Everything to Lose. Andrew Gross

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      A car sped by in front of me and I ran across the road. I found the break in the bushes and shined my light and still saw the tire marks on the pavement, fresh as if it had happened yesterday.

      I made my way down the slope.

      I slipped this time as well, sliding a few feet down. The brush had been flattened by the path of Kelty’s car as well as all the emergency vehicles and personnel that had been down there. I made it down, casting my light on the tree where Kelty’s car had ended up, now pitched at a forty-five-degree angle. I stood where I was sure I’d been when I climbed inside his car, only a bare patch now. I shined the light over the area in the woods where I had flung the satchel.

      I didn’t see anything there.

      A flash of fear stabbed me: what if someone had found it? One of the emergency crew who went down there. Or maybe a policeman traipsing around. What if all this had been for nothing and now it was gone?

      A week ago that might have given me some kind of relief. That the decision had been taken from me. But now I was more like a wolf who’d left a stash of food for her cubs that was now gone. As if that money was mine all along, not Kelty’s, and someone had stolen it from me!

      I started to walk through the brush, sweeping the light in all directions, knee deep in dried branches and dense weeds. I’d spent so much time conflicted. Now there was no longer any doubt about what outcome I was hoping for.

       Where the hell was it?

      I kept walking, casting the light about haphazardly, nerves kicking up in me. I got to the spot where I was sure it had to be. Ten days ago, I’d seen it sink there amid the leaves and brush.

      “Where the hell are you?” I said aloud.

      I started to think how maybe I’d made someone else rich. How I was someone else’s lottery ticket. Some lucky Joe who was probably dragging a towline around. I wondered if he’d declared it. Or turned it in. If the police had it now.

      No, if they did it would’ve made the news, Hilary. I would have seen it.

      Angry, I used my light as a large stick, swatting brush and branches. Then I almost tripped over something. I looked down and didn’t see the bag, only the leather handles peeking through a blanket of leaves.

      Thank God! I let out a grateful sigh of relief.

      I bent, a bramble tearing at my hand, and pulled it out, the bag resisting for a moment. Then there it was! The same stuffed leather case, as heavy as when I’d hurled it into the woods a week before.

      There was no pretending I felt anything but joy.

      I took it back to the clearing and set it on the ground. I pulled open the zipper and shined my light in it. My skin tingled all over at what I saw. I was staring at the same bundles of wrapped bills, Ben Franklin’s wise, nonjudging face over and over and over, alit in the yellow, beatific light.

      My blood surged ecstatically.

      “Forgive me,” I said. To whom I wasn’t sure.

      To Kelty. To the police. To my own conscience.

      “I’m sorry.”

      I zipped it back up, the taste in my mouth bitter and bile-like. I knew the expression, how one bad act opens the door to many others. Acts that flood the world with a hundred awful consequences you could never foresee.

      All from a single mistake.

      This was mine, I knew. No hiding it.

      You’re not just a thief, I told myself as I lugged it back up the hill.

      Congratulations, Hil, you just stole a half million dollars.