Chapter 2

Maple Street wasn't far from my neighborhood. It only took about ten minutes to walk there.

I hurried into the bedroom to take a quick look at my daughter.

She was still fast asleep, bundled up in her blanket, her little face all rosy from being squished against the pillow.

She wouldn't be waking up for at least another hour.

I locked up the house, switched off the power, and headed out right away.

Following the old lady's directions, I found 67 Maple Street.

It was an old building that'd seen better days, with a modest-sized yard choked full of wild, overgrown weeds.

The gate was locked, but the fence wasn't all that high. I put in a little effort and hopped right over.

Inside, the living room was completely empty, not a single piece of furniture.

I went upstairs to the second floor and finally found a large black suitcase tucked away in the master bedroom's closet.

When I opened it, my eyes widened. Inside was a suitcase packed with stacks of cash, all neatly arranged.

Each bundle held 30 thousand dollars, sixty stacks in total, all wrapped tightly with untouched bank straps.

My heart started pounding like crazy.

At first, pure elation hit me.

It was two million dollars. I was thirty years old, and I'd never seen this much money in my whole damn life.

But right after that rush of joy, a sharp, stabbing pain ripped through my chest.

The money was real.

And so was my husband's cheating.

It wasn't just cheating. He treated me like dirt.

He even had me preparing midnight snacks for him and his mistress every time he visited her. So, what the hell did all my hard work mean these past few years?

My heart hurt so much I could barely breathe.

But before I knew it, that ache disappeared almost as quickly as it came.

Then, out of nowhere, pure, dizzying joy surged through me like a wildfire, so fierce it swallowed up that stab of pain without a trace.

I took a deep breath, my hand shaking as I reached out to stroke those gorgeous bills.

Whatever, just let it go.

Compared to the two million dollars, his infidelity seemed insignificant.

It was not just two million dollars. I suddenly remembered that the old man said he had a hundred pounds of gold bars.

I started counting on my fingers.

A hundred pounds—that's fifty thousand grams. With gold going for a pretty penny these days, I calculated how much that would add up to in my head.

It was worth 14 million dollars.

That was enough for me and my daughter to live comfortably for the rest of our lives.

My whole body was burning with excitement. My first instinct was just to stuff all this money in the bank as quickly as I could.

But then I immediately realized that doing this was wrong.

I decided to divorce Eric.

During the divorce, we would have to settle our joint assets. With such a large amount of unexplained funds in my account, there was no way to explain it clearly.

If things went bad, he could end up walking away with half of it.

Just to be extra careful, I figured it was best to keep the cash hidden and not lay a finger on it for the time being.

My heart ached as I opened up one of the stacks, pulling out 6,500 dollars and slipping it into my bag. The rest, I left untouched and locked it back up in the suitcase.

I hauled the suitcase off Maple Street, and just as I reached the end of the alley, I caught two old-timers talking about the old lady.

Her name was Grace Carter. She'd worked at a big state-owned company with cushy benefits, plenty of money, but folks said she was really eccentric.

Apparently, she never married, and her only living relative was a niece over in Riverport.

After Grace died, the house went straight to that niece, even though they'd never met.

The niece couldn't care less about some rundown property in a fifth-tier city, so she never got around to handling it.

"What's so special about her anyway? She hardly ever spoke to us when she was alive, and now, not a single soul bothered to light a candle for her after she passed," one of the old folks grumbled.

I silently vowed. "Ms. Carter, rest assured. As long as I'm alive, I will come to pay my respects to you regularly."