The manager slid the key across the laminate toward me along with a laminated green card that had the gate code written in grease pencil.

“Unit 47 is down at the end of the east row,” he said, turning his attention back to the blue glow of the television.

“The latch sticks if you don’t give it a good heave to the left.”

The gravel in the storage yard was large and gray, crunching loud under the truck tires as I crept down the lane between rows of corrugated steel sheds. The number 47 was painted in faded black stencils on the third door from the fence line.

I killed the headlights and sat there in the cab for a minute, listening to the radiator pop as the metal cooled down in the damp night air. The wind was coming off the marsh now, carrying the heavy, rotting smell of salt grass and low tide.

I got out and walked the last twenty feet through the gravel. My boots made a heavy, hollow sound that seemed too loud for the empty yard.

The padlock was a heavy brass Master Lock, its shingle bright against the gray paint of the door. I slipped the key into the slot and turned it. It didn’t catch or bind; it turned as smooth as if someone had oiled it that very morning.

I threw the heavy metal latch to the left, and the door groaned on its tracks, lifting up with a dry rattle of springs.

Inside, the unit smelled like stale dust and old cardboard.

I reached inside and flicked the plastic toggle switch on the wall by the door. A single bare bulb flickered on overhead, casting a yellow, greasy light over the concrete floor.

The unit was completely empty. No boxes of old books, no spare furniture from the house, no winter tires or fishing gear.

Just a single gray metal folding chair sitting right in the middle of the concrete floor.

I stepped inside, the door coming down a few inches behind me with a light click. I walked over to the folding chair and touched the backrest. The metal was cold and slick with moisture.

Then I looked down at the floor.

The concrete was clean near the door, but right where the folding chair sat, the gray paint was chipped away in a rough square. Someone had taken a pry bar to the joint between two slabs.

I dropped to one knee and put my fingers under the edge of a jagged piece of gray linoleum that had been laid down over the concrete to hide the seam. It didn’t take much to pull it back. The glue had dried to dust years ago.

Underneath was a square cut into the concrete floor itself, about two feet across, filled in with a flush metal plate painted to match the gray cement.

There was no handle on the plate, just a small keyhole set off center.

I reached into my pocket, but my keys didn’t have anything that size. I stood back up and looked around the empty walls, my eyes searching the corners until I saw a rusty flathead screwdriver stuck behind a wooden cleat on the wall frame.

I grabbed it and went back to the floor.

It took three tries to wedge the tip of the screwdriver into the narrow gap between the plate and the concrete. The metal gave a sharp, protesting screech that sounded like iron tearing through dry timber.

I pulled back hard, using my shoulder weight, and the heavy steel lid hinged upward with a hollow, echoing thud.

Inside was a square fireproof box, the kind you buy at the hardware store for thirty-six dollars. The latch wasn’t even locked; it had been left unclasped, the small brass tongue resting half an inch out of its slot.

I lifted the lid.

The cash was bundled in thick, rectangular bricks wrapped in brown paper bank straps, held together with heavy rubber bands that had started to dry out and crack at the edges.

I picked up the top brick. The bills were twenty-dollar notes, crisp and new enough that the ink still had a slight chemical smell to it.

Beneath the money lay a manila envelope with my name written across the front in Arthur’s shaky, looping handwriting.