Chương 3
“I didn’t.”
Caroline turned.
“Lily.”
“I didn’t!”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You looked.”
Ethan stepped into the room.
“Honey.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Lily had never told her father no like that.
Not with anger in it.
She hated the expression on his face.
Worry.
Confusion.
Something else.
Something that looked too much like doubt.
Caroline reached for the pouch.
Maria moved.
It was almost nothing.
One step.
But Caroline saw it.
Their eyes met.
Maria stopped.
That was when Lily began to understand that the adults knew something she did not.
Caroline opened the pouch.
Empty.
Her expression shifted.
“Where is it?”
Everyone looked at Lily.
Even Ethan.
Lily’s throat closed.
“I don’t know.”
“The necklace isn’t here.”
“I don’t know!”
Caroline’s voice sharpened for the first time.
“Then where is it?”
Ethan turned.
“Enough.”
“I’m asking.”
“You’re accusing.”
“Because the bag is in her bed.”
“I didn’t put it there!”
Lily felt heat behind her eyes.
She refused to cry.
Crying would make it worse.
She knew that without knowing how she knew.
Caroline stood very still.
“Lily, if you took it, just tell us.”
“I didn’t.”
“You won’t be in trouble if you tell the truth.”
“I am telling the truth.”
Caroline looked at Ethan.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
“What?”
“The lying.”
Lily’s chest hurt.
She looked at her father.
“Dad.”
He came toward her immediately.
But Caroline continued.
“She has been angry with me for weeks.”
“That doesn’t make her a thief.”
“I didn’t say thief.”
“You did,” Lily said.
Caroline looked down at her.
“No, sweetheart.”
“You did.”
“I said you may have taken something without understanding.”
“I know what stealing is.”
Ethan closed his eyes for a second.
“Everybody out.”
Caroline stared at him.
“What?”
“Out. All of you. Lily stays.”
Maria did not move.
“Maria.”
“Yes, sir.”
But as Maria left, she looked at Lily.
That look said something.
Lily could not read it yet.
Not until forty minutes later, when Maria found her in the downstairs powder room.
Lily had locked herself inside.
She sat on the closed toilet with her shoes off because her feet hurt.
Somewhere in the house, Caroline was talking loudly enough for words to travel through the air vents.
Police.
Insurance.
Unacceptable.
Maria knocked softly.
“Lily?”
Lily said nothing.
“It’s me.”
Still nothing.
“I brought water.”
Lily opened the door.
Maria entered and closed it behind her.
She handed Lily a glass.
Lily drank.
Her fingers were shaking badly enough that the water tapped against the rim.
“Did you take it?” Maria asked.
Lily stopped drinking.
For one terrible second, betrayal washed over her again.
Then Maria crouched.
“No. Listen to me. I need you to answer because I need to know what I can say.”
“I didn’t.”
Maria nodded once.
“I know.”
Lily stared at her.
“How?”
Maria looked at the door.
Then back at Lily.
“Because I saw her.”
Lily did not understand.
Maria’s eyes had filled, though she was not crying.
“I saw Mrs. Bennett go into your room.”
“When?”
“Before everyone started looking.”
“Why?”
Maria pressed her lips together.
“I don’t know.”
“You saw her put the bag there?”
A pause.
Then Maria nodded.
“Yes.”
Lily’s whole body became still.
“Why didn’t you tell Dad?”
Maria looked down.
And there it was.
The thing Lily would spend a long time learning about adults.
Knowing what was right did not always make doing it easy.
“I should have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Maria stood, then sat on the edge of the bathtub.
“My mom’s surgery is next month.”
Lily waited.
Maria rubbed her thumb against her palm.
“I need this job.”
“But Dad wouldn’t fire you.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Maria looked embarrassed.
“Your dad isn’t the only person in this house who can make my life difficult.”
Lily understood only part of that.
Maria continued.
“Mrs. Bennett told me last week she was reviewing staff positions. She said she might outsource housekeeping.”
“What’s outsource?”
“Fire us and hire a company.”
“Oh.”
“My mother’s insurance doesn’t cover everything.”
Lily looked at the floor.
The tiles were black and white.
Caroline had chosen them.
Lily remembered because Caroline had spent three days deciding between matte black and something called graphite.
“Did she see you?”
Maria did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When she came out of your room.”
Lily thought about Caroline asking Maria to get the blue jewelry box.
About Maria’s face in the hallway.
About nothing.
“She knows you saw?”
“I think so.”
“Then she’ll say you’re lying.”
“Yes.”
Lily stared at the water glass in her hands.
“What do we do?”
Maria exhaled.
It sounded shaky.
“I tell your father.”
Lily looked at her.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
But they did not find Ethan alone.
They found him in the dining room with Caroline and Eleanor.
The necklace had appeared.
That was the next impossible thing.
It sat on the dining table beside Caroline’s hand.
Not in the pouch.
Not in Lily’s room.
On the table.
Three small diamonds had come loose from the setting, probably when it had been handled or dropped.
Ethan was asking Caroline where she had found it.
Caroline said she had discovered it in the pocket of Lily’s pale-yellow cardigan.
The cardigan Lily had not worn since breakfast.
Lily stood in the doorway.
Everything inside her hardened.
Caroline turned.
“Oh. There you are.”
Lily looked at the necklace.
Then the pouch, now sitting beside it.
Then at Maria.
Maria’s face changed.
That was when Lily knew.
Not suspected.
Knew.
Caroline had planted both.
First the pouch.
Then the necklace.
She had kept moving the proof because the first lie had not worked well enough.
Ethan saw Lily’s expression.
“What is it?”
Caroline began, “Ethan—”
Lily walked to the table.
She picked up the pouch.
Caroline said her name.
Lily threw it down.
And the next fifteen seconds changed everything.
May you like
By nine that night, Caroline was gone from the house.
By midnight, Ethan had learned enough to understand that removing her was the easy part.
