She keeps staring at the screen; it’s like he isn’t there. “Mom?” he repeats.

“Stay here. Stay here. Keep your phone close.”

“What is it? Is Julia all right?”

“Yeah. No. I’ve got to go to her. Stay here.”

Mom grabs her coat from the mudroom and hurries out to the garage. He hears her car start and then silence for several seconds, as if she’s forgotten how to drive, and then the garage door powering up. He stands at the kitchen window, sees her Mercedes SUV jerk down the driveway, going way too fast. Julia’s done something stupid, he supposes, and she’s gotten into trouble. Last year she was Little Miss Perfect; now she’s in some vague rebellion that makes no sense to him. He wishes she would make up her mind.

He wonders where Dad is. He goes to his parents’ room. His father is lying under the covers, snoring softly. Another late night working, Grant figures. He closes the door softly.

Go look in your tree.

He goes out the patio door, crosses the backyard, and opens the gate. The greenbelt is just beyond. It’s fed by Winding Creek, a middling tributary of Barton Creek in West Austin, which runs across a slice of Lakehaven. There’s a hiking path by the creek. He walks off the trail, listening to the hiss of water as he heads down toward the creek, and his old tree is to the left.

A rock covers the cleft near the tree’s roots. The cleft was his hiding place: small, cozy. Grant would put pretend treasure maps there, or Legos, or hide little objects he had stolen from his parents—a penknife, coins, his father’s car keys once when Kyle had an endless succession of overseas business trips. He wasn’t even sure why he took small, worthless things and hid them away: he always brought them back home, put them in plain sight, and sometimes smiled to himself when Dad or Mom would find the missing item and say, How did I miss seeing that?

Now inside the cleft, where he hasn’t looked in years, is a plain brown envelope. His breath catches in his chest.

He pulls it free. It’s thick, with GRANT written across it in block letters with black ink. He opens the envelope.

Inside is money. Cash. Crisp twenties. Bound, organized, like it just came from a bank. He counts it, stunned.

It’s a thousand dollars.

Left for him in a tree.

He looks into the envelope again and sees there’s a note inside. He unfolds it and reads it.

Grant: You have been told a huge lie. I will only tell you the truth. Keep this money hidden and please tell no one about it. It’s a gift from me to you.