Chapter 7: What Was in the Unit
Grace had the injunction blocked by nine-fifteen the next morning.
She made two calls and filed a single counter-motion, and by the time I arrived at her office at ten, she was already standing at her window with her glasses on her head and her second cup of coffee in her hand.
"Reeves overplayed," she said, without turning around.
"The injunction had no evidentiary basis.
His lawyer dressed it up, but there was nothing underneath.
The judge dismissed it inside an hour."
"So we can go to the storage unit."
"We can go to the storage unit." She turned.
"I'm coming with you."
The facility was forty minutes north of the city, off a state road that ran between two long fields.
The unit was in the back row.
Small.
The kind that rents by the month and doesn't ask questions.
The key fit.
The door rolled up.
Inside: two cardboard boxes, a metal filing case with a combination lock, and a large envelope taped to the inside wall of the unit with my name written on it in Larry's handwriting.
Grace photographed everything before we touched anything.
The envelope on the wall held a single sheet of paper — a letter, shorter than the others, written in the same slow, pressed handwriting.
*Sarah.
If you found this, then you read the whole letter.
I'm glad.*
*The filing case combination is my wedding date with my first wife — month, day, year.
Daniel's mother.
I never forgot it.*
*Inside the case: the original trust documents, signed by my father.
Every letter Reeves sent me at the shelter.
And a recording.*
*About fourteen months ago, Reeves came to the shelter with his lawyer.
I had a phone.
It was a bad phone, barely worked.
But it recorded.*
*He told me, on that recording, exactly what he had done.
He was angry that day.
He thought I was already too far gone to matter.
People say things when they think no one is listening.*
*I was listening.*
*Give everything to Daniel.
Give everything to your lawyer.
Do what you think is right.*
*You always did.*
Grace read over my shoulder.
When she finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The combination," I said.
I looked at Daniel.
He was standing at the entrance to the unit, very still.
"Daniel," I said gently.
"Do you know your parents' wedding date?"
He looked at me.
Something moved across his face that he didn't try to hide.
He walked forward and crouched in front of the filing case.
He entered six numbers.
The lock opened.
Inside: a thick stack of original documents, a bundle of letters held together with a rubber band, and a phone in a ziplock bag.
Old model.
Cracked screen.
Grace picked up the phone with gloved hands.
"If this recorded what Larry said it recorded," she said carefully, "Reeves Callahan has a very serious problem."
Daniel was holding one of the letters from the bundle.
His father's name was on the return address.
He hadn't opened it yet.
He just held it.
"He wrote to me," Daniel said.
"From the shelter." He looked up.
"He never sent them."
I didn't say anything.
There was nothing to say that the moment hadn't already said.
Grace sealed the filing case and both boxes.
"I need to get this to a forensic tech today," she said.
"If that recording is recoverable, we move immediately." She looked at me.
"And when we do — Reeves is going to come at you directly.
He's going to stop being polite."
She was right.
My phone buzzed as we loaded the last box into Grace's car.
A text from Victor Marsh: *This is your last opportunity to resolve this without a public proceeding.
My client is prepared to be generous.
After today, that offer is withdrawn.*
I showed it to Grace.
She read it.
Handed the phone back.
"Four words," she said.
I typed them.
*Speak to my attorney.*
Sent it.
May you like
Marsh called back in under a minute.
I watched the screen until it stopped ringing.
