The smell hit me before I even reached the pipe—a sharp, medicinal odor that made my eyes water. Max was frantically pawing at something deep inside the darkness of the tunnel. He looked back at me, his eyes glowing like yellow orbs in the dim light.
I knelt in the damp mud, feeling the cold soak into my jeans instantly. I clicked the flashlight on, the beam cutting through the gloom of the narrow concrete tube. Max hissed at the darkness, his fur standing straight up along his spine.
There was something shoved deep into the crevice where the pipe met the earth. It looked like a heavy-duty black plastic bag, but it had been torn open by sharp claws. Tiny scraps of green paper were littered all over the muddy floor of the culvert.
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I reached in with the wrench to snag the edge of the plastic, pulling it toward the light. The bag was heavy, much heavier than it should have been if it were just trash. As it slid forward, a stack of bundled bills fell out into the mud.
My breath hitched as I realized this wasn’t just a few hundred dollars anymore. There were dozens of bundles, all wrapped in tight plastic and dripping with a strange, oily film. I realized then that Max hadn’t found a lost wallet; he had found a hoard.
