“Call your brothers and sisters into the living room. We need to look at this together, right now.”
Grace nodded and ran off. I heard her voice echoing through the house as I settled in the living room to wait for them all.
I placed the box on the coffee table.
Within minutes, all the kids were there, their gazes shifting between me and the box.
“Gracie found something in the basement,” I told them. “You all deserve to see this.”
I opened the box.
All the kids were there.
“What on earth?” Mia exclaimed as I started unpacking the stacks of cash.
“We had money in the basement?” Sam asked.
“Mom and Dad hid it,” Grace announced.
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
Then Aaron, the eldest, leaned forward and started counting the money.
“It’s not just money,” I said, placing the last stack in front of Aaron. “There are these, too.”
I pulled out a thin bundle of plastic sleeves.
I started unpacking the stacks of cash.
Inside those plastic sleeves were copies of each child’s birth certificate and Social Security card.
And at the very bottom of the box, a map marked with various routes leading out of state.
“This proves that Mom and Dad didn’t die,” Grace declared.
Everyone spoke at once. I let them have a few minutes, then I rapped my knuckles on the coffee table.
“Gracie, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “We have no proof to suggest your parents are alive, but what we do have definitely suggests they were planning something.”
“They were planning to leave,” Aaron said. “There’s over $40,000 here. Enough to start over somewhere with us.”
“But why?” Mia asked. “What could’ve made them feel like running was the only option?”
“They were planning something.”
“There has to be more.” Rebecca stood and turned to Grace. “Show us exactly where you found this.”
So we went down to the basement. Soon, we were all searching through the old boxes and junk.
It felt like hours had passed when Jonah called out, “Grandma?”
He was standing near the far wall, holding a folder.
I took it from him and opened it under the bare pull-chain light.
A chill ran down my spine.
“This is it. This is why they wanted to run.”
“There has to be more.”
The folder was full of bills, statements, and final notices. I had gone through everything after they died — or at least everything I had access to.
None of this had been there. My son must’ve tried to bury it before they ran.
“They were in trouble,” I said.
At the back of the folder was one handwritten sheet on lined paper.
A bank account number and routing information.
And beneath it, in Laura’s neat writing: Don’t touch anything else.
Aaron, who’d been looking at the documents over my shoulder, pointed at the page. “Does that mean there’s more money?”
“Only one way to find out,” I replied.
“They were in trouble.”
The next morning, I went to the bank by myself.
“I’m here about my son,” I told the woman behind the desk. “He passed away ten years ago, but I recently found this account number in some of his things. I just need to understand what it was.”
I placed a copy of Daniel’s death certificate and gave her the account number.
She nodded and typed it in. Then she frowned at the screen.
“Ma’am, are you sure that’s the correct number? Our records show this account is still active.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry — what does that mean?”
“It means there’s been recent activity.”
“Our records show this account is still active.”
