Page 51 of Your Every Wish

It’s eight in the morning and we’re at it again. Kennedy, Liam, Misty, and I are meeting Bent and Hoss, his excavator, at the rock wall. Time to give this another try.

Misty is directing the show this time, telling Bent exactly where to dig.

My stomach feels like it’s been dipped in acid.

If we find the money everything will change and not necessarily for the good.

But it’s as if this journey is stuck in motion like a steamroller, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

I keep returning to the wishes and whether we’ve etched our future in stone. Literally.

“Right here,” Misty tells Bent, who’s looking at Kennedy and me for the go-ahead.

I give him a thumbs-up and he climbs up on Hoss, ready to knock down more of the rock wall.

He topples the top row with such ease it makes me wonder whether it was ever safe to sit on.

But dry stacking stone without mortar is an old technique and when done right—which I assume Bent’s stone guys did—it’s incredibly durable. And beautiful.

Not so much anymore as the wall is starting to look like an ancient ruin.

Between the engine from the excavator and all the breaking and scraping, it’s so loud that I wish this time I’d remembered to bring noise-canceling headphones.

It’s dusty, too. Kennedy, Liam, and I back away from the dig to keep from choking.

Misty, on the other hand, is so lost on marking the spot that she’s dangerously close to the action.

More than once Bent has told her to move away.

He’s already on the second row of stones and my pulse quickens. My gut tells me that we’re going to find the bag this time. I reach for Liam’s and Kennedy’s hands, and we form a human chain, waiting in expectation.

In no time at all, Bent is down to the last row of rocks, consistently adding stones to a pile he started yesterday not far from what’s left of the wall.

Liam starts to say something, but I can’t hear him over the racket from the excavator.

A few of the residents have started to assemble, including Harry, who is watching from the comfort of his golf cart.

Before the digging started, I hung a memo on Cedar Pines’s bulletin board, giving some vague reason for the work having to do with Bent’s property and drainage.

I didn’t want to lie but I couldn’t exactly tell the truth either.

Still, this is what passes for entertainment around here.

Bent has cleared all the rocks and is getting ready to dig. This is it. I glance over at Kennedy whose expression is unreadable, yet, like me, she is certain that the golf bag is there. We talked about it into the wee hours of the morning.

I catch Misty’s eye and she nods, her way of saying it’s there.

Bent brings down the arm of the excavator to begin tunneling through the dirt, when Kennedy lets go of my hand and waves her arms in the air. Bent sees her and mouths the word What?

She runs toward him. “Stop.”

He points at the side of his head to show her he’s wearing earplugs and can’t hear a word she’s saying. As she moves closer, I trail after her, trying to figure out what’s going on. Bent finally kills the engine and pulls out his earplugs.

“Give us ten minutes,” she tells Bent and pulls me aside. “I’m going to call Mr. Townsend.”

We lock eyes and I nod, surprised and at the same time relieved.

Ten minutes later, she has him on the phone and is explaining everything, from finding the encoded note to digging up the wall. She leaves out the part about Misty, which in the scheme of things is not pertinent.

For the next two hours we wait while Mr. Townsend works out the details.

Kennedy, Liam, Misty and I sit on top of what’s remaining of the rock wall, while Bent yells at people on the phone.

It appears he’s got a lot of building projects going, and yet he continues to be generous where we’re concerned.

Not only for letting us tear down his wall, but for all the time he’s giving us. Clearly, he’s a busy man.

“You did the right thing, Kennedy,” Liam says.

“I probably screwed myself.” She gives a half shrug, but I can tell she’s resigned to her decision. It’s probably what we should’ve done in the first place, even if it means we lose the money.

I give her hand a squeeze. “It’ll work out.” It’s a cheesy thing to say because what if it doesn’t?

A dark blue sedan with government plates pulls up and two men in suits hop out of the car. They introduce themselves as FBI special agents Andy Grotz and George Black. They confer with Bent for a few minutes and he points to the area where Misty swears the bag is.

We’ve agreed beforehand to leave her out of this, partly because her role is farfetched (who’s going to believe she’s a witch doling out wishes?), and partly because we don’t want her implicated in any of this. From an investigative standpoint, it might look as if she was in cahoots with Willy.

Luckily, the agents don’t seem too interested in any of us. Just Bent and his excavator. He motions for all of us, including the agents, to move a good distance away while he climbs up on Hoss and starts trenching again.

Grotz snaps a few pictures with his phone. I do the same. Why? I don’t know, but it seems like a good idea. Proof, I suppose.

Misty whispers in my ear: “It’s there, just under the surface.”

The agents walk closer to get a better look.

And the crowd that was here earlier and dispersed during the lull has returned.

Harry is standing up in his golf cart, giving him a higher vantage point than the rest of us.

When I walk over to join him, he gives me an arm up and trades places with me so I can see better.

“This isn’t about drainage, is it?” he says over the noise.

I shake my head. Thank goodness it’s too loud for me to have to explain.

Bent digs deeper and still nothing. And just when I’m starting to believe the whole thing is a hoax, I see a speck of white, then red. I jump down from the golf cart and run toward Kennedy, Liam, and Misty. They see it, too.

Kennedy and I inch closer to the hole, standing only a breath away from Grotz and Black, who are furiously snapping pictures with their phones.

I’m too paralyzed with excitement to follow suit but when I glance behind me, I see that Liam is doing the same.

Except he’s using a real camera with a macro lens, the same ones the photographers at SF Voice use.

He must’ve had it in his backpack because I don’t remember seeing it around his neck.

Bent is uncovering more of the white-and-red object with his shovel and the black outline of something is starting to emerge. Or perhaps it’s just my imagination. There’s still too much dirt to make out exactly what it is. Bent stops the machinery and jumps down, waving us closer.

The agents come right up to the edge of the shallow trench but Bent waits for Kennedy and me before going to the bed of his truck and pulling out a couple of garden-variety shovels, bypassing Grotz’s and Black’s outstretched hands, and giving one to each of us.

The agents start to protest—I’ve seen enough cop shows to know about chain of custody and preserving evidence—but Bent gets in their face. “They’ve done the right thing and called you. Now let them do the honors.” Grotz and Black surprise me by standing down.

Kennedy and I trace the outline of the partially exposed object in the trench, scraping away more dirt with the tips of the shovels.

Soon, it becomes apparent that we’d be better off doing it by hand, so we get down on our hands and knees and begin digging with our fingers.

I hear Kennedy’s sharp intake of breath.

“I feel the strap,” she says, her voice so soft only I can hear it, even though Grotz and Black are hovering.

With renewed vigor, I brush away as much dirt as I can, exposing an expanse of black leather. “It’s the bag. Black, white, and red.” Just like Misty said.

Soon, we’re pushing and pulling on it to pry it loose from the ground but it’s so heavy we can’t move it.

The FBI agents pitch in and between the four of us we’re able to stand it upright.

The top of the bag has a divider where the clubs go.

Each one is stuffed with bills, so many bills I can’t count them, let alone make out a denomination.

My whole body is drumming with excitement. I grab onto Kennedy and in turn she grabs onto me. I think we’re both hyperventilating.

Special Agent Grotz pries off the top divider and some of the bills spill out onto the ground. I’m too dazed to scoop them up and even if I wasn’t, I doubt the agents would let me. They ask for us to back away so they can secure the scene.

Kennedy reaches in her pocket for the key and points to a compartment on the front of the golf bag. “This will probably open that.”

One of the agents takes it and tries it on the pocket’s lock, which appears more decorative than useful. Furthermore, the pocket isn’t any larger than a small clutch purse. It takes the agent a few seconds of finessing the key before the lock finally pops open.

The other agent repeats that we need to move away. But before I do, I get a good look inside the now open compartment and spy dozens of light blue casino chips.

I gaze over at Kennedy, who sees them, too. A huge smile spreads across her face.

* * *

Later, when we’re all at Misty’s house, Misty crows about how she called it, about how she was right all along.

“How much do you think is there?” I ask.

“More than a million for sure.” Kennedy grins. “Those blue poker chips are worth a hundred grand each.”

I gasp. That didn’t even count the bills stuffed inside the actual golf bag. Leave it to Willy to leave us money in poker chips.

“Why do you think he went to all the trouble of leaving us the key? That compartment in the bag could’ve been pried open by a toddler.”

“I think it was mostly ceremonial, Willy being Willy,” Kennedy says. “But shouldn’t we have gotten a receipt?”