Found Money - James Grippando [36]
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.
17
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.