Page 107 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 wordWhat?
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.
