While we were waiting at the airport for our anniversary flight, my husband suddenly claimed he had forgotten his passport at home. I called my mother and asked her to grab it for him. Twenty minutes later, she called back, her voice shaking. “Honey, he set you up! Come home now!” Before I could ask why, she sent me a photo of something she had found in his bedside drawer. The moment I opened it, my heart sank. Suddenly, every strange thing he had done at the airport made perfect sense…

He reacted angrily, accusing me of ruining our anniversary vacation over what he dismissively described as old tools. For the first time in our marriage, I refused to let him convince me that my feelings mattered less than his plans.

We left the airport separately, with Dereck collecting our luggage while I took a taxi home. When I arrived, my mother was waiting in the kitchen with the original receipt spread across the table.

I examined the inventory more carefully and realized that nearly everything from my father’s workshop had been sold. The buyer was scheduled to arrive at eleven, and when I checked the clock, it was already 8:42 a.m.

Then I turned the receipt over and noticed a handwritten message on the back. The words were brief, but they revealed that Dereck’s plan had already begun.

“Small items already removed.”

My heart sank as I realized that some of my father’s belongings might already be gone, and we had barely two hours to stop the rest from disappearing.
PART 2: THE MISSING TOOLS IN UNIT B-17