Everything you need—the truth, the documents, the proof—is in Unit 108.
Go there first.
Do not confront Linda before you go.
Do not warn anyone.
If you do, the evidence will disappear.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
My father had been planning something.
Something serious enough that he didn’t trust his own wife.
Something big enough that he believed my life—my entire conviction—was tangled in it.
At the bottom, he wrote:
I’m sorry I waited. I’m sorry I let you carry what should never have been yours to carry.
I love you.
—Dad
The letter slipped in my fingers.
I sat there for a long time, staring at the key taped to the storage card like it was a map to a buried world.
The wind moved through the pines.
Somewhere far off, a lawnmower started up.
Life continued, indifferent.
But inside me, something started to wake up.
Not rage.
Not revenge.
Something sharper.
Clarity.
UNIT 108
Westridge Storage sat on the edge of town where the roads widened and the buildings got lower. It was the kind of place you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.
A chain-link fence. A keypad gate. Rows of metal doors.
I parked and walked to the office, but it was closed for lunch.
I didn’t care.
I punched in the unit row number from the map posted outside and walked down the aisle of doors until I found it.
108.
The lock looked ordinary.
The key didn’t.
It was worn smooth in places, like my father had held it often. Like he’d carried it in his pocket and touched it when he needed to remind himself he still had a plan.
My hands shook so badly I missed the lock on the first try.
On the second try, it clicked.
I lifted the door.
And the world my father had hidden opened in front of me.
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