Found Money (9 page)

At 9:00
P.M
., Amy had a date. With Taylor.

The Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado was the largest planetarium between Chicago and Los Angeles. All summer long, Fiske sponsored Friday night programs in astronomy, followed by public viewings at the observatory. The evening programs were way over Taylor’s head, more on the level of college students than a four-year-old girl. She had loved the Wednesday morning family matinees, however, learning how runaway slaves had used the Big Dipper to find freedom, and taking a tour of the solar system with a make-believe robot. The simulated displays inside the dome were impressive enough, but Amy had promised to take her to the observatory for a look at the real nighttime sky. Tonight was the night.

They spent more than an hour at the Sommers Bausch Observatory, viewing double stars and galaxies through a sixteen-inch telescope. The big hit, however, was simply viewing Saturn and its rings through a much smaller telescope on the deck. Taylor was full of questions. Her mother had all the answers. Forty hours of graduate study in physics and infrared astronomy hadn’t gone completely to waste.

“This is so cool,” said Taylor.

“You like astronomy?”

“Only if I get to stay up late every night.”

Amy smiled. It sounded like something Amy would have said to her own mother years ago. Taylor had interest, no doubt, but she didn’t show the passion for astronomy that Amy had shown as a kid. Then again, ever since she’d started working at the law firm, Amy hadn’t given her the same level of encouragement her own mother had given her. There just wasn’t time.

She had tried not to show it in front of her daughter, but her focus had been elsewhere most of the night. She was thinking about Ryan, though not about the money. Something he’d said at the restaurant had stuck in her mind. She found it intriguing how he wished he had known his father better, thinking it might help him better understand himself. She knew that exact feeling, the eerie sense that you are what your parents were, the fear of making the same mistakes they’d made. In Amy’s case, the same deadly mistake.

Amy walked toward the edge of the observation deck, toward a little two-and-a-half-inch telescope. She pointed it due overhead, where Lyra passed Boulder on summer evenings. She quickly found Vega, the brightest and most prominent star in the constellation. Just below, she knew, was the Ring Nebula—the star she had lingered over on that summer night her mother had passed away. The one that was dying, like her childhood dreams and everything her mother had encouraged her to do.

She hadn’t taken a good look at the Ring Nebula since that night. She didn’t have to. Modern astronomers didn’t gaze into the sky to do their studies. They aimed the telescope and let their instruments do the looking. Not that Amy didn’t enjoy looking at the stars. She did. It was just this
one, in particular, she couldn’t bring herself to look at.

She lowered the telescope a few degrees. She used averted vision, looking out of the corner of her eye, the best way to see faint objects in the sky. The greenish-gray rings came into view. She blinked hard. Part of her wanted to look away, another part wouldn’t let her. Staring into space, it looked exactly as it had twenty years ago. It even felt the same. Cold. Lonely. The memories were flooding back. The Ring Nebula had opened a window to her past. She could see an eight-year-old girl shivering with fear as she climbed the shelves in her bedroom closet, reaching for the attic that would be her escape…

The ceiling panel popped open easily, quietly. She pushed it up and to the side, opening her passage to the attic. The trapped air felt hot, heavy. With one last boost she was in.

The flashlight pointed the way. She remembered from the last time, when she and her friends had been playing, that another entrance panel was just a few feet away. That one led to the spare bedroom across the hall. On hands and knees she crawled across the rafters, taking care not to drop the flashlight.

She stopped when she reached the other panel, lifted it with one hand, and looked down from the attic. The closet was exactly like hers—a clothes rod on one side, built-in shelves on the other. She tucked the flashlight back under her chin and climbed down, again using the shelves as a ladder. When she reached the bottom, she crouched into a ball and took a minute to orient herself. If there was an intruder in the house, he might not find her here. She could just stay put, hide out. But the
thought again crossed her mind—what if Mom needed her? What if she was hurt?

She rose slowly. She had to go out there. And she couldn’t take the flashlight. If someone was in the darkness, it would give her away like the North Star in the night sky.

She switched off the flashlight and opened the closet door. The hall was just a few steps away, beyond the bedroom door. She covered them quietly, then peered down the hallway. She saw nothing. She waited a few seconds. Still nothing. Her heart was in her throat as she stepped from the safety of the spare bedroom.

Her mother’s room was upstairs, like Amy’s, but on the opposite end of the house. It was dark, but Amy found her way. She was relying more on memory than her sense of sight. She could hear the oscillating fan in her mother’s bedroom. She was getting close. She stopped at the doorway. The door was open just a foot. Amy took another step and peeked inside.

The lights were out, but the streetlight on the corner gave the room a faint yellow cast. Everything looked normal. The TV on the stand. The big mirror over the bureau. Her eyes drifted toward the bed. It was a mound of covers. Amy couldn’t really make out her mother’s shape. But she saw the hand. It was hanging limply over the edge of the bed. A sleep far deeper than Amy had ever seen.

“Mom?” she said with trepidation.

There was no answer.

She said it again. “Mom. Are you okay?”

“Mom, Mom!”

The sound of Taylor’s voice roused her from her memories.

“Mommy, let me look!” Taylor was yanking on her arm, climbing up to the telescope.

Amy stepped back and hugged her tight.

Her daughter wiggled away. “I wanna see.”

Amy turned the scope away from the Ring Nebula, away from her past. She trained it downward, pointing toward the Fleming Law Building, just a little farther south on campus. The lights were still burning in the library. Probably someone from the law review. She lifted Taylor up to look.

“That’s where Mommy will go to law school in September.”

“Do you get to look through telly scopes?”

“No. Not in law school.”

“Then why do you want to go there?”

She struggled with the lump in her throat. “Let’s go home now, Taylor.”

They were on the road by ten-thirty, but Taylor was asleep in her car seat before they’d left campus. By day, a drive on U.S. 36 offered magnificent views of Flagstaff Mountain and the Flat Irons, the much-photographed reddish-brown sandstone formations that marked the abrupt border between the plains and the mountains. At night, it was just another dark place to be alone with your thoughts and worries.

Tonight, money was on her mind.

She parked her truck in the usual spot and carried her sleeping beauty up to the apartment. She entered quietly and took Taylor straight to her room. It was a little dream world for both of them. Amy had painted the ceiling with stars and moons. The colors, however, had been selected by Taylor. They had the only planetarium in the world with a Crayola-pink sky.

Amy did the best she could to remove the shoes
and get Taylor into pajamas without waking her. She kissed her good night, then switched out the light and quietly closed the door.

It had been a good night, mostly. Overall, the visit to the observatory had only raised her hopes that Ryan Duffy would come through. If the money were legitimate, she could say goodbye to law school and go back where she belonged.

Money—the
need
for it—would no longer be her trumped-up excuse to run from the demons that lurked in the sky she had loved since childhood.

The money was burning. But only in his mind.

The metal suitcase full of cash was heavier than Ryan had expected. He’d carried it down the ladder, then down the stairs. He’d moved so quickly that the flame in the fireplace was still going strong when he returned. He dropped to his knees right at the hearth, unzipped the bag, and jerked back the metal screen. His hand shook as he reached for the money. He was determined to go through with it. And then he froze.

Two
million
dollars.

Both the heat and nerves had him dripping with sweat. Still on his knees, he looked back and forth from the money to the flame as he weighed his decision. It was making him crazy. It was making them
all
crazy. His father had been dead less than a week. His wife was clawing at his throat for a huge divorce settlement, spurred on by his father’s dying words. His greedy brother-in-law was threatening to beat up his pregnant sister, prompting Ryan to torch the equivalent of a month’s salary. And some mysterious woman claimed his father might have sent her as much as two hundred thousand dollars for no reason at all. The money was evil, no question about it. Burning it was the right thing to do.

He grabbed a stack of bills and held it over the
fire. His brain commanded him to drop it, but the hand wouldn’t listen. Or maybe it was the heart. He just
couldn’t
.

His eyes closed in shame and anguish. He’d never felt the power of money. He’d never felt so weak.

A sudden noise roused him from his thoughts. It had come from outside. He jumped up from his knees and hurried to the window. In the darkness, he saw Brent’s Buick coming up the driveway.

He’s back
.

Ryan turned away in panic. The money. He had to hide the money. He grabbed the suitcase and paused for a split second, searching in his mind for a good place to stash it. He heard a car door slam. No time to spare. He stuffed it under the couch. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fire still burning. The money should have gone with it—which gave him an idea. He grabbed the newspaper from the couch and pitched it into the fire. It burned immediately, leaving the flaky residue of burned paper. It could pass for burned money. Not many people were crazy enough to know what burned money actually looked like.

Ryan stiffened, thinking through the possibilities. It wasn’t likely that Brent would come back to talk. It wasn’t likely he’d sobered up. He was probably even more drunk, more fired up. He’d be looking for the money. He would have come back only for a showdown. Ryan didn’t own a gun, but his father had. Ryan had inventoried everything in the estate. He knew where everything was, right down to the last two million dollars. Down to the last thirty-eight-caliber bullet.

He sprinted down the hall to the master bedroom. The old Smith & Wesson was in the dresser,
top drawer. The bullets were in the strongbox in the closet. Ryan grabbed the revolver first, then the ammunition. He loaded all six chambers and wrapped his hand around the pearl handle, the way his father had taught him. The gun was not a toy, he’d always warned Ryan, it was only for protection. Protection from drunken in-laws who were after the Duffy millions.

Ryan heard footsteps on the front porch, then a key in the front door. He switched off the safety on the revolver and started for the living room.

Gun in hand, he waited by the staircase, watching the front door. He heard keys jingling. He watched the lock turn. He raised the gun, taking aim, ready on the defense. The door opened. Ryan’s finger twitched. His heart pounded. His whole body stiffened, then suddenly relaxed.

“Mom?” he said, seeing her in the doorway.

She sniffed the smoky room. Her face went ashen. “Don’t tell me you really burned it.”

He was tongue-tied with surprise. His mother had always been intuitive, but to infer from the mere smell of smoke that he had burned all the money was downright clairvoyant. He lowered the gun, deciding to play dumb. “Burn what?”

She closed the door and went straight to the fireplace. “The money,” she said harshly. “I was at Sarah’s house and Brent came home all hysterical. Said you’d gone crazy and were burning the money.”

“Is he out there now?” ask Ryan. “I thought I saw his car.”

“Sarah drove me over.” She glanced at the ash in the fireplace. “I can’t believe you did this.”

He discreetly stuffed the gun into his pocket, hiding it from his mother. “What did Brent tell you?”

“He said you burned at least ten thousand dollars in the fireplace. That you threatened to burn it all.”

“That’s true.”

His mother stepped toward him, looked him in the eye. “Have you been drinking?”

“No. Brent’s the drunk. He came in here like a burglar looking for the money.”

Her tone softened. “They’re afraid you’re going to cheat them out of their half.”

“I’m not cheating anyone.”

She looked again at the ashes in the fireplace. “Ryan, you can do what you want with your share of the money. But you don’t have the right to burn your sister’s.”

“Sarah and I had a deal. The money would stay put until we figured out who Dad was blackmailing and why. She wasn’t even supposed to tell Brent. Obviously she did.”

“You had to figure she’d tell her own husband.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s her husband.”

“By that logic, Dad should have told you who he was blackmailing.”

She seemed to shrink before his eyes. “I told you. I don’t know any of the details. I didn’t want to know, and your father didn’t want to tell me.”

Ryan stepped closer and took her hand. “Mom, I came this close to burning two million dollars tonight. Maybe you would agree with that move, maybe you’d disagree. But I deserve to know everything you know before I do something that final.”

She turned away and faced the fireplace. The flickering flames were reflected in her dark, troubled eyes. She answered in a soft, serious voice,
never looking up. “I do know more. But I don’t know everything.”

Ryan was beginning to sense why his mother hadn’t cried at the funeral. “Tell me what you know.”

“Your father—” She was struggling for words. “I think I know where you can find the answers you’re looking for.”

“Where?”

“The night before he died, your father gave me a key to a safe deposit box.”

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know. Your father just said that if you had any questions about the money, I should give it to you. I’m sure the blackmail will become clear once you open it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because even though your father couldn’t say it to your face, he apparently wanted you to know. And I know of no place else to look.”

He searched her eyes, as if scrutinizing her soul. He’d never looked at his mother that way before, never had to watch for signs of deception. He found none. “Thank you, Mom. Thank you for telling me.”

“Don’t
thank
me. Can’t you see how afraid this makes me? For you, for all of us?”

“What do you want me to do?”

She grimaced, as if in pain. “That’s up to you. You can be like me and just stay away from it. Or you can open the box and deal with whatever comes with it.”

He paused for a moment until their eyes met. “I have to know, Mom.”

“Of course you do,” she said in a voice that faded. “Just don’t tell
me
about it.”