Leighanne hung up the phone with a curious expression written across her face. She turned to her husband who was sitting at the dining room table drinking a coffee and reading the morning paper. 

“Brian?” she asked, approaching the table.

Brian glanced up and smiled, “Yeah? Who was that on the phone?”

“That was the security company over at the self storage,” she explained, “They were doing their checks this morning and realized the door to your storage area was unlocked.”

“Oh, I guess I’ll have to go down and lock it,” Brian said, looking back to the paper. He had thought initially to give Nick the key to lock the door but he was concerned that if Nick left the building a floating key might draw attention. He wondered momentarily if Nick was still inside the storage area, or if he’d moved on to something else.

Leighanne sighed and sat down beside Brian, “Why did you go down there again?” she asked concernedly, “You need to let go of that stuff. We should give it away to charity or have an auction for the more expensive things.”

“That’s Nick’s stuff!” Brian replied, shaking his head, “It’s not mine to give away!”

“He’s not going to need it, Honey. Nick isn’t coming back for it,” the blonde woman pointed out.

“It’s Nick’s stuff,” Brian repeated, shrugging his shoulders.

“Fine, but why were you down there yesterday?”

“I was looking for something of mine that was in his car,” Brian explained as he folded the newspaper back up.

“Well you looked a little too far for that. Don’t you remember? When the police brought over the stuff out of Nick’s car I put it in the basement.”

“Oh my god you’re right, the basement!” Brian exclaimed, bolting out of his seat as he remembered. The day the police had brought everything from the car that wasn’t evidence over Brian was at a meeting with the other boys so Leighanne had put everything in a storage bin and put it in the basement for Brian to bring over to the storage shed, which was obviously something he’d long forgotten to do.

He bounded down the stairs, skipping more than a few to get into the basement faster. He scanned the room quickly, looking for sign of the bright blue container. Out of the corner of his eye he saw it stacked against the wall labelled ‘Nick’ on masking tape and ran over to it, knocking everything down around it. 

He tore the top off the container and spilled the contents across the floor, frantically searching through CDs, random half empty packs of cigarettes, manuals for the vehicle, receipts, paper garbage and condoms…condoms? Wow that was a lot of condoms.

Brian knew for sure he had the strangest friend in the world as he tossed the jumbo sized pack of contraceptives to the side, wondering what on earth Nick was doing in his car besides the obvious. He had everything spread across the floor and as if it was a sign from God, sitting directly in the stream of sunlight coming through the basement window was a small two inch, by two inch matchbook. 

Brian was frozen; he could not believe he actually had it in his basement the entire time. He slowly reached his hand out and picked up the matchbook, almost afraid he would damage it. It was white, with the name of a Hotel restaurant written on the front but those weren’t the words that were going to be important. Holding his breath Brian flipped the pack of matches open. Written in small writing from the top of the pack all the way down behind the matches was a list.

It wasn’t a list, it was the list. Brian had found the list; now all he needed to find was Nick.

***

Nick had a hard time believing that Valerie was a cop. She didn’t seem very cop like. Of course, his only history with cops was either through being arrested or watching television. There was no way for him to know whether or not there were other cops like her out there. 

“Is this the right place?” Valerie asked, pointing to Brian’s driveway. 

“Yeah, you have to buzz to get in,” Nick explained, hoping that Brian would answer the call instead of Leighanne because it was going to be interesting to have to explain why a strange female cop was coming to see Brian in the middle of the day.

Valerie rolled down the window on her old Volkswagen Rabbit and hit the button on the call box. 

“Hello?” Leighanne answered and Nick groaned.

He was trying to think of something clever to tell her but Valerie beat him to the punch, “Good morning ma’am. My name is Officer Valerie Torres. I was hoping to talk to your husband.”

“What’s this about?” Leighanne questioned.

“It’s about Nick Carter,” Valerie answered and within seconds the gate started to open.

“You’re good.” Nick chuckled.

“They teach you all about excuses and avoidance at the academy,” Valerie explained, “You have to know what to say when you want to get things from people. If I had just said my name and not sounded official she would have questioned my interests, and maybe even been suspicious of Brian but because I made it sound like it was an official visit she had no problem letting me in. It’s a trust factor. People have to feel comfortable and unthreatened in order to give other people complete trust.”

“Leighanne doesn’t trust anyone, so you’re lucky,” Nick chuckled as they parked in front of the house. 

Brian walked out the front door, wondering who on earth was coming to talk to him about Nick. He was equally thrown off when he saw Nick step out of this person’s car (literally step out of; he didn’t even bother to open the door for show.)

“Hello,” Brian said cautiously, reaching his hand out to shake the woman’s. He took a moment to look her over; curious to know why Nick was following this slight woman around.

“It’s cool Brian, she’s on our side,” Nick reassured him with a cheesy grin.

Brian didn’t acknowledge his statement, still not sure why or how Nick had brought this woman to his house.

“Hi Brian, my name is Valerie Torres, I’m a friend of Nick’s.”

“A friend…I wasn’t aware Nick had any friends,” Brian pointed out, still confused.

“Hey fuck you,” Nick grumbled, “No friends? I have thousands of friends! I have so many friends I couldn’t even haunt them all if I wanted to!”

Valerie held up a finger, interjecting, “I do believe he meant friends who are aware of your presence.”

“You can see him?” Brian asked wanting to clarify that fact since it was so bizarre.

“Yes.”

“Did you know Nick before he died?”

“I’m right here you know,” Nick cut in, annoyed.

“No, I just met him earlier today. Trust me; you’re about as shocked as I can see him as I am. You can trust though that I’m a very reliable person, and I’m going to help you and Nick as best as I can.”

“She’s the best cop in the whole city,” Nick added. 

Valerie chuckled, “When does he start being quiet?”

“It doesn’t happen. We thought we would finally get some peace and quiet once he was dead but apparently even in death he can’t shut his big trap,” Brian said with a long sigh, looking at his friend who just shrugged, “We should move this conversation somewhere else though because I have something really important to share.”

“What is it?” Nick asked as Brian led them to the pool house.

“First of all, I need to say that if we’re going to start a little club we need to find a different place for our clubhouse because having a female police officer in plain clothes over to my house every other day is going to start causing some suspicion from my wife. She might very well start asking questions as to what you’re doing here and why I’m spending so much time working on Nick’s case,”

Nick rolled his eyes, “Couldn’t have Leighanne thinking you care about me more than her.”

Brian stiffened his back at the words and shook his head at Nick, “Don’t even start that. If I have to go into the ‘I love you differently’ explanation for the millionth time I might just kill myself.”

“Okay!” Nick grinned, “Then you can hang out with me forever!”

“Which is exactly why I have no intention of going into that explanation again,” Brian deadpanned then reached into his pocket, feeling the hard paper touch his fingers, “Now, I have something important to tell you.”

“So we’ve heard,” Valerie concurred, “Please share.”

“I found it,” Brian finally announced boldly, retrieving the matchbook from his pocket, “It was here the whole time.”

“That’s what you were looking for?” Valerie asked rhetorically, looking at the small item quizzically.

“Is it…?” Nick asked, afraid to even say the words aloud.

Brian nodded and flipped open the matchbook, showing Nick the writing on the inside, “You were right, there is a list.”

“Well now we have to go see Toni and see what she knows!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Valerie interrupted, still a little out of the loop on everything that was going on, “Who is Toni?”

“She was my girlfriend,” Nick explained, “She gave me that matchbook the night I was killed, trying to hide it from someone. Then two guys came up and pulled us out of the car and, well, you know the rest.”

“Actually you would be surprised how little I know. I pretty much only know what I saw on TV and the few details I’ve heard through the department about the stall in your investigation. You still really need to fill me in on the details that I’m missing,” she pleaded, needing to know the full story before she could help them in any way.

“She’s right Nick, we need to go through everything we know from the moment Toni walked up to you in the bar until the moment you realized you were the walking dead,” Brian agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“I’m not a zombie,” Nick rolled his eyes.

“Regardless of whether or not you’re aimlessly roaming on the hunt for human flesh or looking for a starring role in the Hollywood haunted walk as an apparition, I would appreciate some details,” Valerie looked between the two men, wondering what she had gotten herself into by offering to help Abbott and Costello find a killer.

“Sorry,” Brian apologized, “Go ahead Nick.”

“Okay,” Nick nodded, watching Brian and Valerie get comfortable on the couch, “So, I went out one night to a club with Howie and AJ.”

“Who are Howie and AJ? Are they the men who came after you and your girlfriend?” Valerie questioned, pulling out a small notepad.

“EX girlfriend,” Nick clarified with a laugh, “And no, Howie and AJ are, were, my friends. We had just gone out that night together to have some drinks.”

“Sorry,” she smiled, “Continue.”

“I’m at the club with Howie and AJ and Toni walks up to me all in a panic…”