“I’ll be on that plane,” I said.

David nodded once, picked his travel mug up off the drying rack, and walked out into the carpeted hallway.

At six that evening, I backed my car into the narrow concrete driveway of the self-storage place by the highway entrance.

The metal roll-up door of unit forty-two went up with a loud rattle that rang off the corrugated wall panels.

Inside, the ten-by-ten unit was bare except for a single wooden pallet on the concrete floor.