Widow Cleans Husband’s Workshop – Finds Out He Was Lying All The Time

“Betty quietly opened up the heavy creaking door. It’s Saturday morning, and Betty lets out a deep sigh. She really has to do it now. The workshop must be empty, and the items must be sold. She desperately needs the money her husband left for her.

Nothing but the discovery Betty made that early Saturday morning completely changed her mind about her late husband. When Betty finally managed to make her way into the workshop, she quickly noticed that some things were not right. There was a layer of dust on everything, except for one spot on the ground next to the workbench. This had been moved recently.

Betty’s son, Mike, helped her move the bench into the dust-free area on the ground, revealing a trapdoor hidden below it. Two weeks after Betty’s husband passed away, and Betty was still quite far from moving on. Everything about her home, their home, reminded her of his smell and presence.

At first, she didn’t quite know where to start. The bedroom was where they spent the most time together, and she felt starting from there might be so hard that it might demotivate her. Done with the whole house, she had just one more place to work on: his workshop in the shed right behind the house.

Betty’s husband had taken to the workshop right after his retirement. He was there every day and always spent so much time there. Moreover, the few times she had asked him what he was up to, his response had always been that he was tinkering with some old machines, and it was a great way to keep himself engaged after his retirement.

Having fully prepared herself mentally, Betty set towards the workshop with boxes to help discard his stuff. On getting there, she saw that the place was locked up, and she absolutely had no idea where he had kept the key. She didn’t even know what was in there. Disappointed to find it locked, she decided to give up on the shed.

So, she called a local lockpick to come help her with the door, while she wondered why she had never thought of going inside there for ten years. He was done in a matter of minutes and was off after Betty paid him for his service. Alone with the workshop, it was time to see what her husband had been up to all this while.

Everything in the workshop looked exactly as it should in a workshop. Although she thought that the place was more unorganized, but then Wilbert had never been one to care much about organizations. As she moved further into the workshop, she couldn’t help but notice that the place was dustier than it should have been.

In a matter of hours, Mike came by. Betty sat him down and told him about her experience with the workshop. She led the curious son to the workshop and pointed at the workbench that she needed him to move. Mike excitedly moved the bench away from the spot to reveal something. It was an entrance to a trapdoor.

Mother and son were surprised to see a trapdoor in the workshop. Mike opened the trapdoor, which wasn’t locked, to reveal a staircase going down. Mike leading the way, helping Betty find her way, they both made their way to the end of the stairs. Still curious, they took the stairs, and up they went.

On finally getting up, they were stunned to find themselves in the garage that had just one classy-looking car. Looking at them, they realized that there was a preloaded route program in it. The trip was a 30-minute drive, and right that second, mother and son knew the next thing to do.

Betty got into the passenger seat, while Mike used a small remote in the car to open up the garage door. As they drove out of the garage, Betty finally had an answer to one of her numerous questions. She knew where they were, but she didn’t know where they were headed.

The garage belonged to one of the houses in the neighborhood, which was up for sale. The house had been on the market for so long without finding a buyer. At one point, she had been interested in buying the house, but when she couldn’t find a listing for it, she had given up on the house.

And now she was here. After almost half an hour of driving, Betty and Mike found themselves close to the city limits in front of another old house. It was the same thing as the last place, but up for sale. Betty wondered if they had anything to do with the situation. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

Betty looked over the property and outside of the house. The structure was obviously in terrible condition. It needed cleaning, painting, and some maintenance to be even a little bit presentable. She had no idea how anyone expected a house in such bad shape to sell for a decent price.

Mike checked out the front of the house before stepping onto the porch and ringing the bell. No one answered. He turned the knob and even pushed on one of the windows, but that was not the obvious way inside. Suddenly, he had an idea about how to find more information concerning the strange property.

Betty, meanwhile, decided to investigate the car in more detail. It didn’t seem like there was much in the vehicle, but she had a hunch that maybe there were clues nearby. Everything in the car seemed ordinary. It was mostly clean, and there wasn’t anything that caught Betty’s eye.

But when she opened the glove box, the only thing inside was a large black bag that took up the entire space. When Betty opened the bag, she almost screamed out loud. There were still neat packs of hundred-dollar bills inside. It had to be thousands of dollars.

She moved the money aside and saw that there were almost multiple sets of keys and some plastic cards stuffed inside. But she could barely keep her hands from shaking. She saw that Mike was almost back to the car and called him over. At first, she’d been stunned by the money, but then she noticed the driver’s licenses.

They all had pictures of her late husband on them, but the names were all different. Betty and Mike couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Why would anyone need five fake identities? Betty couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that maybe she hadn’t known her late husband at all. It seemed like such an enormous secret.

But the discovery of the bag did give Mike another idea. After talking to the neighbors didn’t work out, Mike took the various sets of keys from the black bag over the front door and started trying them on the knob. Finally, one of them worked and opened the door. He hesitated for a minute before deciding that he didn’t want to call the cops until he knew what was going on.

There had to be an answer inside. Even though Mike was nervous about what they might have seen, he helped Betty inside with him just to be safe. A locked door to make sure that no one could sneak up on them since they had no clue who might know about the money. It was possible that this was part of a bigger plot.

The interior of the house was just as rundown as the outside. Only a small bit of light filtered through the boarded-up windows and curtains, and there wasn’t any power to the house judging by the state of things. No one had been there for quite a while. But maybe that was the point.

Mike turned on his phone’s flashlight to guide them through the house while they looked for anything that could link the place to Wilbert. Betty didn’t say anything but stayed close to Mike the whole time. He could tell she was nervous; they both were after everything they had been through so far. And it wasn’t over yet.

They looked carefully since the hatch and the workshop had been hidden, but there wasn’t any sign of a secret part of the house or another room that wasn’t obvious. Mike thought maybe they might have better luck upstairs. A house like that could have an attic to hide things away.

Even though Betty didn’t want to split up, she was exhausted. She let Mike go upstairs by himself since the thought of heading up so many stairs was daunting to her. She cleared off the spot on the couch and took a seat. The whole situation started weighing on her while she waited for Mike to return. She felt so stupid.

Betty was upset just thinking about how much Wilbert must have lied to her. There was no way to confront him now or ask him what this was all about. She was angry that he didn’t give her a single insight into his real life. Maybe she’d never get answers.

Just as Betty was all ready to give up, Mike shouted down the stairs for her. He’d found something important, and she could tell from his tone that he was excited about it. She went upstairs as quickly as she could; her heart was pounding at what it could be about.

Betty could barely see upstairs, but she heard Mike in one of the adjoining areas that ended up being a bedroom. As soon as she entered, he pointed at a painting on the wall. She moved closer, squinting at it and trying to see what the painting contained. It was the last thing she expected to find in an abandoned house.

The painting was obviously taken care of compared to the rest of the house. It didn’t have any dust or cracks. When Betty was only a foot away from it, the picture came into focus. She gasped and put her hand over her heart. Mike even started laughing at her reaction. It was a stunning portrait of their family.

Betty couldn’t understand what it was doing there and whether Wilbert had ever intended for them to see it. Mike stepped forward and gently removed the painting from the wall. He set it down and then turned back to where it had been hanging. There was something else there.

There was a safe embedded in the wall with an envelope stuck on the outside. Mike opened it carefully and held it between the two of them to read it. It was a letter from Wilbert that explained everything. It sounded like the plot of a movie. They couldn’t believe it. Wilbert wasn’t proud of it, but he’d done some work with questionable people and criminals to provide for the family.

He found safe houses where people could hide from the police or conduct businesses without anyone bothering them. It had started by accident years before. Betty suddenly remembered a conversation they had had once about an abandoned house like this. Wilbert had mentioned wanting to buy a rental property, but Betty thought it was just too risky to invest their money that way.

He disagreed and wanted them to have a safety net, so he bought this one without telling her. The house was a mess and looked totally empty. One day, Wilbert arrived at the property to find a stranger hiding inside. A criminal had been doing business there to avoid the police during a big crime wave in the city.

He offered to pay Wilbert to let him use the house in secret. It was too good of a deal to turn down. He kept expanding until finally, the police cleaned up the area, and the organized criminals moved on to another place. But that didn’t explain the safe.

Mike flipped over the letter, and there was writing on the other side too. It explained that Wilbert had started selling everything before his death but needed a place to hide the funds from the government. At the bottom of the page, there was a code. It had to be a combination.

Mike used the combination to open the safe. It was jammed with more money than they could possibly have. Betty had no idea what to do with it. They considered notifying the police, but then decided against it. Wilbert had wanted them to enjoy themselves and be secure. That was exactly what they would do.

Plus, on top of the money, there was the painting that Betty would cherish forever.”