For several seconds, I could only stare at the storage manager.
“What did you just say?”
His face had lost its color.
“Your husband,” he repeated carefully. “Mr. Robert Whitmore. He was here yesterday afternoon.”
My fingers tightened around the envelope until the paper bent beneath them.
“My husband has been d/e/@/d for three years.”
The man swallowed.
His name tag said MARTIN.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know that.”
“You checked his identification?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re certain it was Robert?”
Martin hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than his answer.
“I’d only met him twice before,” he admitted. “Once several years ago, and once yesterday. But he looked the same. Older, perhaps. Thinner. He knew the access code. He knew the unit number. He signed the log.”
“Show me.”
“Mrs. Whitmore—”
“Show me.”
Something in
my voice convinced him not to argue.
