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He leads us to a cluster of roses, and other bushels of different types of flowers but we keep going until he finds what he wants.
Stopping, he drops to his knees, and I’m so caught off guard by the jerky movement I almost stumble over the top of him.
I can’t decide what’s more overwhelming. The fact that he almost made me swallow my tooth or that he’s stopped at the same cluster of flowers I’d picked out for Finn before his surgery.
He couldn’t have known I was going to choose these specific flowers, because I hadn’t decided I was going to do it until after my conversation with Sgt. Daniels.
After making sure all my teeth were in their rightful spot, I sink down in a similar manner beside him. His head is buried inside a thicket of hydrangea blossoms.
“Did I ever tell you how I got the fountain to start working again?” he questions, even if his voice is mumbled by his shuffled movements.
All it does is make me that much more anxious when he pulls out an aluminum box. It’s not huge, no larger than a shoebox, but it’s rusty.
I angle my head.
“The only reason the fountain wasn’t running is because it was jammed.” My lungs catch, I never noticed. “At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it, so I set it to the side.”
My shoes sink farther into the butt of my jeans, listening. I think I have an inkling of where this is going, but I want clarification to be sure.
It’s too coincidental. Too similar to something that would have fit in one of those safe boxes back at the bank Madison had let us into.
My fingers itch to touch it, but I refrain. What if I’m wrong again?
“How do we know it’s not just another copy?” I ask serious.
“We don’t,” he replies bluntly. “But my father has no idea that it wasn’t the real thing at Eli’s house, remember?”
My eyes grow larger than they already are. He’s right.
Silas had been too far away from the group to notice that the will in the box had only been a copy. A duplicate. Not the real thing.
If he’d seen it, everything would’ve changed. Without an original, he could’ve easily fought it, like he said he was going to.
I lick my lips. “Are you sure?”
If he’s right, this could change everything. If I don’t try again, Cole could technically be given back his part of Hardin. The portion that was owed to him as his birthright.
This is big—nope, bigger than that—a monumental decision.
As if sensing my hesitancy, he slides it closer to me, and my ribs swell with the same motion.
“I know my father and my mother. There’s a reason she wanted you to have it.” Those eyes of his are as piercing as his words. “She gave this to you,” he reminds me.
“What if I can’t handle it?”
“She gifted this to someone who wasn’t corrupted. Someone good.” His tone was too soft, whole.
“She never knew me. How could she have been so sure?” I ask, unconvinced.
“My mom knew both Abram and Lillian,” he says as the muscles in his cheeks flex. “She didn’t need to know you to understand your spirit was good.”
I let out an aged breath. This next question is something that’s been hanging on my heart, as long as it’s been hovering on my lips. I need to know this more so over want.
“What would’ve happened to it if I never came back? Never knew any of this. You never would’ve figured out where that money disappeared to.” Never found his mother’s hidden will.
He lifts a shoulder, but it’s lackluster. “Guess it would’ve remained a mystery forever.”
“You can still have it. All this. It’s not too late.” I haven’t tried yet, is what I’m really trying to explain, even as my gaze shifts down to the small keyhole.
