walked through the room again.
The boxes were marked with names of where the items had come from or what the box contained; the crates were the same ... slowly she stopped in front of one of the ten display cabinets, taking in the objects inside. There were items on display she had never seen; she didn't know what they were for, but they looked similar. Moving to the next display cabinet, she took in everything she saw before moving on to the next one; while looking over the last cabinet, she noted the background was one her father had displayed in the office at their home; he always used to point at it and say ... Bevis straightened as some of her father's words from that long sentence came floating through her mind, "which one doesn't look like the other."
It was a game they used to play, and Bevis had to guess which of the chosen items weren't the same; if she got it correct at the end, her father would give her options, and one option would point her towards earning a reward.
"What would be my reward this time?" Bevis whispered, taking in the object's row by row. They were all similar; she frowned, took a few steps back, she looked at the items again, "They are all similar," she whispered, closing her eyes she inhaled, "finish the sentence ... which one doesn't look like the other, front or back or behind they gather," her eyes snapped open her mind clear and alert, "what are you trying to tell me, Dad?"
The background from this distance looked like the ocean and sunset, but the attachments to that background were all the same ... except for one. Moving forward, Bevis looked at the different object realising it was pointing in a direction. Following the path it sent her, she came to another display case. Slowly moving toward the display case, she took in the background, it was of a mountain and a waterfall, and the attachments were the same. Bevis noticed that two of the many items on display were not the same as any of the others around it, nor was it like the other dissimilar object from the first display case.
"What's the clue now?" she whispered, "they're not pointing anywhere; they're not indicating anything particularly." Taking out her phone, she snapped a picture of both and enlarged each of them, "nothing written on that one except that emblem ... and this one ... a number ..." she gasped; it was the same number as in the text, "... how ... what ... why ..." she shook her head, "I still don't know what that damn number means." Frustrated, she turned away, sighing and pushing her phone into her back pocket, "What the ....?" her words trailed off as she took in the back of the boxes facing the display; shaking her head, she sighed, Bevis hadn't seen it because she hadn't looked at this side of the packages, moving toward them her gaze roved over them, noting tiny discrepancies.
"You've been opened recently," she murmured, "you've been left open," glancing around, she took in the space, noting other minor things. Foreboding ran over her, "if someone is still here, now would be a good time to come out." Nothing moved, and no one spoke. The silence continued as Bevis waited, "If you're thinking of surprising me, I'm telling you now it's not a good idea."
The silence stretched as Bevis finally turned to the boxes noting the pattern in them once more; snapping a picture, she frowned, "Eight .... do I start with box eight or count to eight," she wondered, shaking her head as she mentally counted to eight when nothing happened she silently counted the eighth box along the first row and the eighth box down, they were easy to pull out without making the rest of the boxes collapse. Strange. Opening the older one, which was not taped shut, Bevis started going through the contents, smiling at some items and sighing in remembrance at others.
Pulling the second box toward her, where she sat cross-legged on the floor, Bevis pulled the hastily restuck tape off and opened it.
"What in the world is all this?" she murmured, pulling cassette tapes from the box, squinting at the tiny writing, "heavens above ..." she gasped, "Calderone deals..." she whispered, picking up another tape, "family ... feud? What feud? Whose family?" she shook her head picking up another and another realisation of what she had found dawning on her, "Could this be everything he gathered to put them away?"
A sound at the back of the storage unit brought her head up and around. Someone was in here. Quickly putting the tapes back, she placed the old box in place of the new one and vice versa.
"Who is there?" she called, quickly sending an emergency text to Chelsea; she followed the sound as it came again, "I asked who was there, come out please."
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Shuffling of feet moved toward her, a slight grunt and gasp indicating two people and then a voice from the shadows telling Bevis three people were in the space with her.
"Always so polite," the female voice said, a gasp and grunt came again as they stepped out into the light, "I have to thank you for leading me to your parents ... it has been difficult to locate them."
"Who are you?" Bevis said, bracing herself for revelations she didn't want to know or hear.
"Oh, I have a name," the woman said as she pushed the two people forward, making them fall to their knees and pointing the gun directly at Bevis, "but the one you probably will recognise is The Calderone."
Bevis frowned, "Ah, so you have a face," she nodded, "and who are these two?"
The two on the floor pushed into a crouching position looking up at Bevis in unison. She gasped as she looked into the familiar faces she hadn't seen in years.
"Mom, Dad," she whispered, "you're alive ... and ...here."
"Wonderful way to have a family reunion," the woman said, "now if you don't want them truly dead, you'll give me the evidence they've been hiding from me."
"Evidence? For what?" Bevis asked, ignoring the facial expressions of her parents. Clamping down on the rising panic, Bevis concentrated on keeping her breathing regular and her mind from rushing into a full-blown meltdown ... she stilled inside. Maybe that is what was needed, but one of another kind. Since she had months of practice being someone she wasn't, now is an excellent time to embrace that person. She may get everyone out alive.
"You know what," the woman said, "that's why you've been in hiding."
Bevis frowned, narrowing her eyes, confusion rising in her expression, "When was I hiding?"
"Give it to me, or I'll shoot your parents," the woman said, levelling the weapon at her parents, "must I count?"
"One moment ... what ...," Bevis said, glancing down at her phone, "I need to answer this," looking at the phone, she read Chelsea's message "Stall for as long as you can," Bevis typed on her phone quickly before looking at the woman and smiling tightly as she slid the phone onto a nearby box, "sorry where were we ... oh yes ... I have a question for you."
The puzzled expression stared back at her before the woman shook her head with exasperation, "What is the question?"
"What is this supposed evidence supposed to be about?" Bevis asked, "I'm asking 'cause I'm super curious ..." she shrugged, turning to amble toward a display case on the other side of the space, "... plus I've never met anyone with a name like yours, so that is exciting."
"Do you know who I am?" the woman asked.
"Yeah, you told me," Bevis said, glancing at the woman walking around the space's edge, "I think it's great to drop all the normality of life and just be ... The Calderone ... you know, like something extraordinary ... it's brilliant."
"What are you playing at?" the woman lowered the weapon, pointing it at the ground as she glared at Bevis and stopped beside the box where Bevis' phone lay.
"Playing at? Oh, you think this is some kind of game?" Bevis asked, chuckling, "I am terrible at games ... actually any kind of physical thing ... I tried canoeing lessons in a swimming pool..." Bevis nodded before shaking her head, "... not a good thing, nearly drowned ... my friend tried to get me to play charades .... that was a disaster ... I could carry on, but I'm trying to show you that I'm not good at games, of any kind. If you want to play, I'll try anything at least once. What do you have in mind?"
The woman turned to face her parents, shaking her head, "This is your amazing backup?"
Bevis watched her parents look at each other in confusion, "What backup? We never told you we had backup."
A sudden banging and clashing happened from the direction they had come. Bevis moved to look through the gloom toward the sound and found the gun raised, pointing in her direction. Glancing at the woman, Bevis found herself feeling strangely calm.
"Are you expecting anyone?" she asked conversationally, doing her best to ignore the weapon, "if you are, perhaps you should answer the door."
"What?" the woman asked, frowning at the trio, "Why don't you?"
"Well, since you're holding the gun," Bevis said, gesturing wildly with her hands, "doesn't this make it your party?"
The woman stared at her for a long moment, "What are you doing?"
Bevis frowned and looked around as though she expected someone to be behind her, "Oh, you mean me."
"Yeah ... you," the woman said, "I'm waiting for an answer."
"Doing? That is a good question," Bevis said, glancing at the clanging noises again and pointing as she glanced at the woman, "you sure you don't want to get that?"
"I'm not getting anything," the woman yelled, making Bevis flinch and step back, "now tell me what you're doing."
"Okay, but it depends on exactly what you mean," Bevis said, babbling as though she was flustered, "if you mean right now ... I'm talking to you and staring at two people I thought were dead," she said, glancing at her parents, her mother looked confused while her father tried to smother a grin, "then again if you're talking about in the storage unit that is totally something else," she said looking at the woman, "it should have been done years ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to clear out the unit ..." she sighed dramatically, "who can face the last hurdle of the knowledge people you've loved have really and truly gone from this planet," she said shaking her head, "it's taken me all this time just to build up the nerve to ...you know..." she said grimacing a little and shrugging, "... I'm sure you know what I mean."
"Not really," the woman said, shifting closer to the box and Bevis' phone, "what are you talking about?"
"What do you mean?" Bevis asked, feigning confusion, "You asked me what I was doing, and I was telling you ... I really don't want to be shot for not answering a question."
The clanging came again; they all looked in that direction. Bevis took a moment to glance at the ceiling above the gun-wielding woman before meeting the searching gaze once again.
"I really think you need to get that," Bevis said, "it's so rude leaving people you're expecting at the door."
"One of you can answer it," the woman said, "besides, no one leaves until I get the evidence, or you all die."
Ambling away toward a box between the nearest display cabinets, Bevis sank onto one of them, "Okay," she said, sighing and leaning back, "oh, do have a seat ..." she said, indicating a box behind the woman, "we're all going to be here a while."
Turning to her parents, she looked at them, nodding, "Tell me you have a bathroom in this unit? If we are going to be here for ..." she looked at the woman, "how long are we going to be here?"
"A while," the woman said, still holding the gun slightly raised in their direction.
"It could get messy," Bevis continued as if the woman hadn't spoken.
"We do have a bathroom," her father answered, "fully stocked."
"Huh, that's really nice," Bevis nodded, "it will keep the impending stench at bay."
The woman frowned at the conversation in front of her, "Everyone, just stop talking," she yelled, "it's just making me angry."
Nodding, Bevis sighed and stretched like a child being reprimanded. Just then, her phone rang, making them all jump.
"Whose phone is that?" the woman asked, looking down at the screen, "answer me now ..." she looked around, finding Bevis waving at her, "...it's yours ..." Bevis nodded, "... answer it ..." Bevis silently indicated for her to answer the phone, frowning the woman pressed the speaker "who is this?"
"Someone who needs you to stand very still," Chelsea's voice filtered into the room, "it will be best for everyone if you did so."
"What are you talking about, and who are you?" the woman shouted, "show yourself right now."
The phone went dead as the ceiling suddenly caved in, and a black-clad group of people dropped from above, flattening the surprised woman with crumbled ceiling tiles.
Bevis raised her hands to ward off the flying debris and dust in the small space. Looking across the room, she met Chelsea's earnest gaze as she stood above the unconscious woman with a foot resting in the middle of her back.
"Thanks for leaving your phone on," Chelsea said, nodding at her best friend before glancing at Bevis' parents, "nice to meet you, glad that you are alive."
Exhaling through pursed lips, Bevis pushed to her unsteady feet, "How did you know?"
"Jake," Chelsea said, "we have to talk but not now ..." the woman moaned, trying to push up from the floor; Chelsea secured her hands, and with the help of another black-clad team member, they lifted her to her feet, "you're not The Calderone, but you are her sister."
"I will never talk," the woman hissed.
"We don't need you to," Chelsea said, taking the woman's phone from her coat pocket, "we have all we need right here."
Chelsea nodded for the team members to lead the woman away before dropping the phone in a bag and walking over to Bevis, hugging her hard.
"Do anything so stupid again, and you'll answer to me," she whispered in Bevis' ear, "understand."
Returning the hug, Bevis nodded, "Understood. For the record, I wasn't looking for this stupid."
"You never are, but it always seems to find you. Let's clean this mess up and secure the location again," Chelsea said, "we need to retrieve Angie and Caroline from their protection detail."
Bevis nodded, turning to her parents as they rose from the floor, dusting off their clothing, "Are you ready to join the land of the living or continue hiding?"
"I've been done with hiding for years," her father said, "it's time both of us finish this once and for all."
Nodding, Bevis glanced at the boxes she had been looking through; the top one was still there, but the place of the bottom box stood empty.
"Dad," she called, waving him toward her and pointing out the space where the box was missing, "is my spy set still in that box?"
"You changed them," he whispered, his gaze darting between the two spaces, smiling as she nodded. "Yes, it's in there. I'll activate the tracker."
"Good, I have a feeling this is not over," Bevis whispered, "I think whoever you work for may have an infiltration they need to sort out."
"You mean a leak that needs plugging," her mother said, folding her gently in a loving embrace, "where did you learn to do all that?"
"Do all what?" Bevis asked, "Oh, you mean to behave like that ..." she chuckled, "I've had an entire life of being out of my depth. What was one more situation? Besides, I discovered my last ex-boyfriend worked for those people, and he was someone I became ... that for ... I thought now would be a good time to put all that distasteful behaviour to good use."
"I'm glad you did, although I was worried you'd fall apart," her mother said, shaking her head, "it's not as if you've been trained for this."
"Oh, I have had training," she smiled, looking at her father, "right, Dad?"
"You've had some, but I didn't want you to get involved with this," he said, hugging her, "never with this."
"Well, your wish did not come true," Bevis said, sighing, "I've been involved in it since the accident ... I just didn't know the details ...until recently."
"Bevis, the evidence isn't here," Chelsea said, "it looks like someone in our team took it."
"Dad is going to activate the tracker in the box," Bevis said, walking to the top box and pulling it down, "try looking in this box ... here is the evidence."
Opening the box, Chelsea smiled, "You switched them, clever girl."
Bevis closed it up as one of Chelsea's team ran into the storage unit panting. Chelsea frowned, her eyes narrowing.
"Cooper, what is it?" she asked.
"Protective detail .." he panted, "all dead ... witnesses are gone."