Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

D ahlia

“But wait, Esther said he died of natural causes.”

“Maybe he did,” Amanda says, “but once you make someone think she’s either losing her mind or her house is haunted, you can make her believe lots of other things, too. The so-called haunting incidents, as well as the chair and the noose, was a nice bit of theater to keep old Esther out of the basement and away from the cache of money, don’t you think?”

“But if you know where it is, why do you need me?”

“Because we only took out a little bit at a time. And about half of it has come up missing. Esther is the only explanation. She must have found it and moved it just as we were getting close to being found out. The last finance director got too close to figuring us out; he suspected something was up when he looked at the old books. He was getting real tired of the projects going to the same contractors over and over again, all of them employed by Mason Construction.”

My mind hits on something else. This must be why people were quitting left and right from city hall. Either they quit, or maybe they were low-key asked to quit.

“But if she found it, why wouldn’t she go to the police? And why wouldn’t she have told me about it?”

“Do you think I understand how that batty brain of hers worked?”

I can’t stand her talking about my friend like that. Even knowing my anger might get me killed, I blurt out, “You made her that way! You all drove her mad!”

As my anger flares, I hear a loud clank and a rushing wind. When the door at the top of the stairs flies open, a blast of cold air rushes past me and startles Amanda so badly she drops the gun. As it skids across the basement floor, I lunge for it, dragging the chair with me. My hands pull free of the rope and I grab the gun.

The next thing I know, money is raining down all around me. Hundred dollar bills. Thousands of them.

Keeping the gun trained on Amanda, I glance around and see that the cover fell off an old ventilation shaft and the air moving through it is what’s causing the money to fly all around us.

I search Amanda’s pockets and find her phone, which I use to call the police.