The owl tilted his head for a moment as he thought about my words.
“No, I don’t believe I know of such a place. But then, I spend most of my time in more open spaces. The deep forest is a more difficult hunting ground. However, let me go and find my friend the doe. She may be able to help you. Stay here, and I will return with her.”
“Alright,” I said. “Thank you.”
The owl flew off without another word, and I recanted his side of the conversation to Jason.
“You know, if you told me a few years ago I’d be out here at 4am waiting for a deer to come by and tell me where to find a hidden treasure, I’d have called you insane.”
“Life comes at you fast,” I joked, and a few minutes later, a gorgeous doe hopped over a fence and came towards me on the street.
“You are the human looking for the concrete home?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s us,” I said. Concrete home certainly sounded promising; that sounded like what I imagined a bunker would be.
“Come, follow me. I can take you to it.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, motioning for Jason to follow as the doe made her way down the street before crossing back into the woods.
“We have always wondered why the humans built a concrete home, only to never use it,” the doe told me as Jason and I scrambled through the bush to keep up with her. “It has been there since at least since the time of my mother’s mother’s mother.”
“Yes,” I replied. “It was built around seventy years ago, as far as I know. We humans had a war, and it was likely built to train humans to fight before they went to battle.”
“Oh, I really do hate fighting,” the doe replied. “I’m glad the war is over now.”
“So am I,” I replied as we made our way deeper and deeper into the woods. How on earth Francis had found this place – if we were going to the right place – was beyond me.
After about fifteen minutes of strenuous walking through the forest, with the doe leading almost effortlessly past us, we reached a small clearing. The full moon’s glow lit up just enough for me to see a small concrete bunker built into the ground against a hill.
“This is what you seek, I believe,” the doe said.
“Thank you so much for bringing us here,” I said. “Would you mind staying and taking us back to town afterwards? I’m not sure we can find our way back on our own.”
“Of course,” the doe replied. “I am at your service.”
“Thanks,” I told her with a smile as I made my way towards Jason, who was already at the entrance to the bunker. The concrete had been a little bit worn with age, but there was no graffiti or anything on it which would have indicated that anyone had found it since the second world war had ended.
At the far end was a door, a concrete door that looked like it was pretty solidly jammed into place. Jason looked at it skeptically. “Think we’re going to manage to open it?”
“No problem,” I grinned, pointing at the door. “Patefioroa.”
The concrete door creaked open, unveiling a large, black hole. Taking out my phone, I turned on the flashlight, and made my way towards it while Jason did the same.
“This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever done,” Jason admitted as we made our way inside the bunker. It was musty and smelled like no one had been here in a long time, but as I pointed my phone down at the ground, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the moss on the ground looked like it had been trampled on at some point.
Twelve years ago, probably.
“Look,” Jason said suddenly, grabbing me by the arm. I looked over to where his light shone, and it landed on a large hockey bag, sitting in the middle of the bunker about ten feet away. I wasn’t 100% sure, but I was fairly certain CCM wasn’t making modern-looking hockey bags back during WWII. This was definitely what we were after.
I strode forward and grabbed the bag, hoisting it over my shoulder and making my way back to Jason.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “This hole is creepy.”
“Agreed,” Jason nodded. We went back into the clearing, where I dropped the bag onto the ground and Jason reached down and opened it.
Inside were a whole bunch of wrapped black garbage bags, tied together with packing tape. Jason tore one of them open to reveal a pile of hundreds. This was definitely the missing money.
He looked at me and grinned. “Here’s our missing treasure.”
“Francis and Chuck’s half of it,” I nodded. “Wow.”
“Let’s get this home,” Jason said. “After all, I don’t think Chief Gary is going to want to come out here to have a look at it.”
I nodded and helped Jason back the bag back up before the doe led us back towards town, Jason hauling the bag on his shoulder.
“I assume the bag means you found what you were looking for?” the doe asked.
“Yes, definitely. We’ve finally solved the last piece of the puzzle in a twelve-year-old mystery.”
“Well, good for you, I’m glad to hear it,” the doe said. She led us right back to where we had started, and after thanking her again, Jason and I walked the rest of the way back home, leaving the bag of money in the garage. I figured Chief Gary would be ok with us waiting for a more reasonable hour before we called him.
As we stepped into the house, adrenaline coursed through my veins. We had done it. We found the lost money. We had gotten the killer. Buster and Gloria were safe now. And I was going to marry the man of my dreams.
Could life possibly get any better?
Epilogue
The discovery of the missing money launched us into the spotlight. Jason’s article about the case was rumored to be earning him a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. The FBI, thanks to our tip, managed to get the rest of the money from Michael Carlton’s account in the Cayman Islands, after the bank’s owners were alerted that the owner was dead and had died intestate with no heirs.
We were given the reward offered by the bank – $5 million – for leading the police to the man who had robbed them all those years ago, and for the recovery of the lost money. It was almost all there; Michael Carlton had used some of it to pay off his mortgage and buy some toys, but he’d barely spent 10% of the total. I assumed he was afraid of any red flags that might come from him spending far above what his means should have been.
In the end, the reward was split five ways – Jason got a fifth, I got a fifth, Sophie got a fifth, Charlotte got a fifth and we gave Gloria the other fifth. She wanted to refuse, but we insisted. After all, she had been a victim of Charles Green, and if her husband had told her about his secret hiding spot she would have gotten a lot more than a million dollars.
I was definitely going to spend my money helping animals. That was what I did, and what I was going to keep doing. One hundred percent.
Three weeks after it had all ended, and we’d been given the money, Jason and I were sitting at home, eating dinner by ourselves while Charlotte was down in San Francisco apartment hunting. Bee sat on the kitchen floor, happily munching away at a piece of sushi I’d brought home for her while Jason and I shared a veggie supreme pizza.
“You have some cheese on your nose,” Jason laughed.
I stuck my tongue out at him, then raised it to try and get at the cheese, making him laugh even harder.
“You know, some women can’t do that elegantly,” he teased.
“Careful, or I’ll steal some of your half of the pizza,” I retorted, leading to Jason covering up his plate with his arms to protect it.
“Never come between a man and his pizza!”
As I laughed, I couldn’t help but think that this was absolutely a perfect moment: my fiancé, my cat and I eating dinner, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. This was perfect. My life was perfect. And I couldn’t wait to see where life was going to take me from here.