Chapter 52
Jansen
The last unit had very little to clear out. Walker said it looked like a photography studio, which makes no sense, but whatever. We loaded up the big lights and expensive cameras along with all the blackmail and medical supplies before I headed toward the boonies.
RJ and Walker went home, just in case everything goes to shit and their tail has to account for their time. (Sneaking out the back of a movie theater is substantially easier than sneaking back in, but luckily, I taught them well.)
So now I’m on a lonely road, heading to another address RJ found. They weren’t happy sending me alone, but when it comes down to it, I’m invisible to our enemy right now, so we should take advantage of that.
Back a lifetime ago, when we were down in Mexico planning how this might work out, Trips had mentioned this place. He didn’t want to share much about it, though, only saying that it’s terrible and he hoped that we’d never have a reason to visit it.
It turns out it was under a shell company tied through some crazy hoops to the blackmail locker, which makes all of us nervous about what I’m going to find out here.
Only the blackmail unit and this cabin were isolated from the other shell companies, so it’s probably more than a terrible place. It’s got to be something much worse.
I drive past what has to be the entrance three times in the dark before I’m sure I’m in the right spot.
But still, I stop a ways down the street and dodge through the trees on foot so I can check the first bit of the path for a camera.
I don’t find one, so I guess we’re lucky on that front.
Once I climb back into the truck, I call RJ on Bluetooth as I turn down the abandoned-looking road.
“What do you see?” he asks without a greeting.
“Nothing yet. This place is so off the grid, it’s nearly invisible. I’m not sure the truck is going to make it, if I’m honest.” I hit a rut under the snow and lurch half out of my seat. “Yikes.”
“What?” There’s a hint of panic in his tone, and I’m quick to calm him.
“I just hit a bump, that’s all.”
I keep driving into the unknown, the white of my headlights making the snow glow and the trees look like monstrous arms welcoming me to hell. “Trips wasn’t wrong. This place is creepy.”
“Once you can see where you’re headed, make sure you stop before a camera catches you.”
“I know, I know,” I mutter, barely making a curve in the road, the tail end of the truck slipping out behind me. Inching around another turn, I note the trees thinning up ahead.
“I’m hopping out.”
“Stay hidden. We don’t know if this place is staffed.”
I try not to roll my eyes, but then I figure nobody is here to see me being a brat, so I do it anyway. “No worries, dude.”
Slinking into the bare-branched woods, I sink deep into the snow, the squeak under my boots matching the heavy white of my breath before me. The temperature is diving tonight, the dead of winter nearly upon us. Tomorrow’s going to suck for RJ.
I work my way toward the clearing and find the cabin dark and silent. I’m halfway through a loop around the place with the camera-finding tool RJ gave me when the man himself cuts into the silence.
“Grunt if you’re okay.”
I grunt, then, not able to keep my mouth shut, mutter, “I can hoot like an owl, which might be both more fun and more forest-y.”
“You want to hoot like an owl to say you’re okay?”
I do my best impression of a great horned owl, getting RJ to chuckle on the other end of the call. “Okay then. Bird-song it is, you country boy.”
“Ha. I’ve spent more of my life in the city than you have, you suburbanite, you.”
His laughter gets louder, and I grin into the darkness, continuing my trek around the perimeter.
“Whatever. Just keep it down. We’re too far away to help.”
I hoot again, just to keep him laughing, and finish my loop.
“Nothing out here in the woods. I’m going to approach the cabin.”
“Careful.”
“I know.”
But even after a lap of the cabin, my device hasn’t gone off. I slip back into the woods, flipping the thing over in my hands. “Are you sure it’s working?”
“No cameras?”
“No, unless I’m not using it right.”
“We ran through it last week. You know how to make it work.”
I groan, leaning against a stout trunk. “Do you really think there aren’t cameras here? Am I even at the right place?”
I hear typing faintly in the background. “Your phone’s location is right where you should be.”
“Did we ever figure out what they use this place for?”
“No.”
A familiar buzz works lazily through my body. “I’m going to look in the windows.”
“Jansen.”
“I know, be careful. But this place looks abandoned. There are no cars. There are grooves from other tires, but they’re buried under fresh snow.”
“Fine. Pick an SOS sound, though.”
“‘Oh shit,’ won’t work?”
He grumbles, but doesn’t answer, letting me keep things light as I follow the snow-covered tire tracks to the front porch, not wanting my footsteps dancing across the lawn should someone come by.
The porch smells faintly of cigarette smoke and something rotten, my stomach rolling before I make it to the front door.
I take it back. This place isn’t creepy. It’s downright foreboding.
Peeking in the window doesn’t get me anything. Every blind that could be drawn is. “I’m breaking in,” I whisper, pulling my picks from my pocket and slipping my hands free from my mittens, tucking them under my arm.
“Jansen—”
I ignore what’s going to be a reasonable warning, and instead carefully unlatch the door, needing to know what this place is, something unruly demanding answers before we continue with our plan.
The inside is darker than outside, not a sliver of moonlight making it into the tiny cabin. I close the door behind me, hoping that the rush of cold air won’t alert someone to my presence before my eyes adjust.
But my eyes water instead of clearing in the dark, the smell of rotting meat and piss and feces making it difficult to keep from gagging. I jam my face into the elbow of my coat, but the taste of the space lingers in the back of my throat like the hell I imagined might do.
Finally, I can’t take it any longer, and I juggle all the things in my hands until my phone is out, flicking on the flashlight.
What I see isn’t hell, but it’s not much better.
There’s nobody here, not right now. But there have been. Many somebodies, over many years, if what I’m seeing is to be believed.
I cut off RJ’s quiet rant in my ear. “It’s where they torture and kill.”
“What?”
“There’s no one here, but this is where they make whistleblowers disappear.”
RJ’s silence says more than anything.
I take a few steps farther into the space, not sure why. Maybe because I have a feeling Trips and Clara have been here. They’ve survived this space, so I have to too. But the camera-finder goes off in my pocket.
I stuff my picks back into their case and into my other pocket, then jam my mittens inside my coat, creating enough space to pull out the device, careful not to drop anything on the dark, stained floor.
The beeping leads me to an old school security camera in the corner, the wires snaking through the wall. “How likely are old cameras to have live feeds?” I ask as I back out of the dank space, closing the door behind me with a satisfying snick.
“How old?” RJ asks.
“Like, prehistoric. Older than we are.” I force my feet through the snow to the back corner where the wires passed through, finding a lockbox built into the side of the house.
“I don’t know. Not without seeing it. Can you take a picture? Trips’ family has enough money that it’s possible, even that long ago.”
I pick the lock on the box easily, opening it up and finding an old school VHS and a pile of seemingly new tapes beside it.
“One sec,” I say, poking at the buttons until the machine whirs like a hive of angry bees.
I wait, holding my breath, but nothing pops out.
My sigh has RJ’s voice loud in my ear. “Is this a silent ‘Oh shit’ moment?”
I huff out a laugh. “Nope. I think we’re good. The camera’s hooked up to a VHS recorder, and that’s empty.”
“Send me a picture, just in case,” he orders, and I try not to get annoyed. The poor guy looks barely better than warmed-over death after all the work he’s had on his plate these last few months.
I hope Walker is enjoying his beauty sleep.
I do as RJ asks, then head back to the truck.
“I think I’m going to burn our stuff a little way from the cabin.
That place is full of secrets that could put someone behind bars, and I don’t want to risk losing another piece for the cops to build a case, especially after cleaning out the storage units. ”
“Sounds good. Try not to take down the entire forest, though.”
“I won’t. And it’s not like I’m lighting it up tonight, anyway. I can’t have you or Walker presumed to be part of this.”
“I’m already wiping the storage unit security footage. The company had a freaking 123456 password on the stuff.”
I laugh, his incredulity feeling normal despite everything right now being anything but. “You remember my passwords when we met?”
He groans. “Don’t remind me. 123abc is nearly the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“I didn’t have much to protect.”
He doesn’t answer, knowing I’m right. I wander deeper into the woods, finding a clearing about a thousand feet from the cabin.
Then, with a shovel I brought for this exact purpose, I dig down until I hit the frozen ground, building a berm of snow around my burn site.
I wish I were strong enough to cut into the frozen soil, knowing a burn pit is safer, but it’s just me, and I’ve already emptied three storage units tonight. My body can only do so much.
At least the internet will make the next part easier. It’s amazing what you can learn when you know you need one hell of a bonfire and you’ve got all kinds of time on your hands.
I’m glad RJ makes my search history vanish.
My utility knife does an okay job of cutting off the lower, dying branches of nearby pine trees, and I pile them up for a dry base. The evidence needs to burn completely, and pine needles are always good at catching fire.
Then, I use the cotton bedsheets I found from the hospital storage unit in the next layer, scrunching and twisting them into ropes so the oxygen can still make it to the middle. Those get doused in propane.
Next, I lay out my collection of fire starters, all of them with long cotton tails interspersed with paper cups full of wood shavings and petroleum jelly. Apparently, they’ll catch even on the coldest days.
Then comes the hard part: unloading the truck solo.
It’s annoying, just like propping awkwardly shaped blackmail objects in higher and higher holey circles is.
But I do my best so that oxygen can snake through every layer, making sure the hardest to burn bits are at the center.
Papers go in the next layer, RJ agreeing I could add the directory tomorrow after he has all the phone numbers, while the last layer is the stuff that doesn’t really matter, like the hospital mattress and the lights from the weird studio we found.
By the time I’m done, the sky’s a little pink, I’m sweaty and shaking from exertion, and RJ long ago went to bed.
But I built the pile, and it’s ready and waiting for when the time is right.
Until then, I’ve got a truck to return, some documents to collect, and a few hours of sleep to get. It’s almost time.
And I can’t freaking wait.