to her closet.
“It disappeared, Dad. I thought I’d left it in the laundry. I thought maybe you washed it. But you didn’t. It’s just gone.”
“Avery’s hoodie has been missing,” I revealed.
Marisa didn’t flinch. “So?”
“So that could be anyone in the video.”
She tilted her head, annoyed. “Are you kidding me?”
Something cold and heavy settled in my chest.
I stared at her. “Wait a second… what safe code did you see entered in that footage?”
Her mouth opened, then closed. “What?”
“Tell me the code,” I repeated slowly.
Suddenly I remembered something. Marisa had joked once about how “old-school” I was for having a personal safe. And she’d insisted we install a security camera “for safety” because my neighborhood was “quiet, but you never know.”
Suddenly I remembered something.
I pulled out my phone and opened the camera app — the one Marisa had set up. I scrolled through the archived footage. And there it was.
A few minutes before the hooded figure entered my bedroom, the camera caught Marisa in the hallway… holding Avery’s gray hoodie.
Everything inside me just froze as I played the next clip.
Everything inside me just froze as I played the next clip.
Marisa was entering my room, opening my dresser, and crouching at the safe. And then, she was holding something up to the camera with a small, triumphant smile.
I turned the phone toward her. “Explain this.”
Marisa’s face drained of color, then hardened like a concrete setting.
She was holding something up to the camera
with a small, triumphant smile.
“You don’t understand,” she snapped. “I was trying to save you.”
“By framing my daughter? By stealing from me? Are you insane?”
“She’s NOT your daughter,” Marisa hissed.
Continue reading…
