CHAPTER 7: The Secret Buried Beneath the Oak Tree
Walter's face turned ghostly pale.
"What... did you just say?"
Sheriff Nolan smiled as federal agents surrounded the farmhouse.
"You really don't remember, do you?"
Mrs. Bell suddenly grabbed Walter's arm.
"Don't answer him."
But it was too late.
Memories Walter had buried for decades began flooding back.
Forty-two years earlier...
On a stormy night...
His own father had woken him before sunrise.
Without explaining why, the old man handed him a heavy iron box.
"If anyone ever asks..."
"...tell them it never existed."
Together they carried it deep into the woods behind the farmhouse.
Beneath the oldest oak tree on the property...
They buried it.
Walter never opened it.
Never questioned it.
A week later...
His father died suddenly of what doctors called a heart attack.
Walter had almost forgotten the box even existed.
Until now.
Sheriff Nolan laughed.
"That box doesn't belong to your family."
"It belongs to people who have spent forty years killing anyone who got close to it."
Daniel stared at Walter.
"You mean..."
"You've been protecting it your whole life..."
"...without even knowing?"
Walter slowly nodded.
Tears filled his eyes.
"My father made me promise."
Mrs. Bell whispered,
"It isn't money."
"It isn't gold."
"It's something governments would kill to possess."
Outside...
A bulldozer rolled through the front gate.
Its massive steel blade pointed directly toward the old oak tree.
Nolan shouted,
"Dig it up!"
Walter's heart nearly stopped.
May you like
Because for the first time in forty years...
Someone was finally going to discover what had been hidden beneath that tree.
