Chapter 3: The Unit at the End of the Row
I called my bank from the driveway.
Diana had followed me outside.
She stood on the porch steps with her arms crossed, watching me the way you watch someone you're trying to read before they read you.
"William, come back inside.
We can talk about this."
I held up one finger.
She stayed where she was.
The bank confirmed it.
Twelve thousand, four hundred dollars.
Transferred to an external account linked to a debit card in Diana's maiden name.
Hartwell.
Not Chen.
Not my name.
Hartwell.
I hung up and turned around.
"You have a separate account," I said.
"Under your maiden name."
She didn't flinch.
"That's my personal money.
I'm allowed to have savings."
"Twelve thousand dollars in three days isn't savings.
That's a move."
"You're being paranoid."
"The key, Diana.
Whose name is the storage unit under?"
She looked past me at the street.
A car moved slowly at the far end.
She watched it until it turned the corner.
"Mine," she finally said.
"It's under my name.
I rented it two years ago."
Two years.
We had been married for four.
She had rented it halfway through.
Maya appeared in the doorway behind Diana.
She had her backpack off now, hugging it against her chest.
"Daddy, are you leaving again?"
"No, sweetheart.
Go inside and watch something.
I'll be right there."
Diana turned and looked at Maya.
"She shouldn't be listening to adult conversations."
"Then stop having them on the front porch." I walked back to the door, past Diana, and crouched down in front of Maya.
"Go pick a show.
I'll make you a snack in a few minutes."
Maya nodded and disappeared into the living room.
I straightened up and looked at Diana.
"I'm going to that storage facility today.
Right now.
You can come with me and explain everything, or I can go alone and find out for myself."
Something moved across her face.
Not fear this time.
Calculation.
"Fine," she said.
"I'll come."
She said it too quickly.
That bothered me more than if she had refused.
The facility was twenty minutes away, on the industrial side of town.
A long grey building with orange roll doors, the kind of place that smells like dust and old cardboard.
Unit 114 was at the far end of the second row.
Diana walked beside me without speaking.
Her heels clicked on the concrete.
She had changed her shoes before we left.
I noticed that.
She had gone upstairs for three minutes while I waited by the door, and she had come back down in different shoes.
I didn't say anything about it.
I slid the key into the lock.
It turned on the first try.
The roll door went up with a sound like a slow exhale.
I stood there for a moment before I could process what I was looking at.
It wasn't furniture.
It wasn't boxes of old clothes or forgotten appliances.
There were filing cabinets.
Four of them, grey metal, padlocked.
A folding table with a laptop on it, closed.
A corkboard on a standing frame with papers pinned to it, some with photographs.
A small safe bolted to a wooden pallet in the corner.
And on the shelf along the left wall, in a row of clear plastic bins, I could see children's things.
A stuffed bear with a blue ribbon.
Drawings in plastic sleeves.
A small pair of rain boots.
A baby blanket, yellow, folded neatly.
Maya's things.
The ones Diana said she had donated.
I walked to the shelf and picked up the bear.
The blue ribbon was still tied the same way Maya's grandmother had tied it.
A double bow.
The kind you don't undo because you don't want to forget how it was made.
I turned around.
Diana was standing just inside the door, not moving, watching me hold the bear.
"Why?" I said.
"Why take her things and put them here?"
She didn't answer.
I looked at the corkboard.
The photographs were of me.
At work.
Getting into my car.
Walking into a restaurant.
Some were dated in the corner.
The oldest one was from before we were married.
May you like
My throat went tight.
"How long have you been watching me?"
