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“It could just be a big rock.”
“I suppose, but it clinked.”
“What do you mean it clinked?”
I bang my shovel against the object. “Hear that? It sounds kind of hollow, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I suppose.” She digs her shovel into the dirt. “Let’s figure out what it is.”
We both dig furiously, and my arms are already exhausted. Heck, we haven’t quite recovered from our first digging escapade.
“I can’t really tell what it might be,” Rory says. “We’re down deep enough that the lantern isn’t really helping.”
I flick my flashlight over the object. “It looks like… I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“It’s another file box. But this one isn’t ours.”
“Why would anyone bury another file box under ours?”
“Well, we already know that he was here and that he got our key out of the first file box. Maybe…”
“What?”
“Maybe you’re right, Rory. Maybe we’ve underestimated his intelligence all this time. Because where is the one place he might be able to hide something where we wouldn’t look?”
A smile spreads over Rory’s face. “Underneath where we hid something.”
“Help me pull this thing out of here.”
Within a few minutes, we’ve pulled up what is, without a doubt, another file box. This one is graphite metal. And, of course, it’s locked.
“Do you have a bobby pin?” Rory asks me.
“Do I look like someone who would wear a bobby pin?” My hair is back in its signature low ponytail.
“Ha-ha. What about a paper clip?” she asks.
“Didn’t bring my office supplies with me,” I say. “Let’s just take it home. We can easily pick this lock there.”
“Or cut it open with a damned ax.”
“I get it, sis. You’re pissed off. But we can’t take the chance of ruining whatever may be in here.”
“True. It may not belong to Pat Lamone anyway.”
“In the meantime,” I say, “we should throw all this dirt back in and make it look like it did when we left the first time. We don’t want him to know we’ve been here.”
Rory nods and begins shoveling dirt back into the hole. I help her, and within about fifteen minutes, my arms feel like they’re going to fall off, but everything is back in order.
“While we’re out here,” I say, “do you want to look around a little bit more?”
“Oh, hell no,” she says. “I want to get this damned thing home and find out what’s inside.”
It’s nearly eleven by the time Rory and I get home. Surely everyone’s asleep. The house is dark, so we park the car, take the box—which is pretty light—and head into the garage.
Only to find—
