Page 28 of Atlas

Loading always takes forever, but the unloading isn’t nearly as bad. The back is getting full, which means that I should start cleaning and pricing and stop worrying about going out picking.

Atlas carries the heavy trunk in for me, even though I beg him to let me help. He sets it down and we both ignore it until the trailer is empty. I close and lock it, and Atlas parks it for me neatly in the side stall in line with my pink station wagon.

The first thing he does when we get back inside is to grab a grinder off the peg on the far wall above the workbench. “We had better cut that lock off.”

“What?” I rush to the trunk and throw myself in front of it dramatically. “Never!”

“Willa.” He proffers the grinder menacingly. “You can’t use the trunk like that. You won’t be able to sell it with the mystery contents inside. Do you think you can find a key for this thing?”

“No,” I admit. “It’s old and that would take some time, and even then, buying a random one might not work. I’d have to research what they even look like. It could take weeks.”

“Looks like cutting it is the only option.”

“It doesn’t matter if it sits back here for weeks!”

I might be fighting against the idea, but now I’m kind of intrigued by what’s in there. You can buy rustic, antique looking locks online for twenty bucks, and even the real things don’t cost all that much. It’s silly to protest like this.

“You promise that you won’t damage the trunk?”

Atlas sets the grinder down and find a small piece of plywood in the scrap wood crate near the roll up door we just closed. He wedges it between the lock and the trunk with care.

“If I slip off the lock, I’ll hit that wood. I won’t damage the trunk. You have my word.”

“It’s beautiful. One of the nicest ones I’ve ever seen. If it got a few new battle scars, I’d be devastated.”

“I promise.”

He’s basically asking if I trust him. I’d trust him with my life. I’ve wanted to tell him that for so long.

I back away from the trunk, but when he fires up the grinder, I quickly grab a set of safety glasses. He stops for meand puts them on without an argument, even though I know he hates wearing them.

He works through the lock slowly, but still, it takes almost no time at all for the grinder to make quick work of the old metal. A steady stream of sparks shoots over the concrete floor, and then the lock falls apart and drops to the ground .

Atlas kills the grinder. He replaces it and sheds the safety glasses before he points to the trunk. “Do you want to do the honors?”

It’s silly, but my throat is suddenly dry. I’m afraid I’m going to lift that lid and there really will be bodies in there. I grasp the lid and flip it up fast, using more force than necessary because I anticipate that it’ll need some encouragement after being sealed for all those years, but it pries apart easily without sticking or groaning.

“Holy mother fuck!” I yelp, staggering back.

Atlas comes running. He wraps his arms around me and wheels me, acting as a human shield. “Shit!” He slowly releases me, but I grab his hand and hold it in a murderously tight grip as we both stare into the trunk.

“Holy balls, please tell me that’s fake.”

He picks up one brick of bills and sifts through it before pulling one crisp hundred off the top of the stack and checking it over. “I don’t think it’s fake, but I’m no expert.” He inhales sharply after setting the brick back beside all the neatly arranged other stacks of bills. “Fuck. I knew we shouldn’t have taken this.”

“What would something like this be doing stashed in Agatha’s old barn? It hasn’t been touched back there for ages—ohshit.” It makes horrible sense now why the back part of thebarn was blown clean, and it wasn’t because Agatha was back there or due to the wind blowing through the slats. “It did look like someone had come through the back. This trunk was only barely covered and not as dirty as the rest of the barn.”

Atlas tugs me away like the trunk is doing to implode at any second. “If you were looking to stash a lot of cash for a short time, where would you hide it?”

“Somewhere no one would think to look.”

I fall back flat on my ass. “Holy fuck, but why?” I scramble up before Atlas can answer. “We need to get back to Agatha’s and warn her!”

Atlas wraps his arms around me and thrusts me in against him, holding me so tight, like that alone can ward off the Pandora’s chest we just busted wide open. “We’re putting this trunk right the fuck back and going and getting Agatha out of there. This isn’t safe. Only a major criminal would have cash like this. There’s probably a quarter million there or more.”

“We’ll just put it back. They’ll never know.”

“The barn’s clearly been gone through. If they don’t know it’s missing already, they will soon. No one is going to leave this amount of money unchecked. They’ll be watching. I’d be surprised if they don’t already know it’s gone.”

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