He tapped a row of bricks near the floor with the heel of his boot.

A dull, hollow sound echoed through the small room.

“Help me pull these out,” he said.

I knelt beside him on the damp dirt floor.

My hands shook as I gripped the edge of the first brick.

It was cold and rough, scraping my fingertips.

I pulled, and it slid out of the wall with a gritty screech.

We worked in silence, removing brick after brick.

Behind the third row, a dark metal box became visible.

It was a heavy, old-fashioned iron safe, built directly into the foundation.

“This is it,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“How do we open it?”

“The lock is a combination,” Mr. Alvarez said.

“I do not know the numbers.”

“But I do,” I said.

I remembered the old ledger my grandmother had kept.

In the back pages, there was a series of numbers written in my mother’s handwriting.

We had always thought it was an old phone number.

“Try twenty-four, twelve, thirty-six,” I said.

Mr. Alvarez reached for the dial.