They didn’t suspect me for long. My weekend at my mom’s was easy to confirm, and Kurt had already told them he tricked me with the party story so he could dig without anyone asking questions. Ruiz apologized for the way they had come in. Kurt had found a map among his father’s prison letters. The letters said the money was buried in two steel boxes, under the backyard, beside the old roses.

Kurt had dug in the wrong spot for most of the weekend before he finally found the first box Saturday night. He panicked when a car pulled up next door, grabbed what he had, and ran before finding the second. The car that scared him was my sister checking on my house. The next morning, a forensic team arrived with a ground radar machine. Three feet beneath my rose bushes, they found the second steel box, still sealed.