The Memoir of Aderyn Clark

Captive,

When King forced me out of my own apartment, he put my stuff in a small storage. I haven't actually check it out since then, and now I'm checking what he actually put in there. I haven't needed anything from my own apartment since he have everything I need in his apartment. In truth, the real reason why I'm opening up the storage now was because I didn't have it in me to throw away King's stuff, but at the same time I also didn't know what to do with it. Hence, hoard it all in the storage.

My original plan was to open up the storage, drop his stuff, then left. But I ended up curious because the stuff in here obviously not all mine. Like that table over there, that's obviously not mine, my apartment was furnished when I bought it back then, so I never needed a table.

"I started to wonder if somebody would ever show up and open this storage unit," I don't know why people make it a habit to surprise another like that. At least give a girl a warning!

"Who are you?" There's a man standing by the opening of the storage unit

"Security," he admits

"You don't look like a security," I stare at him suspiciously

"Okay, you caught me, I'm not security,"

"Then who are you?" I asked again

"Private investigator," he said still not moving, "no, really, I'm a private investigator," he started to move closer, holding something in his hand, a card I think

"No, stay there, I'll come to you," I sidestepped some stuff to reach him, "how do I know you're legit?" I squinted my eyes at him suspiciously

"Mack Jansson," he said handing me a card, a name card to be exact, with his name and a logo of some high-end investigator firm I've heard about before

"I'm confirming this," I raised the card in my hand

"Be my guest," he said, crossing his arm on his chest, "I got time."

But I didn't dial the number on the card, I searched the name of the firm and called the number from there

"I'm looking for Mack Jansson," I told the guy on the other line when they picked up

"He's not in the office right now, I could relay a message for him," was the guy's reply

"No need, thanks." Then I hang up, "okay, so what do you want here, Mack Jansson? Who hired you?"

"I can't tell you who hired me, but what I can tell you was I was hired to watched this unit," he smiles

"So you just standby here everyday watching this unit?" I cocked my head to the side

"Of course not, I set up an alarm that would let me know if somebody come and open the unit," he shrugged

"Why is the unit being watched?" This is just so weird

"First of all, I need to know your name, I told you mine..." I bet he's getting it easy with the ladies using his good charm and smooth talk, good thing I'm not like all the ladies

"Clark," I have a very common last name, so that's not gonna be a problem, but I do have a recognizable face, I think he could connect the dots, "now tell me,"

"The case I'm working on leads me here,"

"So you're hired to investigate another thing, not to watch this unit, specifically," he nodded, confirming

"Is this your unit?"

"If you're a good investigator as you implied yourself to be, you already know the answer," I give him a vague answer

"That's the thing, unlike all the other units here, this particular unit didn't have a name on the deed, just listed as rented," he shrugged

"You're baiting."

"I'm just gonna assume it's yours since you punch in the right code and didn't break in," he muttered then started to write in his little notebook

"Anything else I could help you with?" I sarcastically asked, "because if not, I have to ask you to leave," when he's looking around the unit from his spot instead of moving to leave, I speak again, "I'm not actually asking,"

"I'll be back again, Clark, you'll see," he gave me a charming smile before walking away

Everything about that encounter seems so strange, screaming out the word "suspicious!". What kind of investigation would lead someone to a storage unit? And who would hire an expensive private dick to do a sleuthing?

So I do the next best thing, I called Carson to do his own sleuthing, he loves doing that. He told me on one of our late nights at the office that he wants to be a detective when he was a kid, but shit happened and King sort of steered him away from that path, and Carson, as always when it involves King, is grateful for that, because that line of work was very dirty, in all kinds of sense.

Anyways, I told Carson to look into Mack Jansson and what he's currently investigating. Everything is easy to know when you have the power and connection like me. That's why making a connection everywhere you go is very important, you never know when you gonna need it.

After the call to Carson, I went back to being curious about the unit. Avoiding another encounter, I turned on the other overhead lights, close the storage rolling door, and locked it from the inside. Now I could snoop around in peace. Let's see what else we have here that's not my stuff.

There's carefully organized boxes of documents on shelves at the very back of the storage unit, and just like the folders in his home office, these boxes also have names on each label, I recognize it as the companies he helped with, I'm surprised he just left it out here. Oh and another thing, "small storage" was an understatement, this is more like an extra large storage, especially with all those boxes taking up almost half of the space, I didn't notice this earlier because half of the lights were off. Maybe that's what Mack is looking for, one of the document inside these boxes. Now it makes sense.