Rules of Survival(17)

I stopped walking and pointed to a small brick building. We’d arrived. The timing was perfect, too, because I had no idea how to answer his question. “This is it.”

We pushed through the revolving door and navigated the thinning late-morning crowd. The teller windows were mostly empty, so I made my way to the one on the end, plastering on what I hoped looked like a happy smile.

“Hi,” I said, leaning close to the glass. “I’m here to get something out of my safe-deposit box?”

The plump man behind the counter smiled and nodded. There was a small grease stain on his tie and another, larger stain peeking out from the shirt beneath his jacket. I wondered what he’d been eating for lunch. Chicken Parm hero? Maybe a cheesesteak sandwich. Damn. It reminded me that I was still hungry. “Of course. Do you have your key?”

I fished into my pocket and pulled out the small silk pouch. Rummaging through, I finally found the one I was looking for and held it up for him to see. “Right here.”

He stood and wobbled around to the side of his desk with a slight limp. “Wonderful. If you’ll both follow me, I’ll take you inside.”

“What are they all for?” Shaun whispered as we followed the man down a narrow hall. He was staring at the silk pouch in my hand.

“The keys?” I asked. “Safe-deposit boxes. Mom has them in rural banks all across the United States.”

He took the small bag from me and turned it over in his left hand several times. Tossing it into the air and catching it, he asked, “How can you tell them apart?”

I rescued the keys and stuffed the pouch back into my front pocket. “I just can. I guess maybe because I was with her when she got most of them.” I tapped my head. “Plus, I’ve got a killer memory.”

The bank teller pushed through a large metal door and stepped to the side, gesturing us inside. “Take your time, and be sure to yell if you need anything.”

I waited for him to leave before making a beeline for box number 342. The town might not have seemed familiar, but this I remembered. I ran my fingers along the outside of the box and swallowed the lump threatening to cut off my air. I’d been six the last time Mom and I were here—right before Christmas.

In the right-hand corner of the door was the tattered remains of a small sticker. Someone had peeled off the top layer, leaving only a generic outline, but I remembered exactly what it’d looked like. A smiling giraffe in a Santa hat. Bob, I’d named him.

“Don’t you need identification to open a safe-deposit box?” Shaun asked, bringing me back to the here and now.

“Anything can be faked if you have the right skills.” I slipped the key into the lock and turned it until it clicked. “And trust me. Someone, somewhere, always has the right skills. For enough money, you can get pretty much anything.”

I could tell he was fighting a grin. When he did that, it was almost easy to ignore his more annoying qualities. “You’re a little scary, you know that?”

I pulled open the drawer and slid the metal lid open, fighting a grin of my own. The contents inside rattled around, rolling from one end of the box to the other. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

There were a bunch of papers—fake IDs, credit cards—mostly on-the-go stuff, some cash, and a few pieces of jewelry. One in particular caught my eye. “Huh…” I said, picking up a dainty gold ring with the year 1994 etched into the band, and a small bluish stone. I rolled it around in my palm, trying to remember where I’d seen it before.

“Looks like a class ring?”

“I think that’s what it is—but something about it feels familiar.”

Shaun took the ring from me and held it up to the light to get a better look. “It was your mother’s? Wouldn’t that make it familiar?”

I snatched the ring back and stuffed it into my pocket to worry about later. We were on a tight schedule here. Shifting the rest of the box’s contents aside, I grabbed the wad of cash at the bottom.

“Shit,” Shaun breathed, leaning close. “Where did all that come from?”

“Mom liked to keep stuff tucked away for a rainy day.” I waved the cash, then pulled the rubber band off and took a closer look, gasping. In my hand was a stack of hundreds—not twenties. “But, um, this is a little more than I’m used to…”

“There’s gotta be at least several grand there…”

“Mom was a hoarder,” I lied. “Any money she made from whatever work she could find got squirreled away. We lived pretty thin.”

Well, only half a lie. We had lived on fumes, but that was because work was few and far between. Mom never wanted to settle in one place long enough to get a real job. We lived off whatever she managed to con and steal. One year, for my birthday, she lifted an old man’s credit card to give me a day at Six Flags. I never said a word, but I had a hard time really enjoying it knowing that the whole trip had been stolen from someone else. We saw the man an hour later, still out by the gate, searching for his card so he could get his three screaming grandkids inside the park.

I stuffed half of the cash back into the box. Next, I pocketed what was left, putting some in the right front pocket and some in the left. Mom’s rule was never keep it all in one place. Just in case. “We should see if we can find a hardware store. Maybe get these cuffs off.”