Chapter 9

Leon carefully picked up an old shoebox that lay in the hole and placed it in between him and I, before he checked for anything else in the darkness of the floor.

I sifted through the contents of the box and only found an envelope and a few blank pieces of paper, and one ballpoint pen.

"Wait, there's something else in here." He pulled out another box that was lodged further away from the opening. Letty grabbed the box and dusted off the dirt with her hand. The box was also made of wood, and had a single lock on the front which she tried to pry open with her hands but wasn't able to.

I carefully opened the letter that was in the shoebox – the paper was blank but a key had slipped out of the fold and Letty caught it before it landed on the floor. She inserted it into the lock, and successfully opened it.

Inside the box, there were stacks of hundred dollar bills, bunched up and placed neatly one on top of the other. All three of us let out a gasp of disbelief. Letty quickly pulled each bunch out and counted how many there were, and how many notes were in each bundle.

When she had multiplied it all in her head she stopped and look at the both of us, wide eyed and in shock. She opened her mouth to speak but barely made a sentence. After she took a couple deep breaths, she spoke. "Five. Quarter. Million…" she swallowed forcefully, "Five and … quarter. Million." She repeated.

Leon and I stared at her in disbelief. I blinked rapidly a few times and hadn't realised I stopped breathing. I took a sharp breath in, "what?" I yelled.

"Five, and a quarter. Million. Dollars!" Letty said as a smile formed on her face, "there's five and a quarter million dollars here."

We all sat with our mouths gaping open staring at the piles of money that surrounded Letty. I glanced over at the box the money was hidden in and noticed a tiny hole in the bottom corner. Carefully I picked it up, trying my best not to drop it. My hands shook violently as I continued to try and comprehend what was happening.

I rested the box on my lap and picked at the hole. The bottom panel was loose and soon lifted out revealing bags filled with a white powdered substance. My eyes widened at the realisation of what it was.

"Holy shit!" Leon said in shock, "is that what I think it is."

"Woah mama. That's a shit-load of coke," Letty chimed in.

I dropped the box to the floor and it tipped over causing each bag to tumble out. There were about ten bags filled with cocaine, each labelled with a number.

"What the fuck?" I stared down at the packages then back up to Letty and Leon. "What the hell are we going to do with all this?"

"We could sell it—" Letty said before I cut her off.

"We could use it…" they both raised their brows at me and I smirked, "… or we could call the cops."

"Or, we could keep the money and put everything else back under the floor." Letty shrugged.

"Nah, can't do that… we've already got our fingerprints all over everything. If somebody should uncover it exactly like we just did, they'd probably dust it and get us for it." Leon said, hastily.

Letty and I agreed and we continued staring at everything laid out on the floor.

After a few minutes of silence Letty spoke up, "maybe we should call the cops." She shifted and fell back the short distance to the floor so she was sitting, "it's not like we could really use this. But, we should keep the money. It might come in handy," she continued as she crossed her legs under her.

"If we call the cops we give them everything," I said, matter-of-factly.

Letty sucked on her bottom lip in concentration as she thought of something else. Leon shook his head, still in disbelief.

"Should we tell the other guys?" I questioned.

Letty shrugged slowly. I looked over to Leon and he nodded his head, "yeah we should, but I dunno. Maybe we shouldn't." He looked unsure.

I thought about it for a few minutes before speaking up, "ok."

Letty and Leon looked up at me in confusion.

"Ok. We call the cops. Tell them what we found. But…" I paused and took a deep breath, "we keep the money. Just leave that little titbit out."

Letty laughed and hugged one of the bundles of money. "I'm gonna use you to get me a new blow out exhaust system… yes I am." She spoke in baby talk as she hugged it. Leon and I laughed.

"Ok then. We should hide the money over at the house and then call the cops," Leon said to nobody in particular.

Letty picked up a few bundles and piled them on top of each other. She looked up at me as she continued picking them up, "do you have like, a bag, or briefcase left here?"

I shrugged and went to the living room to check. When I couldn't find anything, I just picked up a box marked 'junk' and took it to Letty. She threw the money into the box and quickly snatched it out of my hands, holding it close to her.

"What about all that? Are we gonna leave it just lying there, or are we gonna put it back in the box?" She nodded towards the pile of bags on the floor as she stood up.

"Just leave it. It'll be seen as disturbing and contaminating the crime scene if we move anything," Leon stated as he too stood up.

Letty balanced the box in her hand as she used the other to pull out her keys. "Ok. I'll take this over and I'll put it in your room, Cass. And then I'll come back, and as soon as I get here, we call the cops." She nodded to say that her word was final and with that she disappeared out of the house and I listened as her tires screeched away from the house.

I looked over at Leon and blinked a few times, "we'll go to hell for that."

He snorted in amusement, "oh yeah."