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“Come,” she says, waving me inside.
The gap is just wide enough for me to squeeze through. I hold my phone between my teeth and turn sideways to push myself through the crack.
“What is this?” I ask when I’m inside, pointing the phone’s torchlight in front of me as I turn in a circle.
The light bounces off the blueish rock walls, illuminating a high ceiling.
“Here.” She runs to the back. “This is where Grandpa kept the gold.”
Her words transport me back to my first visit when she said something similar. Her small body disappears in the darkness. The opening lets in some light, but the cave is deeper than I thought.
Aiming the light at the direction into which she ran, I go after her. I inhale the musty scent of the damp earth. There must be an underground water source or holes in the ceiling where rain leaks through. Indeed, a few spots of daylight fall on the ground not far from where Sophie kneels in front of a big wooden crate.
When I stop next to her, she sits back on her heels. The crate is roughly nailed together. It looks as if it was built on the spot. I test the lid. It’s not locked or nailed closed.
I lean the phone against the crate and wiggle the lid loose. It comes off with little effort, kicking up a cloud of dust when it drops to the ground.
I peer over the side.
Fuck me.
A heap of jewelry fills half of the crate. There’s everything from necklaces and bracelets to rings and brooches, all of them with gemstones set in gold. I lift the closest ring from the heap and examine it in the light of my phone. The hallmark is engraved on the inside. Twenty-four carats. Pure gold. The diamond must be at least two carats.
“How did you find this?” I ask, dropping the ring back into the crate.
“I followed Grandpa once in the night.”
Fuck. I shudder when I think what could’ve happened to her. She could’ve tripped and broken a leg or cracked her head open. She could’ve stepped over a cliff and fallen down the gorge.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Grandpa never told anybody.”
“Right,” I say, scrubbing a hand over my mouth. At least now I know what the old fool did with the money we paid him. God only knows why he spent it all on gold and gemstones. Perhaps because their value makes them a concrete, incontestable investment.
“What are you going to do with the treasure now that Grandpa is dead?”
“It belongs to you and your brothers.” I take her hand and pull her up. “It’ll have to be valuated and certified, and then I’ll have to sell it.”
Proving ownership is going to be tricky, especially if he didn’t keep the receipts or the original valuation certificates. For all I know, he stole the stuff. It’s best to keep this discovery off the grid.
“Let’s keep this between us for now,” I say. “People do stupid things when they get greedy. Do you understand?”
She gives a solemn nod. “Yes, Angelo.”
“Good.” I check my watch. “We better get back to your brothers.”
“Do you want to take a ring for Sabella? I bet she’ll like it.”
Over my dead body. Nothing that passed through that filthy old man’s hands will touch my wife. “Sabella has her own ring.”
Sophie swings her body from side to side. “You gave it to her when you asked her to marry you, right?”
It didn’t exactly happen like that, but I only smile and let her think what her little girl heart wants to believe. Now that she’s discovered books, her latest fixation is on fairy tales, which always involve a princess and a knight in shining armor.
She skips out ahead of me, humming a familiar tune.
I bend to pick up the phone when I notice something that sticks out of the soil a few paces away. Caught in the light, it throws a long, thin shadow over the ground. I go over for a better look. The soil is less sandy here than in the mouth of the cave. I kick at a lump of earth. The ground isn’t hard like around the crate. It’s been disturbed.
