Chapter 24 - STORAGE UNIT 417
The storage facility looked ordinary.
That was what made it frightening.
Rows of metal doors.
Security cameras.
Concrete floors.
No dramatic entrance.
No obvious secret.
Unit 417 was at the very end.
Julian inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
The door rolled upward.
Dust filled the air.
Inside were dozens of boxes.
Documents.
Photographs.
Old computer equipment.
And one wooden chair.
Nothing else.
No body.
No money.
No treasure.
Just evidence of a life someone had deliberately erased.
I walked toward the nearest box.
It had my name on it.
EMILY REED.
I froze.
"That's my maiden name."
Julian looked at me.
"Open it."
Inside was a collection of photographs.
Me as a child.
Noah as a baby.
My mother.
My grandfather.
And Julian.
But one photograph made my blood run cold.
It showed me at six years old.
Standing beside a man I had never seen before.
On the back was a handwritten sentence.
She remembers him.
I stared at it.
"I don't."
Julian looked at the photograph.
"Maybe you don't consciously remember."
Noah picked up another picture.
"Mom."
I turned.
He was holding a photograph of himself.
He was only three.
He was sitting on my grandfather's lap.
Behind them stood Arthur Bell.
But there was another person in the background.
A man.
Half-hidden behind a doorway.
Noah pointed at him.
"That's the man from the wedding."
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Julian took the photograph.
He stared.
Then whispered:
"That's impossible."
May you like
"Why?"
"Because I know who that is."
