Detective Shah took my phone before I could answer Danielle.
“Do not respond.”
“I wasn't going to.”
She looked at me.
I admitted, “I was thinking about it.”
“No contact.”
The photograph filled the screen.
A blue backpack lay on wet pavement beside a green commercial dumpster. One strap was twisted underneath it.
The picture had been taken at night.
A yellow sign was visible behind the dumpster, but most of the lettering was cut off.
Shah enlarged the image.
“Does anyone recognize the location?”
Mom shook her head.
Valeria leaned closer.
“That bag looks ripped.”
We zoomed in.
She was right.
A tear ran along the bottom seam.
Her old backpack.
The one Ralph had supposedly thrown away.
My stomach tightened.
“That’s what I recorded.”
“Likely,” Shah said.
The message underneath felt different now.
Tell Sophia she recorded the wrong bag.
Whoever sent it knew exactly what the video showed.
They knew I had mistaken the old backpack for the one containing the pills.
And they wanted me to know.
“Why tell us?” Valeria asked.
Shah stared at the photograph.
“Perhaps to undermine Sophia’s evidence.”
“How?”
“If the video shows medication being placed into a bag that never entered the school, Ralph's defense could argue that the recording proves nothing about the pills found in yours.”
I hated how quickly that made sense.
My video had felt unbeatable.
Now it had a hole.
“But he still said the principal should search her bag.”
“Yes,” Shah said. “The audio remains important.”
“And the pharmacy.”
“Yes.”
“So the video still matters.”
“Very much.”
I felt better, but only slightly.
Mom studied the photograph.
“The dumpster.”
“What about it?”
“I've seen those green dumpsters.”
“That describes half the city,” Valeria said.
Mom ignored her.
“The yellow sign.”
Shah enlarged the image again.
Only three letters were visible.
ARM.
Mom's expression changed.
“The pharmacy.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“The sign behind our building says PHARMACY EMPLOYEES ONLY.”
Shah was already reaching for her coat.
Mom stood.
“That dumpster is behind my workplace.”
If the old backpack was there, whoever sent the photograph had been at the pharmacy recently.
Possibly minutes earlier.
Detective Shah called officers already near the store.
She ordered us to remain inside.
I hated waiting.
For the next fifteen minutes, nobody sat still.
Valeria walked from the kitchen to the living room and back.
Mom checked the window every thirty seconds.
I watched the message on my phone without touching it.
Tell Sophia she recorded the wrong bag.
The wording bothered me.
Not “you.”
“Sophia.”
The sender had written to Danielle but addressed me indirectly.
They wanted Danielle frightened too.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
All four of us looked at it.
Shah held out her hand.
I gave it to her.
She let it ring until voicemail answered.
No message.
Then it rang again.
Same number.
“Could it be them?”
“Possibly.”
On the third call, Shah answered without speaking.
For several seconds there was only silence.
Then a woman said, “Sophia?”
Shah kept quiet.
“Tell your mother she should have signed the papers.”
The call ended.
Mom went pale.
“Did you recognize her?”
Mom stared at the phone.
“I think so.”
“Marianne?”
She nodded.
Detective Shah immediately contacted the officers sent to the pharmacy.
Her questions became short and precise.
Was Marianne there?
Had anyone seen her?
Was her vehicle present?
The answer came quickly.
Marianne had left work early.
Nobody knew where she'd gone.
Shah requested officers at Marianne's residence.
Mom lowered herself into a chair.
“So she was helping him.”
“We still need to verify the caller.”
“That was her.”
“You're confident?”
“I've worked beside that woman for six years.”
Anger finally entered Mom's voice.
“She sat beside me at lunch. She bought Valeria a birthday card. She asked about Sophia's school.”
I didn't know what to say.
Valeria did.
“Why?”
Mom looked at her.
“Why what?”
“Why would she do this?”
Mom looked away.
None of us needed to say the obvious possibility.
Ralph and Marianne might have been more than gym acquaintances.
But even that didn't explain everything.
People had affairs.
They didn't usually steal controlled medication and frame teenagers.
There had to be something larger.
Shah's phone rang.
The officers had reached the pharmacy dumpster.
The backpack was still there.
They secured it.
Inside, they found an empty pill bottle.
Mom stood so quickly her chair scraped backward.
“Empty?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a label?”
Shah listened.
“No.”
Exactly like the bottle I'd seen.
The detective continued listening.
Then her eyes moved toward me.
“What else?”
A longer pause.
“Bag it separately.”
She ended the call.
“What did they find?” I asked.
Shah hesitated.
“Something in the backpack.”
“What?”
“A phone.”
Valeria frowned.
“Whose?”
“They don't know yet.”
The phone was cheap, prepaid, and powered off.
It had been wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag.
Mom said, “Ralph?”
“Possibly.”
I remembered the anonymous calls.
“Could that be the phone they used?”
Shah nodded.
“If so, it may connect the caller to the school report and Danielle.”
That sounded good.
Too good.
“Why throw it away with the backpack?” I asked.
Shah looked at me.
“Exactly.”
Someone had photographed the bag beside the dumpster before sending the picture.
That meant they knew the phone was inside.
If Marianne was trying to protect herself, leaving the phone behind made no sense.
Unless she wanted police to find it.
Unless it pointed somewhere else.
Valeria seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“It’s another setup.”
“Could be,” Shah said.
Mom rubbed her arms.
“Against whom?”
Nobody answered.
An officer arrived to take Mom and Valeria to the precinct for formal statements.
Shah wanted me there too because I had witnessed Ralph planting the bottle.
Before leaving, I went upstairs to change out of the pajamas I'd been wearing all day.
My bedroom looked smaller than before.
The cracked door.
The blanket hanging from the bed.
The narrow space underneath where I had hidden.
I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt.
Then I noticed something beneath my desk.
A small white square.
At first I thought it was paper from the drawers Ralph had searched.
I picked it up.
It was a pharmacy receipt.
Mom's pharmacy.
The purchase was dated six days earlier.
One item.
A prepaid phone card.
Paid in cash.
My pulse quickened.
At the bottom was an employee number.
I didn't know whose.
I ran downstairs.
“Detective Shah.”
She turned.
I handed her the receipt.
“Where did you find this?”
“My room.”
“Was it there before Ralph searched?”
“I don't know.”
She held it by the edges.
Mom looked at the employee number.
Her face changed.
“That's mine.”
I stared at her.
“You bought the phone card?”
“No.”
“But that's your number.”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Someone had used Mom's employee credentials to purchase the card connected to a prepaid phone.
Then the receipt had somehow ended up in my bedroom.
Ralph had searched my desk that morning.
Maybe he had dropped it accidentally.
Or maybe he had put it there deliberately.
Detective Shah placed the receipt in an evidence sleeve.
“We need to determine when your employee credentials were used and whether the store has surveillance.”
Mom nodded.
Her hands were shaking again.
Outside, the evening had turned dark.
The police car waited at the curb.
As we stepped onto the sidewalk, my phone buzzed inside Shah's evidence bag.
Everyone stopped.
Another message.
The detective opened the bag carefully and looked at the screen.
This one came from a different unknown number.
There was no photograph.
Only six words.
Ask Ellen what happened last winter.
Mom read them over Shah's shoulder.
For the first time since this began, she didn't look confused.
She looked afraid.
I stared at her.
“Mom?”
She said nothing.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
Valeria moved closer.
“Mom, what happened last winter?”
Mom closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she looked at Detective Shah instead of us.
“There was another missing bottle.”
Shah waited.
Mom swallowed.
“And Ralph convinced me not to report what I saw.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: Mom’s Secret From Last Winter Explained Why Ralph Had Been So Confident He Could Make Her Doubt Her Own Eyes
The Fever I Invented Kept Me Home Long Enough to Hear the One Conversation Ralph Never Expected Anyone Else to Hear
Part 8 of 26
