Page 38 of Dirty Reads

She looked exhausted, but there was no doubt she was the woman from the many articles I had read.

“You’re Missy Wilson, right?”

Her look of exhaustion quickly turned to fear. “I uhhm. I’m sorry, do I know you?”

I shook my head and adjusted the bag on my shoulder. “No ma’am. I read about you in the newspaper, and I saw your GoFundMe on Facebook. Your son suffered from Meconium Aspiration Syndrome.”

“Suffers. Yes. What can I help you with?”

I lowered the bag from my shoulder. “Accept this. If you’d do that, it’d make me a happy man.”

Her eyes fell to the bag, and then rose to meet my sorrowful gaze. “What is it?”

“It’s gold. It’s roughly a million dollars’ worth, so you’ll need to keep it in a safe place.”

Her eyes went wide. She stared back at me. It appeared she didn’t know whether to say thank you or fuck you.

“Honey, who is it?” I heard a man’s voice ask from inside the house.

Her rather large husband stepped into the opening of the door. “Something I can do for you?”

I’d seen his face in the newspaper article. “You’re Mark.”

“Yeah.”

I unzipped the bag. “There’s fifty pounds of gold here. About a million dollars’ worth. I saw you were taking donations, and had only raised $25,000. Your medical bills were over $500,000. I’d like to donate this.”

He glanced down at the gold, stared for a moment, and then met my gaze.

I nodded my head toward the bag. “It’s not as heavy as you’d think.”

He glanced to his left, and then to his right. He fixed his eyes on mine. “You’re serious.”

“Yes, Sir. Keep whatever’s left over for, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe use it for his education.”

He glanced at his wife. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“I really don’t want to go until you take that inside,” I said. “And just so you know, you can melt it, cut it into pieces, whatever. It’s worth the same no matter what. Each bar is about half a million bucks.”

He exhaled. His lips parted. He tried twice, but couldn’t seem to speak. I didn’t need him to. I shifted my eyes toward his wife. She was still crying.

I nodded toward the bag.

She tried to lift it, couldn’t, and tugged against the handle until she dragged it inside the door.

And I turned and walked away.