“Keep digging, you might find some loose copper nails,” my cousin Michael sneered, wiping drywall dust from his forehead. He stood in the middle of our grandmother’s living room, looking incredibly pleased with himself. Behind him, the house I grew up visiting every summer looked like a war zone.

I didn’t say anything for a second. Honestly, my brain just stopped working because of how awful the sight was. The floral wallpaper our grandmother, Ida, had painstakingly hung forty years ago was ripped down in long, ugly strips. The lath and plaster beneath were smashed to pieces, exposing the old pine studs.

My cousin Michael had his sleeves rolled up, his boots caked in white plaster dust. He looked like a man who was doing a hard day of honest construction. But I knew better. I knew exactly what he was doing in this empty farmhouse in Kankakee, Illinois.

Three days before she passed away in her sleep, our grandmother called me to her bedside. She was frail, her skin looking like thin parchment, but her mind was as sharp as a tack. She had reached out, gripped my wrist with surprising strength, and whispered a secret.

“Ellen, there is forty thousand dollars in gold coins hidden in the farmhouse,” she had whispered, her breath smelling faintly of the peppermint tea she drank every afternoon. “I saved them over decades. They are for you. But you must not tell your cousin Michael. He will come looking like a vulture.”

She died the following Tuesday. And true to her word, Michael’s muddy Ford F-150 was parked in the gravel driveway of the farm before her obituary was even printed. He told the rest of the family he was just going to “tidy up” the estate before we listed it for sale.

I drove down from my small apartment in Joliet on a Friday morning, my old Buick rattling as I pulled up to the property. The moment I stepped out of the car, I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. The front door was wide open, and the sound of tearing wood echoed from inside.

I walked in and found the place completely gutted. The hardwood floorboards in the hallway had been pried up with a crowbar, left scattered like broken teeth. Even the attic stairs had been pulled down, insulation spilling like pink wool across the kitchen counter.