Page 113 of The Me I Left Behind

“I hope so.” She crowded up against the desk, getting as close as possible to Ms. Louise. “I was here on Friday. Came by my unit to get some things and guess what?”

Louise’s eyebrows shot up. “I have no idea. Find a rat inside?”

She had to laugh at that. “I could smell one, to be sure, but find one? No. In fact, my unit was empty.”

She had to hand it to Louise. She held that deadpan facial expression like a champ. “Oh? Empty?”

“Yes. And the day before, it wasn’t. Someone took all the contents. Or moved them.”

Louise blinked. “Unit number?”

“Forty-two.” Louise, the gatekeeper—which was how Maggie was referring to her in her head—flipped through a file of envelopes and plucked one out of the stack. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Maggie leaned over the desk. “Max Oliver’s unit. I’m his wife. Remember?”

Louise looked up.

Maggie held her stare.

“You say things are missing?”

“Everything is gone. I was here on Thursday, and it was all there. Friday morning, everything was gone. So, I’d like to see your security camera footage for Thursday night.”

Louise laughed. “We don’t have cameras.”

She leaned in. “Seriously?” She looked up at the office corner. “Then what is that?”

Louise didn’t even look up. Instead, she methodically placed the unit envelope back in the stack, then met Maggie’s gaze with a hard stare.

“I guess I’ll just have to call the police, report this as burglary, or something,” Maggie said, pushing away from the counter. She glanced about, as if taking mental notes. At least that’s how she hoped it would appear to Louise. “And contact my lawyer, who was here with me and saw all the items in the unit on Thursday, so she can file changes for negligence against your company. No cameras? Faulty security? Broken locks? What is my husband paying you for, anyway? Of course, I might choose to not go the legal route and just post some bad reviews, write a letter to the editor, call the Better Business Bureau….”

Louise put up a hand. “Stop. I’ll save you the trouble.”

Maggie smiled. “Oh?”

“I know where the things are.”

“You do?” This was getting interesting.

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“I moved them.”

That came from left field. “Why would you do that?”

“Because your husband paid me to.”

Maggie’s curiosity piqued. Again, she asked, “Why?”

The gatekeeper grumbled. “I found a note in his envelope that said he should be contacted if anyone besides him wanted to access the unit. I didn’t see it until after you left. I texted him and he called, wanting to know who was here. I told him it was you,his wife. Then he said he’d pay me five hundred dollars to move everything to a new unit.”

“Wow.” Max was desperate. “So you did?”

She nodded. “Look, I don’t make much money here and I’ve got two kids to feed. My old man ran off with another woman five years ago. That was a lot of money.”

“I understand. So, which unit are the things in now?”