I sat down hard on the metal folding chair. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the envelope into the dark space beneath the floor.

I pulled the flap open with my thumb, tearing the paper a little at the corner.

Inside was a single sheet of lined legal paper covered in Arthur’s blue ink, and behind it, a copy of an old bank statement from the parish credit union.

The letter didn’t have a greeting. It just started right in the middle of things, the way Arthur always talked when he was mad about the county commissioners.

“Gerald’s been using the power of attorney I gave him back when my knees went out in sixteen,” Arthur had written. The letters slanted downward across the blue lines like he was writing while the truck was moving. “He said he was handling the pension deposits so the state wouldn’t take the place for back taxes. He took three thousand a month out of the primary account. Four years of it. That’s one hundred forty-four thousand dollars he’s pulled out behind my back.”

I stared at the figures, my thumb rubbing against the rough paper edge.

“I can’t drive down to the bank anymore,” the letter continued near the bottom of the sheet, the ink smudged where his wrist had dragged across it. “And I don’t want the sheriff involved because the family name is already dirt in this parish. But I moved what was left of the reserve cash out of the house last August. If you’re reading this, Julian, it means I’m gone and you found the yellow slip in the kitchen. Don’t let him have the rest of it. He thinks he owns everything with an engine.”

I counted three more bricks of twenties under the envelope before I stopped. The total was one hundred sixty-two thousand dollars in neat, dry stacks.

I sat there on that folding chair for a long time, listening to the hum of the highway traffic out on Route 90 through the thin metal walls of the shed.

I folded the letter carefully and tucked it back into the manila envelope, sliding it into the breast pocket of my work shirt.

Then I closed the heavy steel lid of the floor safe, dropped the linoleum flap back over it, and dragged the folding chair back to the corner.

I turned off the overhead light and stepped back out into the gravel yard, pulling the corrugated steel door down until it hit the concrete with a flat, final slam.

The padlock went back on the hasp without any trouble. I clicked the shackle home and spun the brass dial three times just to be safe.

When I walked back into the storage office, the television was still glowing blue in the dim room, but the manager wasn’t watching it anymore. He was leaning back in his plastic chair, his eyes closed behind his glasses, listening to the low drone of a weather report.

I tossed the red-tagged key onto the counter. It landed with a dry plastic clack against the Formica.

“Everything where it belongs?” the manager asked, not opening his eyes.

“Everything’s there,” I said.

He reached out a hand, felt around the counter until his fingers brushed the red tag, and dropped the key back into the metal box under the desk.

“Your cousin was here yesterday asking if anyone had checked the unit logs,” the manager added, his voice dropping an octave as he shifted in his seat. “He has a second key. The access code resets in forty-eight hours. If you don’t change it before then…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He just reached out and clicked off the small television, plunging the trailer into a gray, silent dusk that smelled of old carpet and hot plastic.

I didn’t answer him. I just turned around and walked out the door, the gravel crunching under my boots all the way back to the truck.