Chapter 3 - Storage Unit 108
The gardener, Thomas, lent me twenty dollars so I could take a bus to the industrial side of town.
“Your dad used to come to the cemetery when he was very sick,” Thomas told me quietly before I left. “He said you needed to leave prison with the truth in your hands. He made me promise to wait for you.”
The bus ride took an hour, moving away from the manicured lawns of Silver Lake into a gritty, decaying part of the city. The storage place sat right in the middle of a sketchy area full of auto shops, chain-link fences, and abandoned warehouses.
The neon sign above the rental office flickered: Phoenix Secure Storage.
I walked down the long, dimly lit concrete corridor. The air smelled of motor oil and dust.
Unit 102. Unit 105.
I stopped in front of a rusted, corrugated metal door.
Unit 108.
The old brass key slipped into the padlock. It turned with a satisfying click. I grabbed the handle and heaved the metal door upward. It shrieked in protest, echoing down the empty hallway.
A huge cloud of dust hit my face. I coughed, waving my hand to clear the air, and reached for the pull-string lightbulb in the center of the ceiling.
When the harsh yellow light flickered on, I froze.
Inside, there wasn’t any old furniture, forgotten childhood toys, or typical garage junk. It looked like a police precinct's evidence room.
There were folding tables pushed against the walls, completely covered in rows of white banker boxes.
Each box was meticulously labeled with black marker: “BANK STATEMENTS”, “FORGERY”, “CARTER’S GAMBLING DEBTS”, and “REAGAN’S SHELL ACCOUNTS”.
A giant corkboard leaned against the back wall. It was covered in printed emails, bank transfer receipts, and photographs, all connected by red string. It was the frantic, desperate work of a dying man trying to save his son.
On a small, solitary table in the center of the room, I saw a single black USB drive resting on top of a plain white envelope.
Written on the envelope were four words: Watch this first, Finn.
I took out the cheap, prepaid smartphone the prison had given me when I walked out. The screen was cracked, and the battery was at forty percent, but it had a USB-C adapter. I plugged the drive into my phone and opened the files.
There was only one file. A video titled: The Truth.
I pressed play.
My dad appeared on the screen.
I gasped. He looked incredibly thin, almost unrecognizable. His skin had a sickly, yellow pallor, his eyes were deeply sunken, and he was wearing an oversized gray sweater that seemed to swallow his frail frame.
But his eyes—they still held that same sharp, unyielding determination I had known all my life.
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“Hello, Finnley,” his voice crackled through the phone's tiny speaker. It was raspy, weak, but filled with immense love.
“If you're watching this... it means I didn't make it. And it means my boy is finally free.”
