Chapter 11 Distractions & Decisions #3
He tucked the papers neatly in line once he’d scrawled his name at the bottom, and his eye caught on the information on the lower third of the page.
Since he was using Jenna effectively as his homebase, he’d opted to list Lance as his emergency contact.
The emergency contact didn’t need a physical address.
But as he stared at his idiot friend’s name on the paper, something Lance had said in their second or third week stateside replayed in his memory.
“We could totally be superheroes.” His shit-eating grin stretched wider than the taco he’d lowered in order to say the words.
Jon gave him his best the-fuck-are-you-on?
look and replied, “We just lost our jobs because the public’s losing its collective mind over ‘non-ordinary humans’, and you want to start running around in spandex like you just walked out of a fucking comic book?
” He bent over his own meal. “Good luck with that. I think I’ll stick with something more mundane. ”
Lance had not appreciated Jon’s response and spent three days giving him shit for it. Not that Jon cared. A bad idea was a bad idea.
It was still a bad idea.
But maybe they could find a better middle ground than Jon had originally considered…. Jon spent a moment watching Jenna finish up her papers, then shifted his focus out to Alex. “Any chance you know some warm bodies in the area looking to work their asses off?”
Jenna paused her shuffling, purse spread open on one arm, and turned to gape at him in clear confusion.
Alex snorted. “Doubtful, but I’ll bite. Why?” He reached forward as he spoke, gathering up Jon’s papers.
Jon held the thought in his throat for another single second.
It was a hell of a commitment. But it made sense to him, even though the beginning would be a headache.
I know how to handle headaches. “Seems to me we don’t have enough skilled rescue personnel around here.
And I need something to keep me busy once this one”—he jerked a thumb in Jenna’s direction—“gets her bakery back up-and-running. So, I think I’ll open one. ”
“Holy shit, Jon,” Jenna muttered.
Alex’s brows disappeared beneath the swoop of his hair. “A search and rescue group?”
“Private company,” Jon said. “I imagine it’ll do more than strict SAR eventually, but whatever’s going on right now ought to be good proving ground for any founding members.”
Alex folded his arms across his chest. “What kind of work did you do with the Marines, exactly? Only ones I ever knew personally were mostly violent assholes. They were very good at the violence, but still assholes.”
Jon debated taking that as an insult for a moment, decided to let the skewed perspective go, and replied, “Reconnaissance. I ended up in Force Recon for a while.”
Alex let out a whistle. “I’ll admit I can see how that’d be helpful.
But maybe before you go planning to open whole businesses, you take that old key and put it in the neglected lock?
” He motioned to his left, toward the interior door.
“You can get there faster through here. Turn right, then take the second left.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
Jenna pushed her papers forward as she re-shouldered her purse. “Thank you for your help, Alex.”
Jon offered Alex a nod before leading the way through the interior door and down the hall pathways as directed. In under a minute, he was standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling storage unit bearing an old padlock and the number that matched the one scrawled on his grandfather’s note.
He peeled the key off the card, carefully removed the aged tape, and polished the edges a bit with some tightly applied water and old-fashioned pressure.
Once the adhesive was gone, Jon shoved the card away and stuck the key into the lock.
The lock itself had probably been nice once, but as with most things, sitting unused for over a decade had dimmed its shine.
There were signs of webs around the corners of the roll-up door, and in the tighter nooks around the lock, but it was also clear that someone at Campbell’s made an effort not to completely ignore the exterior of their rented spaces.
Jon dismissed the pointless observation, waited until the key settled into place, and twisted. He felt the metal click and give, and felt a simultaneous sense of relief somewhere inside. In quick motions he was on his feet again and rolling up the door, which squeaked and scraped far too much.
About a foot into the space was a tall vault-like safe. It had never been cutting-edge, but it might well have been above-average quality when it was installed.
“There’s a safe inside the storage locker?” Jenna asked with a gasp.
Jon couldn’t help but chuckle. “Probably he didn’t trust George.
” It wasn’t an unreasonable thought, really.
This was what his grandfather had meant, then, about needing another code.
He could see the panel clearly. He strode up to it and, reflecting on the hint his grandfather had left him, confidently input his own tag number.