He asked her to pack a bag and stay with her sister “until things were sorted out.” I watched from the staircase as she left, clutching her purse like it was the only thing holding her upright.
I felt justified.
Until the next morning.
A sharp knock at the door startled us both. Dad opened it to find two police officers standing on the porch.
“Mr. Collins?” one asked.
“Yes?”
“We need to speak with you and your daughter.”
My stomach dropped.
They stepped inside. The female officer looked at me gently. “Miss, we received a report about a missing necklace.”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “My stepmother stole it.”
The officers exchanged a glance.
“That’s why we’re here,” the male officer said. “We located the necklace early this morning.”
“What?” Dad and I said at the same time.
“It was pawned yesterday afternoon,” he continued. “The shop owner flagged it because of its appraised value and the inscription on the clasp.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Inscription?”
“Yes,” the officer said. “It reads: ‘For Lily, with all my love. – Mom.’”
Dad looked at me. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“We reviewed security footage from the pawn shop,” the officer added. “The person who sold it presented identification.”
“Marianne?” I whispered.
The officer shook his head.
“It was a teenage girl.”
My vision blurred. “That’s impossible.”
He turned a small tablet toward us. There, grainy but unmistakable, was me.
I remembered then.
Yesterday, in a moment of fury and grief I didn’t know how to hold, I had taken the necklace from my drawer. I had convinced myself that keeping it hurt too much. That seeing it reminded me of what I’d lost. I’d walked to the pawn shop in a daze, barely thinking, barely breathing.
And then I’d come home… and forgotten.
Or maybe I hadn’t forgotten.
