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…

Fortunately, the buyer agreed to postpone the collection. I felt some relief knowing that the larger equipment would remain in storage, but the handwritten note still worried me.

Mom and I accompanied the manager to unit B-17, where I unlocked the door and stepped inside. The familiar smell of sawdust, cardboard, and furniture polish immediately reminded me of the afternoons I’d spent in Dad’s workshop.

His large handmade workbench still stood against the rear wall, and his blue toolbox rested beside several wooden cabinets. However, when I examined the shelves, I noticed empty spaces where smaller tools had once been carefully arranged.

“Wasn’t your father’s smaller tool chest supposed to be on that shelf?” Mom asked.

“Yes, and his favorite hand planes were beside it. The wooden box containing his measuring instruments is missing too.”

I checked the surrounding boxes, hoping the equipment had simply been moved. But the more carefully I searched, the clearer it became that Dereck had already removed several items before the scheduled collection.