My hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the edge of the old map the attorney had given me.

The map showed the boundaries of the estate, but it also had a small, faint pencil mark near the old garden.

Suddenly, a memory came back to me, clear as a bell.

I was sixteen, sitting on the rusted hood of Garrett’s old pickup truck near the edge of the property.

He had taken off a cheap brass ring he’d won at the county fair, the one with the small blue stone that turned his finger green.

“I’ll never lose this,” he had told me, his teenage voice full of solemn promise. “If I ever have to hide something truly important from my father, I’ll put it where I keep my first ring.”

“And where is that?” I had asked him, laughing.

“In the gate,” he had whispered, pointing toward the heavy stone pillars at the entrance of the driveway. “The hollow post on the left. No one ever looks there.”

My heart did a slow, heavy roll in my chest.

The estate gates.