The unit is padlocked, but the lock isn’t engaged. It could be my lucky day, or it might be a trap, but I’m not in the mood to call it in and wait for backup to arrive just to find out that the storage unit is empty. Besides, I have no logical way of explaining why I’m here, and I sure as hell can’t tell them the truth.
My vision is blurry, so I wipe my eyes with my shoulders, but it makes no difference. I should’ve fetched a stronger pair of glasses before coming down here. There’s no time for it now.
I pull my shirtsleeve down over my hand, remove the lock, and set it on the floor. I disengage the slide bar, bend down, and lift the rollup door. It’s stiff at first and the wheels shriek with protest.
The noise is alarming, and I almost freeze, but I realize there’s no point in stopping now. If anyone’s heard the noise, they’ve chosen to ignore it. By the time I raise the door to my waist it quietly rolls the rest of the way up on its own.
The worthless corridor lights fail to penetrate the veil of darkness that shrouds the unit, and my clouded vision only compounds the issue. I unclip my flashlight from my belt and switch it on. Dark fabric hangs from the ceiling like blackout curtains, concealing the contents of the unit from prying eyes.
I draw my gun and switch off the safety. My heart races but my hands are steady. I’m built for this. I take a deep breath and probe the fabric with the end of my flashlight. Toward the far right side I find a split between its layers.
I don’t know what to expect behind these curtains and my gut says it will be certain death, but I move forward anyway, slipping through the opening with my flashlight and gun leading the way. Once beyond the curtains it’s nothing like what I expected.
The unit is wider and much deeper than mine, a ten-foot by twenty-foot behemoth. The walls, ceiling, and floors are painted black, but they’re much more than that. It’s hard for me to be certain because everything is so blurry, but it looks like every surface is covered with depictions of constellations and planets. It’s both mesmerizing and disorienting and I feel like I’m floating through space.
I holster my gun and drift toward the back of the storage unit as I take it all in, but then my gaze locks onto the full-length mirror propped up against the far back wall. Like a tractor beam, it pulls me toward it. Its beauty is so profound that I’m lost for words.
I stand before the mirror, so close my nose nearly touches it. I’d miss all the detail if I were to stand back farther. Its four-inch-wide frame is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. A network of thick vines and leaves the size of my hand comprises it, but its golden, reflective sheen defies all logic and captivates me.
Were it not for its reflectiveness I would’ve guessed it to be carved from some kind of wood. However, I’ve never seen any wood like it before. It produces a faint odor of cedar and pine with a pungent twinge of mildew and seawater.
I trace the frame with my flashlight beam. Randomly placed symbols are carved into the frame all around the mirror. Some of them I cannot decipher but many I know: a leaf, a claw, a flame, a gust of air, a water droplet, a sun, a mountain, an optical triangle, an eye, a heart, a lightning bolt, a metal bolt or screw, a sundial, a scroll, a book.
My beam illuminates the lower right corner of the frame. “Auh!” My gaze locks onto the familiar symbol and I drop to my knees. I draw nearer and compare the birthmark on the inside of my left wrist to the symbol. It’s an exact match: the curved sickle blade over the top of an open eye.
Awestruck, my mind explodes with questions: Why is this mirror here? Where did it come from? What do the symbols mean? Why do I have this birthmark and why is it on the frame? What does it have to do with me and the Braille Killer?
I cannot fathom the answers, but I must know. I stare at my blurred reflection until my eyes burn. Who am I? I have no answer, but I don’t think I’ve ever known. I’ve been lost to this obsession for the last decade.
I reach out and touch the mirror. Its surface is hot, but not in a way like anything I’ve ever experienced. Its heat crawls beneath my skin and into my veins like liquid sunshine and courses through my body. I cannot pull my hand away, and I don’t want to.
Feelings I don’t understand awaken and stir inside me like a maelstrom. My heart flutters, and a longing for something or somewhere that I cannot grasp fills me until I erupt with emotions. I quake and sob and laugh simultaneously. I cannot put these feelings into words or even thoughts because they’re so foreign to me. All I know is that something beckons me and I’m desperate to know its source.
I got so caught up in the moment that I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes. When I open them again, my gaze doesn’t meet my reflection. Instead, I’m staring into an unfamiliar bedroom. I gasp and my heart stops.
Everything is perfectly clear through the mirror. I look behind me and confirm that the storage unit is still a blurred mess. I turn back to the mirror.
A young girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, sits on a daybed in the corner of the room. Her pale, flawless skin reminds me of a porcelain doll, and her long brunette hair is pulled back into a single braid and rests over the front of her right shoulder. A red bow is tied around its end.
Silver hoop earrings, each with four ball-shaped beads, dangle from her petite, rounded ears. The edges of her mouth are curved up slightly, and her pink lips glisten with lip-gloss. High, softly pronounced cheekbones and a narrow chin with a dimple at its center complete her v-shaped face. By any standard she’s beautiful.
She holds an open book in her lap. Her eyes are closed, but her left finger sweeps the book’s page with fervor. My throat tightens. She’s reading braille.
Her smile broadens, and she laughs with such joy. Her laughter fills my ears and my throat tightens further. How is this possible? How can I see or hear this girl through the mirror?
I knock on the solid surface that separates her world from mine. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
She doesn’t respond or show any signs that she’s heard me, so I say it again, louder. She flips the page and reads on, oblivious to my beckons.
My legs tingle and ache when I move them. They’ve fallen asleep. How long have I been watching her? I shake my legs for a minute to get blood flowing in them again and then move to get up, but that’s when her eyes open.
She turns and stares directly at me with her cloudy, brown-eyed gaze. “Even though you’re as silent as the stars I can feel you.” She cocks her head and her forehead wrinkles. “But you’re not like him, are you?” She smiles, and the aura around her brightens. “You must be some kind of angel. How do I know?” Her expression turns grim. “Because he’s the devil.”
Another voice comes through the mirror. “Priscilla, dinner is ready. Stop playing with your imaginary friends and come downstairs.”
Priscilla smiles again, but it fades. “I hope it’s you who visits me tonight and not him. He scares me, and I don’t know what he wants from me.” She sets her book aside and slides off the side of the bed. “Bye for now.”
She moves beyond the mirror’s limited view and I’m left panting like a dog in the summer heat. I lower my hand from the mirror and Priscilla’s room fades to darkness and then back to my blurred reflection. The intense heat coursing through me dissipates as well, leaving me chilled once more.
I take my phone out of my pocket and check the time. 17:14. I rise from the floor and head toward the front of the storage unit. Just as I’m about to part the thick fabric I hear footsteps approaching in the corridor. They stop abruptly just on the other side of the curtains.
I slow my breathing, pocket my phone, and click off the flashlight as quietly as I can. I clip the flashlight to my belt, draw my gun, and back up until my back is against the wall. Then I move into the small opening between the rollup door rail and the front wall.
The fabric parts, and a head pokes through the narrow opening. The flickering corridor lights bounce off the bald scalp like a mirrored disco ball. It’s not the man fr
om earlier, so who the hell is it? I squeeze tighter to the corner.
Something spindly skitters across my nape and left shoulder and it takes everything I have to keep from shooting out of the corner in some sort of African dance move.
“Mr. Hallard? You in here? George?” The bald man steps through the curtains and into the unit.
The fabric falls back into place behind the man and brings darkness to the unit once again. It takes several moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but I can still hear him.
The man turns and looks directly at me. The arteries in my neck leap several inches with every beat of my hammering heart, and I can hear nothing above its deafening drumming. I hold my breath, fearing he might not only hear me but smell my dragon breath.
The man reaches out and nearly grabs my chest as he probes the wall. I shift my gaze to the wall and see the light switch he’s searching for. His fingers find the box first and then the rectangular stub protruding from it. He turns his attention back to the unit as he flips the switch.
Several lights down the center of the unit click, buzz, and then come to life. The purple glow of blacklights surprises me, but then the room comes to life in a whole new way and I’m left dumbfounded. The imagery on the floors, walls, and ceiling glow like the astral bodies they represent and seem to pull away from the surfaces that they are painted on.
I can’t fathom the hours someone spent painting this place with such painstaking detail. However, the way they laid everything out strikes me as odd. I’m certainly no astronomer, but I should be able to discern something as iconic as the big dipper at a minimum, yet none of it is familiar.
The man grunts and takes a few steps forward. I exhale softly and take another breath, and that’s when the dust begins to tickle the hairs in my nostrils. I wrinkle my nose and scrunch my face, but the urge to sneeze only grows. I holster my gun and wipe my nose with the back of my hand, but it makes no difference.
Finally, the man walks deeper into the unit, so I decide to take the opportunity to slip out of the corner and through the folds of fabric. To my chagrin, several things manifest from this decision. I manage to brush the light switch with my arm and flip it to the off position. Then I cannot hold my sneeze back any longer and nearly punch a hole in the side of my head when I jerk it sideways and right into the track of the metal rollup door.
The ruckus I’ve caused by the sneeze, the switch, and the blow to the head stuns me almost as much as it does the bald man. When I do manage to pull myself from the corner and move to escape from the unit, I get myself hung up in the folds of fabric and nearly rip the whole damned thing down, bar and all, as I struggle to free myself from its clutches.
“Who’s there?” barks the bald man. “No sense pretending you ain’t.”
I stop struggling and the fabric loosens its grip on me. I step back into the unit and flip the switch back on. The lights buzz with life again and cast their purple hue throughout the unit. The bald man still stands several paces away and makes no attempt to close the distance.
My cheeks burn with fire and I wonder if they’re glowing red under the blacklights. I raise my hand and tilt it to the side. “Hello.”
The man crosses his arms over the top of his plump belly. “Who are you, and what in God’s creation were you doing standing in the corner?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” I move toward the man and stop about two feet from him. I stick out my right hand, my left ready to draw my gun at a moment’s notice. “Detective Bergman. You are?”
The man eyes my hand for several moments before finally deciding to accept it. He unfolds his arms. “Bill.” His hand swallows mine by sheer girth, not because he has long fingers. “Bill Braggard.”
His hand is cold and clammy, and he gives mine the dead fish shake. Why people feel the need to do that is beyond me. It’s creepy and a bit gross.
I take my hand back and casually wipe it on my jeans while I engage him in conversation. “This your unit, Bill?”
He glances around a bit and grimaces before answering. “No, ma’am. Talent went into these walls. You think I got that kind of talent?”
I shrug. “I don’t know anything about you, Bill, so I’m not sure I can make a determination like that yet.”
“Pfft. You summed me up as soon as I stepped through those curtains.” He reaches down and jangles the ring of keys hanging from his belt, eying my holstered gun nervously. “What kind of detective are you?”
“Homicide.”
His eyes widen a bit, and he cranes his head back. “Homicide… you looking for something specific? Did something go down here I should know about? I manage the place.”
Manager. I smile to myself. Guess it’s my lucky day after all. “Not sure yet, Bill. I’m looking for George Hallard. You know him?”
“I know most of the regulars around here. George has been renting this unit for what… seven years now?”
Seven years? My pulse races. “Know how I can find him? Does he have an address on file or something?” I can hear the desperation in my own voice, so I take a deep breath. The last thing I want is to call it in. “A phone number would be just as good.”
“Bergman… Bergman…” He taps a plump finger on his lower lip. “You have a unit in the building as well, correct?”
“I do.”
“Third floor if memory serves me.”
“Yessir, that’s right.” I turn and walk toward the front of the unit. “Can we get back to Mr. Hallard? You’d be doing me a huge favor.” I stop, turn my head, and offer him my best smile. “I don’t forget favors, Bill.” The sexiness in my voice creeps me out knowing its target.
Bill grabs his keys and swallows hard. “A favor? But I’d need a warrant.”
I move in on my prey and stroke his cheek with my thumb. “I understand, but those things take time. I don’t have that kind of time.” I lower my hand and nibble the corner of my lower lip. “I guess you don’t want me to be indebted to you, do you?”
His cheeks flush red. “I do. I’ll get you what you want.” He hurries forward, brushes past me, and parts the sections of fabric so that I can easily make my way out.
“Thank you, Bill.” I touch his shoulder as I exit the unit and wait patiently while he switches off the interior lights.
He pushes through the folds of fabric like a birthing calf, his brow glistening with beads of sweat. Thankfully, he knows what deodorant is and the smell is almost pleasant.
Bill reaches up, grabs the thick fabric strap hanging from the bottom of the rollup door, and pulls it all the way to the ground with one big tug. It’s actually quite impressive. It never takes me less than two or three tugs to get my unit’s door all the way down.
He shoves the slide bar home, picks the lock up off the floor, and places its end through the eyehole. However, he doesn’t close the lock. He smiles at me and I frown.
“George never locks the unit. Says he keeps it open in case someone wants a peek. I do have to say it’s pretty eye-catching. Should offer paid tours or something.”
“No doubt there. And that mirror…” I shake my head.
“Mirror?” Bill guffaws. “That old thing ain’t even worth the plywood it’s mounted to. Don’t know why he keeps it in there. Certain no one will ever attempt to steal it though.”
Plywood? I probe deeper. “You don’t like the frame?”
The lines in his forehead deepen and his entire scalp creeps forward. “Are we talking about the same mirror? The one at the back of the unit?”
I bob my head. “Was there another?”
He tilts his head and then his eyes widen. “Oh, I see. You’re jerking my chain.”
I turn and stare at the door as though it will turn transparent when my x-ray vision kicks in. Alas, it does not. What I don’t understand is what the hell I saw in there.
Bill saunters down the corridor and takes a left at the end. “You coming, Detective?”
I reel my eyes
back inside my head and chase down Bill. By the time I round the corner he’s standing at his office door, rummaging through the mass of keys on his keyring. I pull up next to him.
He scratches his head and lifts the keyring in front of his face. “I know it’s one of these. Not sure why they all have to look the same.”
I notice there’s a blue sticker placed just above the office door handle. One of the keys on Bill’s keyring has a sleeve over its top that matches the blue of the sticker. Being a detective and having deduction skills like no other person on the planet I surmise that it’s probably the key he’s looking for.
My spine prickles. Is he stalling? What purpose would it serve? Is he in league with George? I can’t see it. Everything the Braille Killer does is planned out. Meticulous. Bill is none of that. Pushed hard enough, I think he’d crack. Not the kind of guy one would rely on.
I shake off the notion and point out the suspect key. “How about that one there?”
He eyes the key for such a long time that I wonder if he’s transitioned into a waking coma. Finally, he grunts and nods at the key. “Suppose it could be the one.”
I am completely dumbfounded. I can do nothing but shake my head. He’s a perfect example of the rapid deterioration of society as a whole.
Bill slides the key into the lock and it magically turns, unlocking the door. He turns to me and smiles. “I guess you really are a good detective.”
Within a matter of ten seconds he’s managed to leave me dumbfounded twice. It must be some kind of record. “The keys are color-coded, Bill.”
He looks at the ring of keys. “Probably, but I’m color blind.”
Color blind? Now I feel terrible. “Sorry.”
We step into the office and I’m inundated with the smell of Funyuns and old pizza. I stagger back a step, ill-prepared for the sudden trip back to college. Empty soda cans are stacked on the desk in columns, several of them reaching the ten-foot ceiling. Discarded candy wrappers litter the floor like confetti. I literally have to shuffle my feet so that I don’t have to judge the distance to the floor through the piled mess.
The Braille Killer (An Alice Bergman Novel Book 1) Page 8