Chapter 99: Night development

Gun in hand and at the ready, Angela and Rick separated inside the chalet. The only sound echoing through the whole space was the creaking of their feet putting pressure on the wooden floor. The latter knew there was nothing alive beside him and his partner but it didn’t mean the whole building was empty.

Zombies had no heartbeat and were known to just be inactive on the ground right until they detected something that stimulated them. Most often than not: loud noises and sometimes: scents.

Angela chose to investigate the first floor and Rick went upstairs. There were four bedrooms and three were empty. The fourth wasn’t. The bed was made impeccable, clothes were in drawers or hanging inside the closet. Nothing out of the ordinary. The lack of personal pictures was in accordance with Collins not having any family to speak of.

What was unordinary however was, the amount of clothes which was a bit too low to last a week and more importantly: what was missing. It was a fact that Collins was some kind of handyman for Umbrella. The man was keeping the laboratory supplied regularly and keeping watch in this cabin. Yet there wasn’t any safe, saferoom, no hidden guns or other weaponry.

It was as if the whole bedroom was made to look as if someone was living here but in truth didn’t. The thought that Collins was using the place as another cover crossed Rick’s mind.

‘If he doesn’t live in town much and doesn’t live here when he’s not there then he’s living somewhere else. The where is obvious: the Umbrella underground laboratory. That implies that there really is a hidden entrance here. Collins would have needed to be able to quickly get from the lab to this place without anyone knowing after all.’

After a meticulous search of the bedroom and giving a second, closer look to the three others and the bathroom, Rick found nothing of importance. Making his way back downstairs he followed the faint sound of Angela’s heartbeats. They led them through the living room and kitchen to finally arrive inside the pantry. It was absolutely huge with multiple shelves and racks all over the place while leaving a wide space in the middle. All filled with food cans. What caught his attention the most, beside Angela’s delectable round ass being on full display by bending at the waist to check on something, was a door. It was opened and from what he could tell led to the garage.

It wasn’t anything unusual but what was was the size of the frame. It would feet almost three people going through side by side. Clearly, it was to allow huge packages to be transported from one space to the other. There was nothing of the sort inside the pantry however.

“Found it!”

Rick turned his head in Angela’s direction. She was against the wall facing the side of a heavy shelf and looking in the very narrow space between the two. Or at least it appeared like a narrow space to him at first glance.

“What is it?”

Angela gave him a proud smile. “This whole room is weird. The door to the garage is too big for what is here, so I thought whatever needed that much width was stored somewhere else.”

“Somewhere hidden.” Rick walked to her and she pointed at the shelf and the wall.

“Yes but no matter how much I look I found no trap door and the location of the room doesn’t allow for a hollow wall leading somewhere else. But this here, is the reason why.”

Getting closer to her, he saw that there was actually no space between the shelf and the wall. Absolutely none. The two were glued together. She explained a bit more.

“There are no traces of wear on the ground. Absolutely nothing so I thought… ‘Maybe the whole room is the hidden entrance?’ Considering the size of the door frame we can presume that whatever goes through it is also heavy, very heavy.”

Rick understood where she was going with this. “Nothing that can be carried through stairs or a ladder. Even if it was, it would be too dangerous. I’m sure that if we check all the other shelves they’d be glued to the walls too.”

“I think so, meaning the ground,” she tapped it with her boot, “Is probably a lift. We just need to find how to activate it. Now if I had to hide a switch in a pantry… Where would I put it?” She looked around.

“Somewhere accessible quickly. So….” Rick too looked around. “Either in one of the food cans or under one of the racks. Preferably one away from the kitchen's door and closer either to the garage or the back of the room.”

Taking their time to go through each can, Rick reported about his findings or lack thereof upstairs. Angela shared her own discoveries. She hadn’t yet gone through every room, the pantry catching her attention pretty early but she found nothing that could help the investigation. No computers, no weapons stashed somewhere, everything was normal.

After combing through each shelf and each container on them, the pair ended up with nothing. It left them perplexed.

“Are we… wrong?” Angela was more talking to herself than Rick, voicing her thoughts aloud.

“... No. I don’t think we are. It could only be here. If the switch isn’t here then that means Collins was carrying it on himself. It would make sense. A stationary switch could be found by anyone snooping around.”

“On his person would be more complicated. So… What? We’re searching for a…. Key beeper?”

Rick shrugged and silently went to the garage. With a bit of luck Collins left his keys inside his pickup truck. It was unlikely however; leaving unattended like this the key to the laboratory when he went camping didn’t sound smart and would defeat the beeper’s purpose.

‘Let’s hope he didn’t go with them on his camping trip.’

The truck wasn’t locked and he got inside to have a look. Unfortunately he ended up empty handed.

“Nothing in the key bowl at the entrance.” Angel pulled open the door as Rick exited the vehicle.

“Nothing in there either.”

Her lips pursed into a thin line, manifesting her discontentment at their predicament. “What now, then?”

Rick thought about it for a minute. “We’re coming back with drills to make a huge hole in the ground but first….” He grunted in displeasure.

“First?”

“We search inside the Leopard’s stomach.”

Angela’s eyes widened in shock then her face turned into something ugly. The disgust she was showing almost made Rick laugh.

“Becca is coming soon so she’ll take care of it.”

“That’s not very nice.” The blonde woman remarked.

Rick gave her a look. “Do you want to do it?”

“Hm, no. Thank you but I’ll pass.” she quickly said, waving her hands in dismissal.

Being in agreement on not rummaging through the entrails of the mutated leopard, they went to have a look at the rooms Angela had yet to see. One of them was an office much like the one in Collins’ home in town. It was simpler, no bookshelves, no paintings and no hidden sage anywhere. Just a desk with a computer on it.

As expected it was locked, so Rick turned it off and unplugged it. With nothing else to investigate, the other being a simple library with nothing of importance, they went back to the SUV and returned to Mackenzie.

When they passed by the welcome sign of the town a thought crossed Angela suddenly cursed.

“We forgot about the camp.”

Rick realized that yes, they did forget about their small camp. Hundreds of dollars left like this in the wild. Money that he wouldn’t be reimbursed by the BSAA if he didn’t bring back what he bought. Receipts wouldn’t be enough. While he didn’t particularly care as he had plenty of money from his days in the Unit and because he was living a rather simple life, he didn’t like leaving in the wind what belonged to him.

“We’ll make a detour when we return tomorrow to pack everything up.”

Angela nodded in acknowledgement and agreement. It’s not like their gear wouldn’t be here, right where they left it the next day. She slowed down to a stop when the car reached the Police’s checkpoint to identify themselves. The simple sight of them allowed them to go inside the town without difficulty.

They parked at the Police Station and got out of it. Entering the building, Chief Campbell told them that they stored the wolves with the leopard and that the coroner was making an analysis of their fangs to see if they matched the marks on the victims’ remains. The man also shared that he had warned his friend owning the hotel they were staying at about more BSAA people coming soon and needing a room. Five had been reserved with two beds each. More people and they would need to find another hotel.

Angela was the one who did the computer part this time but the hard drive revealed nothing more than the one they found in Collins home. It was already past noon and the pair decided to take a break and have a late lunch. Rick was chewing on his steak when he broke the comfortable silence of their table.

“I always wondered…”

Angela used her napkin to wipe the bbq sauce off the corner of her mouth. “Yes?”

“Aren’t you bothered to be trained by someone younger?”

“No, not at all.” She put her napkin down and stuck her fork in her fries. “I mean…I would have been… Had it been anyone else but after seeing you in action… I’m good. It wouldn't have been a problem in any case and I learned a lot so… regardless if it was you or someone else younger I would have accepted it pretty quickly. It would have just been… a natural reaction, I suppose. Thinking that I know better because I’m older.”

“Hmm… That’s fair.”

Angela shifted the conversation to guns. She was thinking of upgrading her .45ACP for a .44 Magnum after dealing with the wolves or at the very least have both on hand. Rick agreed. He hadn’t yet had the time to properly think about it.

After having a coffee for dessert and paying the bill, they left the dinner. The cold fresh air of winter filled Rick’s lungs. While it felt good it hated it. Winter reminded him of his mission in Greenland. More than that it reminded him that the HFC was still out there and that his comrades haven’t gotten justice yet. Unfortunately there hadn’t been any leads or if there had been then it was on the secret service side of things not the BSAA.

“What now?” Angela brought him out of his musing.

“Now, we wait. There isn’t much we can do. Sure, we could search for the key inside the Leopard but I’d rather wait for backup to arrive before going inside the lab if we find it.”

That was a downtime in the investigation and Angela didn’t know what to do with herself. Rick noticed it.

“I’ll probably go to a bar, order a few drinks and if I’m lucky, bring a lady back to my room.”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. After more than a month working and learning with him, Angela was well aware of Rick’s habit outside of work. He and Rachel were considered the sluts of the offices. At least once a week Rachel went home with a new John that nobody ever saw again. Rick was much the same although no one could verify that since he did that in the town he lived. Twice a week though, both went back to Rachel’s place to have some fun.

Despite that, neither of them were regarded unfavorably by anyone in the office or the whole building. Rachel had been on the field within a week of her joining and brought excellent results. Her friendly and flirty attitude outside of investigations wasn’t overbearing and during them she was irreproachable. Nobody would point a finger at her and call her a slut, that’s for sure. They called her ‘frivolous’ and didn’t judge her for it.

In Rick’s case, it was a bit of the same, although most ladies frowned at it. Not because it was wrong or unsightly but because they never get a chance. His reserved nature made them think they could ‘fix’ him and that a simple date changed him for the best. Angela, after spending every day closely with him, knew better.

“Or you can bring me back to your room.” She teased playfully.

Rick turned his head in her direction and gave her a calculating look, trying to discern if she was serious or not. “Tempting but no.”

The firmness of his answer took her a bit aback.

“Sorry,” he raised his hand to stop her from saying or doing anything. “It didn’t come out as I thought it would. You’re gorgeous, Angela. And I would have accepted that offer in a heartbeat had things been different.”

“That’s… good to know? I guess?” Her tone was a mix of bewilderment and confusion. “I wasn’t overly serious about it. It was just a tease. It’s good to know you considered that… I mean us happening. I’m curious about what’s holding you back though.”

Rick raised one finger to count. “You’re my partner and mentee for one.”

“Which is a bit of a bullshit because so was Rachel from what I heard.” She retorted.

“That was a bit different. We weren’t mentor-mentee. We wouldn’t have felt like taking advantage of each other. On top of that we started our relationship after a drunken night and decided to continue it.”

“... I’m still calling it bullshit but… Fair enough.”

“Becca is also arriving soon and I don’t want her to glare at me the whole time.”

Angela snorted at that. She was well aware of that. Rebecca had been trying, without success and albeit not very hard, to go home with Rick. Either her place or his. Every time he left the bar with Rachel or with a stranger once in a blue moon, she looked at him with murder. Rick had been playing the clueless man so far out of amusement in teasing Rebecca and a bit of pettiness.

“Still,” Rick spoke again. “Once our partnership ends… Just say the word.” He winked at her.

“Maybe I will.” She answered in a playful tone.

“Not maybe. The amount of time you keep staring at my ass is too high for a ‘maybe’.”

The blush on her face didn’t deter her from having a good comeback. “So do you!”

“Of course I do. Have you ever looked at it in the mirror? I could spend the whole day eating it.” The bluntness and neutral tone that was his trademark drove home that he was being serious.

She smacked his arm with the back of her hand, blushing even more. “Don’t tempt me! Do you know how many guys don’t go down on a girl? Most of them! And for the few who do it’s more of a chore than anything.”

Rick simply stuck his tongue out of his mouth and made it wiggle suggestively while his face stayed blanked. Angela hit him again and began walking back to their hotel. Nothing happened between them there, they just took a shower, changed their clothes for clean ones. Angela settled down with one of her books while Rick simply watched a re-run of House MD on TV.

A quarter to midnight, Rick was woken up by someone knocking vehemently on his door. He immediately jumped out of bed, his gun that was resting under his pillow was now in his hand and aimed in the direction of the door. Walking slowly towards it, he heard a voice he hadn’t expected at this time.

“Rick! Open this door right now!”

‘Becca?’

Confused as to why she sounded angry beyond belief, which told him it wasn’t an emergency, Rick lowered his gun and crossed the distance to the door and opened it.

Right there, dressed in a winter coat and with snow still on her shoulders and head, Rebecca, from the height of her 5’1” looked up at him with narrowed eyes and fury. Rick wasn’t about to let himself be intimidated however.

“What’s so urgent—”

Rebecca immediately cut him off. “We’re going to talk about your checkup results.”

Not saying anything else, she forced her way inside his bedroom, leaving him no opportunity to deny her. Rick passed his head through the frame and saw BSAA people, Angela included, quickly disperse and enter their own room as if they weren’t watching and eavesdropping on what was happening.

Sighing, Rick pulled back and closed the door. Turning around, he saw Rebecca still dressed, standing in the middle of the room, armed crossed and still glaring at him.

“You’re always at your cutest when you’re angry.”

His joke to cut through the tension and fight his awkwardness didn’t work as intended. Rebecca just scowled even harder. The thought of simply grabbing her by the collar and carrying her out crossed his mind but he dismissed it. The one about turning the encounter sexual to distract her about the topic did too and was also abandoned. Rick knew Rebecca would not budge and leave until she had the answers she wanted. It was fine with him.

Without much ceremony, he released the hammer of his .45, put back the safety on and walked to his bed. In one swift motion, he went back under the sheet, his gun tucked under his pillow and closed his eyes without a care in the world. Rebecca could stand there as long as she wished, he was going back to sleep.

That was the wrong move to make.