Taking shallow breaths, Emily pulled down the hatbox she’d looked in earlier. She gave it to Lila, who opened the lid. Lila’s frown deepened as she leafed through the library book pockets and due-date cards that filled it to the brim.

Emily got out her phone, intending to compare the photos she’d taken with what was in front of her, when she noticed a red baseball cap on the floor near the workbench. She stooped to pick it up.

Under the workbench was a rolled-up area rug with burlap backing. She hadn’t noticed it on her earlier visit. It was lying in a shallow puddle of water that hadn’t been there earlier, either. Was the place leaking, too? Emily inched closer.

Standing at the workbench, Lila whispered, “This is quite a set of supplies he’s got. Bleach pens and gum erasers and sandpaper. Alcohol. An iron.”

“Mom.” Emily interrupted Lila’s inventory. “Look.” She pointed to the rolled-up rug under the workbench. Her attention was riveted on what was poking out from one end of it. The fingers of a pale hand. Sticking out the other end were the toes of a pair of sneakers.

Lila bent over, took one look, and backed away.

Emily set the baseball cap on the workbench and picked up a document tube. She poked it at one of the sneakered feet. Stiff. She reached in and touched the fingers. They were cold and clammy.

Lila already had her phone out. “Hello, police?”

20

“WE FIND A dead body and you’re sorting library cards,” Emily said under her breath to Lila. They were waiting in the little office at Inner Peace Storage. Lila held the open hatbox in her lap and was organizing the cards, clipping groups of them together with paper clips she’d appropriated from the office desk. Becca and Mrs. Murphy stood, talking quietly and looking out through the porthole Becca had cleared in the fogged-over window. Two police cruisers had already arrived, but all Emily could see from the office was the light from their beacons reflecting in the moist air. The facility manager had gone back to the storage unit with the police, and the women had been told to wait in the office until they came back.

There was a flash, a loud crack of thunder, and sheets of wind-driven rain pelted the glass.

“What else can I do?” Lila whispered back. She added a card to a clipped group. “This is my way of coping. Stay busy. Focus on minutiae. You know the old saying, don’t worry about the mule, just load the wagon. If I were at home and something upset me, I’d be cleaning out my junk drawer.” She gave Emily a defiant frown. “Where do you think you get it from? Don’t judge.”