Chapters (11)
It also had to be somewhere Victoria would never find it, not with her obsessive cleaning, her restless retired boredom driving her in ever-spiraling circles around the house with her mop and broom and brushes. It was never going to be hidden at the back of a cupboard she might clear out, behind a loose panel she might discover. The house was out.
Amanda could see old Tom Songly out here in the yard with his garden spade and sun hat, now and then peeking over his shoulder into the living room where Victoria sat watching her shows. The garden. His domain. Amanda could see him wiping the soil from the spade, leaning over the pond carefully, dipping the spade into the water between the lily pads, fishing around between the fishes, until he found the edge of something. She imagined him lifting the iron grille, the stones that held it down at the bottom of the fish pond sliding way. Tom Songly seeing the edge of the clear plastic wrapping down there in the water, spotted with bright green algae. And between the algae, beyond the plastic, the patterns and textures of hundred-dollar bills.
Amanda didn’t use a spade. She reached into the water as she had at the creek behind the Barking Frog and, in the dark, carefully prized up the slippery grille. Bubbles rose to the surface, disturbing a goldfish darting from one side of the pond to the other, slithering, slick, past her naked arm.
“Watch it, fishy.” She smiled.
The first package, when it came up, was as big as a loaf of bread. She shook it a little, making raindrops for the fish, then put the brick of wrapped cash into the garbage bag beside her. When she’d prized the second money loaf up, the level of water in the pond had dropped significantly. She replaced the grille, and the stones, and folded the disturbed lily pads back onto the surface.
Amanda picked up the bag and tied a knot in the end. Bran and Jay. They’d been so close. Just not close enough.
“Idiots,” she said.
Amanda hefted the bag over her shoulder and walked down the side of the house, into the dark.