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I had no intention of renting the space out but I did have other plans for it.
After we left the apartment we went down the back set of stairs to where there was a door that led to the outside of the back of the building, a door that led to the office space and a door that led to the back of the shop. The space needed new lighting in the ceiling so that it was actually well lit and would make whoever had to walk through here feel a whole lot safer as opposed to the shady dark that filled the space now and could easily potentially hide people or things in the shadows.
Another thing I added to my mental to do list.
I stuck my key in the lock, turned the knob and, hopefully not unfortunately, let us into another space in the building. This had once been an office space for some low rent attorney but had been empty for several years now because the attorney had been dirty and found himself in a jail cell beside a bunch of hardened criminals he'd lied and cheated in order to keep out of prison. Thankfully for him he'd mostly been good at his job so I imagined he had a better time in prison than most attorneys did. When you worked for the bad guys instead of against them, prison didn't really seem like a bad place to be.
I didn't know about Quint, but I walked through that doorway with a heavy heart and ready for disappointment.
It didn't take long for my spirits to lift and my attitude to change.
There was no dirty carpet in here and no cat piss smell. It was dusty and in need of a cleaning, to be sure. But that was only due to the fact the space had been closed up and unused for years and not because anything in there was really dirty.
Uncle Quint knelt down and brushed the palm of his hand across the hardwood floor. He swiped away several layers of dust to revel a beautifully polished floor that didn't need anything outside of an initial cleaning.
"Nice floors," he muttered appreciatively and I found myself sighing in relief. Thank fucking god there was something nice in the place.
Towards the back, there was a small, galley style kitchen with barely any room to maneuver but it wasn't in need of a facelift. The appliances were black and probably bought not long before the attorney had found himself in prison. Nothing in there needed to be replaced.
The doorway to the entrance and the kitchen opened up to a small reception area with two other doors.
I peeked in the first door and was relieved to see a small, white bathroom that was so different from the bathroom in the apartment upstairs it wasn't even funny.
The second door was different from the first because the top half of it was covered in a piece of frosted glass and had a name printed in black across the bottom. A peek inside showed a spacious room with a large, wide window that had been boarded over. I knew from having seen it from the outside that there was nothing wrong with the window, so I wasn't entirely sure why it had been boarded over.
We left the office without speaking and headed back into the shop.
Uncle Quint stopped in front of a door tucked underneath a tilted ceiling that clearly was underneath the stairs leading up and he knocked his knuckles against it.
"What's in here?" He asked me.
I shrugged.
Really, how the fuck was I supposed to know?
"Don't know," I muttered. "Only one way to find out."
Quinton smirked at me happily before turning his back on me and going for the door handle.
The door opened and he pushed his way inside. I didn't know what the hell he had to smirk about but I dutifully followed behind him.
A click sounded right before light burst to life. I blinked away the dark and grimaced at the string that hung down from the ceiling where Quinton was lowering his hand.
A wooden set of stairs led down into a dark abyss and there were no railings on either side of the stairs.
I shook my head as I followed Uncle Quint down the stairs. I wasn't surprised he walked right down them as if he'd been there before a thousand times and knew just exactly what he was walking into. He acted as if he owned the place.
I wasn't about to argue about who'd bought the place, not when he was walking down those stairs first and headlong into the unknown dark.
Chapter Ten
Love you, Uncle Quint
"Jesus, fuck," Uncle Quint muttered under his breath.
I couldn't blame him, I, too, was looking around the space with wide eyes, taking everything in.
When we made it to the bottom of the stairs, I had followed behind Quint's dark shadow until he stopped abruptly and another click sounded as another bulb flicked to life.
