Found Money - James Grippando [34]
Ryan was shaking. He could have killed him.
Brent rose slowly, whining pathetically, a drunk on a crying jag. “I want my money. I need it, bad. Please, Ryan, I gotta have it.”
Ryan’s hands were shaking. Since the funeral, all anyone talked about was money. Liz would divorce him for it. Brent would beat his sister for it. And Amy—who the hell knew what she was up to.
“You want it?” he said bitterly. “Fine. I’ll give you the damn money. Wait here.” He stormed out of the room and raced upstairs, gobbling up two and three steps at a time. He yanked down the ladder to the attic and climbed up. He went straight to the old dresser and shoved it aside. In seconds he popped the floorboard and grabbed a bundle of bills—a few thousand, easy, but he didn’t even count it. He scurried back down the ladder and ran downstairs. He was huffing like a sprinter as he raced past the living room, then stopped short. He suddenly had an idea. It was as if Liz, Amy and now Brent in the same day had brought everything to a head. His father’s betrayal. The greed all around him.
He called out to the kitchen. “Come get your money, Brent. It’s all here.”
Brent hustled eagerly into the living room. He stopped cold at the sight across the dimly lit room. Ryan was standing beside the fireplace. He had a stack of bills in one hand. A long, burning matchstick was in the other. An open can of lighter fluid rested on the mantel.
Brent’s voice shook. “What—what you doing?”
“Easy come, easy go.” He brought the match to the stack of bills, lighting the corner.
“No!”
The bills burst into flames, thoroughly soaked with lighter fluid. Ryan tossed them into the fireplace. Brent rushed forward. Ryan grabbed the fireplace poker, cocking it like a baseball bat. “Not another step, Brent!”
He stopped in his tracks, his face filled with anguish. The money was burning, but Ryan looked deadly serious. He was nearly in tears. “Ryan, man. Please don’t burn it.”
Ash fluttered up from the fireplace. The bills burned quickly. Ryan didn’t budge. “You lay a hand on Sarah, I’ll burn it all. I swear, I will burn every last bill.”
“Okay, man. Just be cool, okay?”
“It’s the rule,” he said, as if to remind himself as much as Brent. “No one gets the money. No one tells anyone else about the money. Not until we find out who paid it to my father and why.”
Brent backed away slowly. “Okay, my friend. You’re the man. You make the rules. I’m going home now. Just don’t burn any more of that money. That’s fair, right? You and me just pretend like this little episode never happened.”
Ryan kept the poker cocked, ready to crack Brent’s skull if he had to.
Brent stepped backward to the door. “No problem here. If you say that’s the rule, that’s the rule. I’ll just go home and tell Sarah we gotta play by the rules, that’s all.”
“Get the hell out of my sight, Brent.”
Brent gave an awkward nod, then hurried out the door. Ryan went to the front window and watched him pull away. He glanced back at the fireplace. The money was a glowing pile of smoldering ash. Thousands of dollars. Gone. Strangely, he felt good about that. He glanced up the staircase, toward the attic. There was still plenty more to fight over.
Or plenty more to burn.
He checked the clock on the end table. Mom wouldn’t be home for another hour. He stoked the ash with a shot of lighter fluid, then threw on some kindling and a dry, split log. As the fire hissed and flames reached upward, he closed the screen and started up the stairs.
16
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.