Jarvis Street Chapter 6
Everyone was doing their own thing for a little while that morning, so it was almost a relief for James to sit alone at the computer and continue to work his way through the backlog of paperwork. This was insanity. If all of it had been physical, he’d be drowning in it. Right now, he was just only somewhat drowning in papers because the rest was on the computer.
After a little while of increasingly irritating computer glitches, James figured it was time to run off some of his frustration. He got up, deliberately ignored the new emails that had just arrived in his inbox, and went to change into his workout clothes.
A few minutes later, he was walking into the tiny gym in the basement. Pop-punk blared out of the shitty speaker as he went inside and saw Gabriella running on one of the treadmills. “Didn’t realize you were also a fan,” he said.
She laughed. “I just didn’t bother changing it when they left.”
As James was stepping onto the machine next to her, she slowed down her pace a little. “How’s it going?” he asked as he started at a brisk walk.
“Fine.”
But she looked a little lost as she said it. “Come on,” James insisted. “What’s going on?”
Gabriella shrugged, her blonde hair shaking a little in the loose bun she’d tied it in. “I shouldn’t be complaining,” she said. “I’m the one who messed up.”
“Is someone being mean?”
He felt like he was talking to their youngest cousins as he said it. Like someone was bullying them in first grade and they’d come home crying. But with the look on Gabriella’s face right now, he could almost see her back when she was that age and he was a teenager trying to protect her.
“Gabs,” he said, stopping his treadmill.
Gabriella nodded rapidly as she walked, but she wiped her eyes in a hurry, clearly hoping he wouldn’t see. “No one’s being mean,” she said.
“Good.”
“I just…I wish I could fix it. Like, I can’t believe I fell for Robin’s plan. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.”
She stopped her treadmill and stepped off. “Hey, Gab,” James said, stopping her before she could walk away. “Listen, I get it. For real. And the others do too. It might take some time, but they’ll come around, okay?”
She looked skeptical, but she nodded. “Just give it time,” he repeated.
He gave her a quick hug, then stepped back as she let go. “I’m okay,” she said. “It’s fine.”
Gabriella left a moment later, leaving James alone to finish the workout he was suddenly less enthused for. He couldn’t force anyone to be friends, but he could do something to get them a little closer? Team-building or something. Did the Foundation offer team-building activities? Maybe something fun would make the rest of it a little more bearable for everyone.
***
Once he was done and showered, James went back upstairs to see Bradley sitting at James’s now-usual computer station, typing something up. As he got closer, James realized it was the details of the case they were going over that afternoon.
“What are you doing?”
Bradley winced and spun around, glaring at James. “My job,” he snapped. “Try it sometime.”
James rolled his eyes, then looked at the screen. “This is the school case.”
“Obviously. I’m getting the briefing ready for the meeting.”
Robin hadn’t done that? He must have looked clueless because Bradley just looked unimpressed.
“I take it you haven’t done the modules yet?”
“They haven’t sent me the modules yet.”
James’s voice was sharp and all the tension he’d worked out was back now. He should have been relieved to have this off his plate, but instead, he just felt incompetent.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“For you to leave me the hell alone.”
James barely managed to avoid blurting out that he liked Bradley better on ketamine. Instead of committing that workplace violation, he instead walked into the kitchen and stood by the sink, looking out the window toward the backyard.
His paperwork was piled up on the dining room table, but he didn’t feel like going back into the room just yet. They still had a little while until the meeting, so he could just go sit for like five minutes, then decide what he was going to get done.
But James wasn’t even out of the kitchen before the phone rang. Bradley grabbed it, still typing with one hand as he answered.
“North County Branch, Bradley speaking.”
He paused. “Yeah, hang on.”
Without looking back, he held the phone out to James. “You.”
James took it with a thanks that was ignored. “James here.”
“James!”
The voice was familiar. The Foundation liaison he’d been speaking to for weeks, though James still didn’t know his name. It wasn’t the same man who had come to give them the news about James’s promotion after Robin took on that tractor-trailer, it was another one whose job was apparently to help with the transition. Not that he’d been any real help at all.
“Hey.” What was this guy’s name?
“Listen, I need to talk to you about yesterday.”
James grimaced and walked toward the dining room table. “I’ve already been briefed,” he said.
“Oh, excellent, excellent.”
This guy was far too cheerful. “I’m glad to hear that,” he continued. “And you’ve gotten the form approving remedial firearms training for Amelia Cohen?”
“I did.”
“Good, good. And Dr. Jolene Oliver says she’s expecting a follow-up.”
James glanced at Bradley, who was typing furiously. “I’ll be in touch,” he said.
Was there anything new? He wanted to ask, but was afraid of the answer.
“And about you. According to the schedule, you should be at least two-thirds of the way done with the captaincy training modules. How is that going?”
“I haven’t received them yet.”
“Ah, that’s a problem.”
Yes, it certainly was. James rolled his eyes, playing with a knife that was sitting among the piles of equipment on the dining room table. “Do you know when I’m going to get them?” he asked.
“Soon,” the man said. “Don’t worry, Jim, we’ll get those over to you soon.”
He cringed at the nickname, though he knew he didn’t really have any room to talk. “Thanks.”
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“Actually, yeah,” James said, setting down the knife. “They sent us a very small training guide for our new investigation procedures, along with some recommended reading. We don’t have the space in our budget to purchase the recommended texts, but I feel like they’re necessary to keep the team safe and prepared. Would it be possible to get them reimbursed if I was to buy them out of pocket?”
He knew the answer even before the long pause. “We’ll see what we can do about that,” the man said finally. “Buy them and send the receipts along, then accounting will take a look at it.”
That meant no. He didn’t even bother asking anything else, just got off the phone after a brief goodbye and put it back on the cradle. Bradley ignored him as he did so, but Gabriella was walking into the room as he turned back around.
“They said we might possibly be able to get reimbursement for the extra training materials, but don’t hold your breath,” James said.
She nodded. “That makes sense. I just wrapped up what I was doing. Is there anything you want me to do?”
It hadn’t occurred to him to make up any kind of chore list beyond the kitchen roster, of which he was the worst offender anyway. “Not that I can think of,” he said. “Did you take lunch yet?”
“No.”
“Go take lunch. We’re meeting to discuss tomorrow’s case after.”
“What is it?” Gabriella asked, glancing over at Bradley’s screen.
Bradley turned to glare at her, and James saw Gabriella wilt. He shot Bradley a look, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Go take your break,” James repeated. “We’ll go over it after. I’m still not sure about all the details anyway.”
Gabriella nodded and walked away. James went over to the pile of papers on the desk and rifled through.
“Would it kill you to be a little nicer to her?” he muttered.
Bradley turned to look at him, then returned to his work without a word.
***
James ate his lunch as he tried to sift through the never-ending papers. He’d taken more of them over to the dining room and cleared space, accidentally knocking a quart of holy water onto the floor in the process. Once he’d gotten it cleaned up, he’d finally sat down to do yet more pointless busy work as he ate the dry sandwich he’d hurriedly thrown together that morning.
Weekly report. What was the point of these if he was sending in daily reports already? But he’d missed last week, so it was time to actually do one.
Thirty minutes later, he’d finally eked it out as the others were showing up for the meeting. Amelia walked in with a McDonald’s takeout bag and she tossed him a cheeseburger as she passed. Touched, he dug in immediately as she sat down and took out hers and Madelyn’s lunch. Madelyn showed up a couple minutes later, freshly showered and walking steadily without her cane. She sat down to eat with Amelia and the two of them started comparing results from the work they’d been doing that morning.
Finally, Gabriella came back and sat down in the living room with her iced green tea. She sat a little separated from the other two women, who greeted her with smiles, but again, didn’t make any extra effort to include her in their conversation.
James sat down next to Gabriella. “How’s the research going?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Good,” she replied. “I narrowed down the location to somewhere in Lunenburg. It’s still a big field, but that shrank it down significantly.”
She’d been looking into a UFO report from the 1990s that had resurfaced on social media. It wasn’t anything essential, but it had been making the rounds just enough that he’d wanted to grab it before anything came of it.
“I’ll keep going later if you want me to,” Gabriella continued. “It’s interesting. There are so many UFO sightings in this area.”
“Keep it on the back burner,” James said. “You’ll notice that a lot of times, we’ll have cases with varying degrees of urgency. So something like that is useful, but not a priority. You know what I mean?”
Gabriella nodded, but there was something in her face that gave James pause. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “No, that makes sense. I’ll, um, I can keep a binder for each case or something.”
“If you want to,” James said. “There’s probably some extra ones around here.”
“Great, yeah.”
She still looked odd, but he wasn’t going to press if she didn’t want to talk. So instead, he went to the kitchen to toss the burger wrapper and wash his hands.
“James?”
He turned as Gabriella stepped into the kitchen behind him. “Yeah, Gabs, what’s up?”
“Do you remember the work that Robin was having me do? The strange energy readings?”
James thought for a moment. “I do,” he said. “Yeah, wasn’t he having you dig up stuff on that pet project they never actually…oh.”
Gabriella nodded, ducking her head. “Nah, Gabriella, listen,” James said. “I’m not going to mess with you like that. Just because something isn’t urgent doesn’t mean it isn’t important, you know? I’m not having you do busywork, all of this will come into play at some point.”
She nodded a little shakily. “I have the information I got for him too,” she said, her voice a little bitter. “If it’s ever useful.”
“Honestly,” James started, thinking back on the research she’d done. “Even if the energy readings don’t come to anything, having a solid foundation for the history of this region could come in handy. Don’t prioritize it, but maybe do some planning on how to expand that if you ever find yourself with spare time again.”
“I will,” Gabriella said. “I just didn’t want to waste anyone’s time, you know?”
“You’re not,” James assured her. “Trust me, you’re doing useful work here. Come on, let’s head back out.”
A few minutes later, James was starting the meeting. “Hey, thank you for coming to yet another meeting,” he said as the others watched him. “This one is to go over the case we’re starting tomorrow. Bradley’s got the briefing so I’ll hand it over to him.”
Bradley pulled down the screen James had forgotten to set up, then began the slideshow he’d made. “So you’ve all probably seen this school.”
He clicked the mouse and a photo of an old, familiar school appeared on the screen. It was a tall brick building, three floors high, but somewhat narrow compared to the schools James had attended in the area as a kid. The front windows along the first floor were all boarded up and a white X against a red sign was visible on both of the doors between the windows. Above them were more windows framed with brick arches. These ones weren’t boarded up and James was pretty sure he could see a bird’s nest on one of the windowsills on the third floor.
“Jarvis Street School,” Bradley continued. “In operation from 1890 to about twenty years ago. It’s been empty ever since, but it’s being renovated into condos. For some reason.”
James had to agree with him there. The idea of living in a converted school was downright unappealing, even compared to the rickety triple-decker he currently lived in. This school in particular looked downright scary, though he assumed there would be a lot of changes put in place if they were going to sell them as luxury condos.
Bradley clicked through again to show a map of the interior of the school. “Here’s the inside. There’s been activity reported for years. Obviously, that makes perfect sense with the amount of energy that passed in and out of the building through the past century. But what the Foundation is mostly concerned with are reports that suggest some of the activity seems to be intelligent and potentially negative. There haven’t been any mysterious deaths on the site, at least not anything that was recorded.”
“Any deaths at all?” James asked.
Bradley gave him a withering glare. “No. Don’t interrupt me.”
James rolled his eyes. “There’s not much of a history,” Bradley continued. “The school served various age ranges at different times, depending on the needs of the city. Nothing in the briefing material I was sent includes any sort of occult activity, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any.”
Madelyn raised her hand and Bradley ignored her as he clicked through to the next slide. “Since the Foundation has decided to pile on more work without more people to do the work, we’ll need to make at least two trips. Investigation, research, and actually doing something.”
James hadn’t approved that. Or maybe he had, and he hadn’t realized it? But Bradley was right, so he was just going to stay quiet.
“What are we looking for?” Gabriella asked without raising her hand.
“Ghosts.”
Gabriella blushed and Bradley moved on. “I tracked down one of the books on investigation that they wanted us to buy through the library system. I’ll pick it up today.”
“Oh, thanks,” James said.
Bradley shrugged. “You were going to spend your money after telling us not to. Yeah. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. There have been some injuries in the building because of the spirit. One guy ended up in the hospital to check for a concussion after it knocked him down the stairs, another ended up needing stitches. But they haven’t gutted it yet, so we don’t need to worry about moving around the construction.”
“So just be careful,” James added.
He wanted to go into this haunted school so badly. But what little training he’d received had made it very clear that the team captain’s place was not in the field, even though Robin had done it sometimes. That was for the second in command and Amelia was very good at her job. So having James out there would be redundant and would leave them understaffed in the command.
“Amelia and Gabriella, you’ll be in the field,” he said, pointing at them as he spoke. “It’s just observation, so the two of you should be fine. Arm yourselves anyway.”
“Don’t shoot her,” Bradley added.
Amelia tossed a French fry at him while Madelyn laughed. Gabriella’s face was a little red, but she was smiling uncertainly.
“Bradley and Madelyn, you’re on comms,” James said. “Again, it should be straightforward. But we’ll stay connected.”
He waited for someone to ask him what he’d be doing, why he was shirking his duties. But no one did. Instead, they all started talking to each other, planning out how it would go tomorrow. James was relieved to see that Amelia was being friendly with Gabriella. Not that he ever worried about Amelia’s professionalism. But he knew that Amelia, especially, had been really unimpressed with Gabriella’s decisions in her first few weeks.
He glanced at the clock. Technically, they could have gotten it done today, but there was always a chance that something would go wrong. And he badly wanted the rest of the day to be normal. So they’d put it off until tomorrow and he could hope that maybe they’d end the day on a normal note. Then James could just go home and decompress for a few hours before the nightmares started back up.
