Found Money - James Grippando [4]
“Not that long, sweetheart. It’ll be over before we know it.”
Gram came up from behind them, nearly panting as she spoke. “I have never seen a four-year-old run that fast.”
Taylor giggled. Gram welcomed Amy back with a smile, then grimaced. “For goodness sakes, you’re an absolute stick. Have you been living on nothing but caffeine again?”
“No, I swear I tried taking a little coffee with it this time.”
“Get inside and let me fix you something to eat.”
Amy was too tired to think about food. “I’ll just throw something quick in the microwave.”
“Microwave,” Gram scoffed. “I may be old, but it’s not like I have to rub two sticks together to heat up a late lunch. By the time you’re out of the shower, I’ll have a nice hot meal waiting for you.”
Along with a month’s supply of fat and calories, thought Amy. Gram was from the old school of everything, including diet. “Okay,” she said as she grabbed her suitcase from the back of the truck. “Let’s go inside.”
The threesome walked hand in hand across the parking lot, with Taylor swinging like a monkey between them.
“Home again, Mommy’s home again!” said Taylor in a singsong voice.
Amy inserted the key and opened the door. Home was a simple two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. The main living area was a combination living room, dining room, and playroom. Gram sometimes said “the girls” had turned it into one big storage room. Bicycles and Rollerblades cluttered the small entrance; the small ones were Taylor’s, the big ones were Amy’s. There was an old couch and matching armchair, typical renter’s furniture. An old pine wall unit held books, a few plants, and a small television. To the right was a closet-size kitchen, more of a kitchenette.
Amy dropped her suitcase at the door.
“Let me get started in the kitchen,” said Gram.
“I help!” Taylor shouted.
“Wash your hands first,” said Amy.
Taylor dashed toward the bathroom. Gram followed. “Your mail’s on the table, Amy. Along with your phone messages.” She disappeared down the hall, right on Taylor’s heels.
Amy crossed the room to the table. A week’s worth of mail was stacked neatly in piles: personal, bills, and junk. The biggest stack was bills, some of them second notices. The personal mail wasn’t personal at all—mostly that computer-generated junk written in preprinted script to make it look like a letter from an old friend. In the bona fide junk pile, a package caught her eye. There was no return address on it. No postage or postmark, either. It appeared to have been hand-delivered, possibly by a private courier service. For its size, it seemed heavy.
Curious, she tore away the brown paper wrapping, revealing a box bearing a picture of a Crock-Pot. She shook it. It didn’t feel like a Crock-Pot. It felt like something more solid was inside, as if the box had been filled with cement. The ends had been retaped, too, suggesting the Crock-Pot had been replaced with something else. She slit the duct tape with her key and opened the flaps. A thick plastic lining encased the contents, some kind of waterproof bag with a zipper. There was no note or card, nothing to reveal the identity of the sender. She unzipped the bag, then froze.
“Oh my God.”
Benjamin Franklin was staring back at her, many times over. Hundred-dollar bills. Stacks of them. She removed one bundle, then another, laying them side by side on the table. Her hands shook as she counted the bills in one stack. Fifty per stack. Forty stacks.
She lowered herself into the chair, staring at the money in quiet disbelief. Someone—an anonymous someone—had sent her two hundred thousand dollars.
And she had no idea why.
2
Lazy swirls of orange, pink and purple hovered on the horizon in the afterglow of another southern Colorado sunset. From the covered wood porch of his boyhood home, thirty-five-year-old Ryan Duffy stared pensively at what seemed like nature’s daily reminder that endings could be beautiful. The spectacle slowly faded into darkness, a lonely black sky with no moon or stars. The brief burst of color had nearly fooled him.